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Speech by Javier de Céspedes, President of the Cuban Democratic Directorate, to ODCA in Miami on January 25, 2008
By Javier De Cespedes

Javier de Céspedes during the ODCA event ADAM XXI on January 25, 2008. (Directorio)

Javier de Céspedes during the ODCA event ADAM XXI on January 25, 2008. (Directorio)

Welcome, members of ODCA (the Christian Democrat Association of America) to the city of Miami. There are more than one million Latin Americans in this city, and they are here in this city because there is a profound crisis of values in Latin America. In the past week, we saw the president of the largest democratic country in Latin America, Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, visiting the worst dictator Latin America has produced. But not only did he visit him— he was visibly moved, like a child who meets and discovers Santa Claus.[1] Only five days after the Brazilian president returned to his country, the cruelest electoral farce ever seen in Latin America took place, in which the oppressed are not only oppressed— they are obligated and coerced to vote for their oppressor.

 

This is part of the enormous crisis in Latin America but the issue is not solely a continental crisis of confusion over democratic values. Much worse yet is that democrats themselves do not have the courage to defend those principles: democrats who have struggled against oppressors in their countries, but who are disposed to support the oppressors of others and to ignore the oppressed out of fear. Therefore it is not surprising that the peoples of Latin America be confused, and that millions of Venezuelans even vote freely to surrender their individual liberties as we saw in the Venezuelan referendum which, fortunately and courageously, was confronted and defeated by democratic forces. As long as democracies continue to be fearful before oppressors, the peoples of Latin America will continue to seek anti-democratic caudillos.

 

ODCA has been an exception to this rule. In ODCA values have held primacy, this body having always recognized the participation of the Cuban Christian Democrat Party as an acknowledgement to democracy in Cuba, which has not existed for so many years. ODCA has always spoken in favor of Cuba’s political prisoners and has never ignored the oppressed. ODCA has not been afraid to defend with concrete actions the principles it advocates with words. And we Cubans are not the only ones who must be grateful for this— all we Latin Americans must be grateful to ODCA for this, for having that voice.

 

The Lula situation might seem a joke if it were not so serious. I remember that one month before I came to Miami, to this great city, I was preparing myself, dreaming as a young man of 20 years dreams, dreaming of living in greater freedom, dreaming of fighting for my country’s freedom. I remember that in Mexico, the country of my birth, I saw a piece of news that changed my life in a substantial way. That night, I wrote in my diary: “Today in Havana, a young man of 20 years was murdered as he tried to flee oppression by leaping into the Venezuelan Embassy in Havana. It could have been me, made desperate by living under an oppressive system like Cuba’s. I will never forget this, and from this day forward I will begin to prepare myself to struggle for Cuba’s freedom.” That was November 20, 1985. As a cog might be discarded from a machine, this young man was cast aside after he was pulverized trying to reach his dreams and was then buried somewhere in Havana, in some cold place where his bones lie at this very moment.

 

It is serious because not only did that young man lose his life, and not only have thousands of young people lost theirs as well, including our friend Mario Manuel de la Peña who was murdered by the dictatorship only twelve years ago, whom we never forget— but also because many young people gave the best years of their lives fighting against that dictatorship and fighting for the democratic principles this organization espouses. Here we have some of those who spent more than ten years imprisoned. Húber Matos, here among us, 20 years; Gregorio Ariosa, 10 years; Angel Luis Argüelles, 24 years; Eleno Oviedo, 26 years; Ángel de Fana, 20 years; and I know that there are more former prisoners in this room. One is always guilty of not mentioning them all by name, but I include all those present as well.

 

Why did that young man have to die at that embassy? Who had given the order to murder him in that way? Who was responsible for his death? Who killed him? Those were the questions that I asked myself at that time, when I was 20 years old. As I said, I too was 20 years old and fate allowed me to live while it had ripped the life from that young man at that age. We can all think of someone we love who is 20 years of age, who has passed them, or who is close to 20 years, and we know the pain of a family who loses a child only because he desired freedom.

 

After that moment, we went out all over the world, traveling through the cold places in the former Soviet Union, all the cities of Europe, through Asia and every corner of Latin America as you yourselves are witnesses, in order to seek solidarity for Cuba’s youth.  Meanwhile, in a very discreet way, I traveled to Cuba. For over a decade I traveled and met with young people in Cuba and discovered that all across the Island there were young people willing to fight for their freedom— for their future.

 

One day when I was in Havana, I passed by the place where that young man had been murdered. And there, I told the Cuban youth who struggle in Cuba: “We will never abandon you. We will never leave you alone before the oppressor. We will take your voice to the whole world, and we will seek help for Cuba’s youth.” And that is why I am here today with you.

 

I am here because all young people in Latin America have the right to life in all our countries. They ALL have the right to life. They ALL have the right to freedom. They ALL have the right to be sovereign actors in their own lives and to pursue happiness. They ALL have the right to vote in free, multiparty elections with international observers and in that way to choose the future they desire, and to change course and to change leaders as often as necessary. They have the collective right to determine the destinies of their nations. They can only do this through free elections. None of these rights belongs exclusively to some— they are the rights of all. All young Venezuelans have this right, all young Cubans have those rights, and we have the duty to recognize those rights. This is not a Venezuelan problem. This is not a Cuban problem. This is a Latin American problem.

 

Indeed, democracy is in danger in Latin America. The forces of oppression do not hide their objectives in their war against democracy, and I say “war” because that is exactly how they define it. They define it as a war against the democracies: its objective, to reduce human beings to cogs in a materialist social apparatus. In Peru, there are more than 43 Bolivarian centers in operation, at work every day— and not only in Peru, but in all of South America, in Central America and in Mexico, where the German ideologue of 21st Century Socialism currently lives.

The forces of oppression are organized, and they have well defined objectives and lines of support. This is why we see the recognition of belligerent status for terrorist organizations in Colombia, which formalizes the supplying of material assistance for their struggle against Colombia’s democracy. But it is also true that we face a unique opportunity in the history of our continent. We have a unique opportunity because the forces of democracy have risen up before the forces of oppression, because there are new voices. The forces of democracy are rising up. The young people of Venezuela and Cuba have demonstrated to the entire continent that the forces of democracy can face and triumph over the forces of oppression. NO ONE, NO ONE has achieved freedom anywhere on the planet and at no time in history by kneeling before his oppressor.

 

That is why the fact that young Venezuelans have risen up, defeating the referendum which would have formalized an oppressive state in Venezuela like the one that already exists in Cuba, is so important. And in Cuba, more than 5,000 students have signed the petition for university autonomy— 5,000 in that totalitarian state. Hundreds of students have demonstrated at Universities in Oriente Province, and in spite of the attacks they have suffered from State Security, who even broke into a church recently to remove and arrest them, going in with tear gas, they continue that struggle.

 

Here is a compilation of the actions taken solely under the Non-cooperation Campaign, 23 pages worth. Line by line, you will be able to see the actions that young Cubans are taking in their struggle for democracy, and we must support it. Additionally, I wanted to show you these books that are being distributed here. This is part of the struggle taking place in Cuba— 2,7000 actions in one year, and a book that details what is happening in Cuba with photographs, that details what the dictatorship does not want us to know, but is part of the real situation.

 

This organization is made up of men and women who have struggled in their countries against their oppressors, like our Chilean friends who were true, civic belligerents against their oppressor and who triumphed with the support, the recognition and the solidarity of the continent. It was the same in Mexico for many years. We especially remember 1988 and the civic struggle waged in Mexico for which Manuel Clouthier gave his life on October 1, 1989. This organization is made up of people like those.

 

Young Venezuelans struggle using the small democratic margin that still exists in Venezuela and we must support them. In Cuba, that margin does not exist because a totalitarian dictatorship has existed there for many years.

 

Therefore today, here at this meeting, without forgetting those who have given their lives fighting for democracy, and the young people who have lost their dreams and their lives in this struggle, I ask that we state, without fear, clearly and unmistakably to all the young people and all the Cuban democrats who are rising up in Cuba itself to struggle for freedom: “You have the right to be free. You have the right to struggle for democracy. We reject the Cuban dictatorship’s electoral farce and we recognize the civic belligerent status of the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom.” Thank you very much.



[1] Literally “the Three Wise Men,” the traditional holiday gift-bringers in the Spanish-speaking world

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