Now it’s all cleared up. Unidad Cubana’s Declaración de Miami is now released; it includes the “Concrete Steps” document discussed yesterday, plus a series of further recommendations from Unidad Cubana, plus five points that were agreed upon by the Cuban Patriotic Forum (in Miami) and the Assembly to Promote Civil Society (in Cuba, led my Martha Beatriz Roque), following a talk between Roque and Armando Perez Roura.
Those five points, in summary, call for freeing political prisoners, creating a transition government and a new constitution, recognizing political parties, writing a new electoral law that would allow elections that “guarantee the participation of all the Cuban nation.”
The Unidad Cubana “recommendations” include:
- A future Cuban government should sue
- Foreign executives in the tourism industry should be expelled from
- Unidad Cubana will “insist on the prosecution of Cubans who, in exile, dedicate themselves to promoting negotiations with the Cuban enemy.”
- An investigation should be opened to assemble proof of payments the Cuban government made to foreign journalists in exchange for positive news coverage, and documents should be published; the same goes for foreign government officials who acted “in complicity” with the Cuban government since 1959.
- Double citizenship should be recognized, and a negotiation should be conducted with the
What really stands out is the idea of prosecuting Cuban Americans who have advocated negotiation with
So in the future
It’s little wonder that Martha Beatriz Roque, after talking with Perez Roura, agreed to join him in re-stating her longstanding position in those five points, but her name appears nowhere near the rest of Unidad Cubana’s ideas. So far, she’s the one showing a grasp of democratic principles.
Sounds like a wish list a bunch of senile exilos drunk on rum and visions of power came up with one late night.
ReplyDeleteSuing Russia, for the assistance the Soviet Union provided Cuba?? What "damages" are they even talking about.. distortions to their econmoy and some bad advice, yeah. But damages??
Foreign tourism executives banished from Cuba?? Is this so a new lot of connected and politcally correct foreign executives can rush in??
Payments to foreign journalists? This just shows you the alterative universe soem exilos live in. If a positive word is said about Cuba they must have been paid off... what an insult to professional journalists.
#5 about retiring in Cuba I think is actually quite smart. There must be a lot of nostalgia and desire to go back amongst the older generation. But why stop at Cuba, we should have agreements with Mexico, Canada, etc - who can all provide health care at much cheaper cost.
Nice post Phil,
ReplyDeleteI'll also be highlighting other outrageous points in the "Miami Declaration" soon.
I just wanted to point out that Unidad Cubana, and its group leaders, are invited regularly on Radio Mambi. They always make it a point to stress that what they want is JUSTICE, not REVENGE. They always repeat it, as if they worry about being misunderstood.
This declaration by Unidad Cubana, and the several documents on their website, make it very clear. In my opinion, they want REVENGE.
As I pointed out, Unidad Cubana makes no effort to show how officials of their future tribunals or truth commissions will be picked. This alone suggests that one should be concerned about their view of JUSTICE.
I think the "Miami Declaration" sets back a peaceful solution to a future free Cuba.
And now we have lawyers at Creighton University weighing in on how CUBA should handle outstanding American property claims. I have no problem planning and thinking about these thorny issues, but if you were a Cuban and you saw the US Government commissioning all these report about what should happen in your neighborhood, your city, it wouldn't matter what the recommendations were - you would want no part of it. In this case we have a proposal for a split US-Cuban commission set up OUTSIDE the Cuban judicial system to rule on claims that only Cuba has jurisdiction over. It appears the aim was to be as politically innocuous as possible to their clients - the US Government - without considering the sovereign rights of another nation. How pleasant.
ReplyDeleteExactly like that, those guys of Radio Mambí and acolytes live in a different Universe. They mention a Cuba that exists no more. They are lost in time, disconnected from reality, but still they can be very dangerous. The tides are turning slowly towards a different view in the exile community. It won't happen suddenly but in a non-planned coordinated way with the pace of changes in Cuba. Stability, successful partnership with foreign capitals and improvements in the quality of living in Cuba will be a major blow to the hostile policy they promote. To be honest and fair many of them have very deep reasons to be anger with the Cuban system. Many lost relatives and not all of them were mercenaries or murderous batistianos. So, calls for justice are understandable in principle. However, how to make justice in a history like ours which is the history of no just very important social improvements and avoided deaths but also a transnational meaning that we are entitled to take care of, a historic responsibility? How to condemn the same people who help to free Angola, Namibia, South Africa and who set the first example of what is a indispensable condition for progress, that is, sovereignty?
ReplyDeleteVery sad. This in my honest and humble opinion sounds like something a group of high schoolers thought up. I don't follow much of what the Cuban "opposition" writes or thinks, but I had higher hopes than this. Maybe as I read about other groups I will find something that echoes a bit less reactionaristic and fascistic.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that either you were born here in the US or brought very young. If you all, with a policy or "forgive and forget" envisions a transition to a democratic Cuba you therefore are deniying justice/punishment to the political institution: the Comunist Party of Cuba and the individuals who created it and with phony reasons: independence, sovereignity and fight the US imperialism and so and so justify this 48 years of opression. Is there justice in your minds or moveon.org.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to read that I am not the only one who thinks this Unidad Cubana organization is way off base.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be a sad day in Cuba when old Cuban American exiles like this return to Cuba.
That is IF they CAN return to Cuba. I would think that they'll be on the restricted list so they couldn't go back to Cuba even if they wanted to. And, I'm talking about a new Cuban government too, not just the Castro government.
havanajournal ,,, enough with the restrictions to travel to cuban citizens... Si ellos quieren ir que vayan ..Asi son las democracias
ReplyDeleteThere are certainly several points in the declaration that are at the very least, misguided. One of them however, is quite necessary, if only to make a moral point.
ReplyDelete"Foreign executives in the tourism industry should be expelled from Cuba."
These individuals have reaped great profits at the expense of the Cuban people and are direct participants in the island's system of "tourism apartheid." Should they be allowed to continue earning dollars while contributing to this morally bankrupt system? I think not.
El seÑor Perez Roura tiene un punto positivo, Esta en contra del tirano criminal que ha envenenado nuestra isla convirtiendola en una prision gigantesca de la cual todos tratan de escapar. El problema es que Perez Roura con su grupo de extremistas ha dividido al exilio, catalogando de comunistas a todos los que por alguna razon visitan a su familia en Cuba o les hace llegar alun dinero con que palear el hambre y las necesidades. Perez Roura y los que piensan como el, tienen un punto de vista obsoleto y la division del exilio debilita la lucha anticastrista haciendo potencialmente poderoso al enemigo. Castro tiene mucho que agradecerle a los extremistas de ese corte. Si ellos se unieran con todos aquellos que van a Cuba a visitar a la familia o mandan los 100 dolares mensuales, la lucha anticastrista fuera algo real y no que los luchadores del exilio se ha limitado a un grupo de ancianos que toman cafe y hablan de lo malo que son los tiranos pues ya no tienen la energia para luchar pero tienen el poder de apartar del camino a esa nueva generacion que tanto desea la libertad de Cuba.
ReplyDelete