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Europeans and Democracy in Cuba
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Miami. June 17, 2008.

As the nations that comprise the European Union meet to determine their future combined policies towards Cuba, we Cuban democrats inside and outside the island must clearly state our position.

(1) The Raul Castro regime is illegitimate. It was not born out of a pluralistic, multi party electoral process, but instead of a cloistered succession hoisted on a single-party electoral farce that was boycotted by more than 1.4 million Cubans.

(2) The Raul Castro regime has made token economic changes while continuing to persecute, imprison, intimidate and harass the peaceful activists of the pro democracy movement. The Raul Castro dictatorship has signed international treaties on human rights but (a) has not informed the Cuban people about the content of these treaties and (b) has continued to violate the very provisions that it has signed on to by continuing to harass, persecute and intimidate the Cuban people.

(3) To grant the Raul Castro regime the recognition that it doesn't deserve and the legitimacy that it hasn't earned signifies isolating the only TRUE source for democratic change in the island: the pro-democracy movement.

(4) By firmly supporting both the content and the intention of the European Common Position, the Czech government and the other European governments that stand along with it have become the voice not just of the Cuban pro democracy movement before the European Union, but of the oppressed Cuban people as a whole.

(5) We call on the European Union to engage with the Cuban pro democracy movement and to support its civic nonviolent struggle for the freedom of the Cuban people.

(6) We call on the European Union not to abandon Cuba's embattled pro democracy movement, and to link the normalization of diplomatic and economic ties with the island to a true change in the human rights situation prevalent there.

Signed by:

Dr. Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat

Cuban Democratic Directorate

Carlos Alberto Montaner

Cuban Liberal Union

Sylvia Iriondo

Mothers Against Repression (M.A.R)

Angel D'Fana

Plantados Hasta la Libertad y la Democracia en Cuba

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