Thursday, September 24, 2009

Directorio Democrático Cubano entrega Premio Libertad Pedro Luis Boitel a Iván Hernández Carrillo

http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5j4so4osHsnjJci_NgSgJkZh9gaZw

Grupo del exilio cubano entrega premio "Pedro Luis Boitel" a preso político
Miami (EE.UU.), 24 sep (EFE).- La organización del exilio cubano en Miami Directorio Democrático entrega hoy el premio Libertad "Pedro Luis Boitel" al preso de conciencia Iván Hernández Carrillo, encarcelado desde la Primavera Negra de Cuba, en marzo de 2003.
Este galardón es un reconocimiento en su novena edición del "valor cívico y la lucha por la democracia" de Hernández, del "Grupo de los 75" condenados a penas de hasta 28 años de prisión en juicios sumarísimos en abril de 2003, señaló Janisset Rivero, directiva de la organización.
Lázaro de la Paz Abella, ex preso político y exiliado en Miami, será el encargado de recibir el galardón en nombre de Hernández durante la ceremonia, presidida por el estadounidense Carl Gershman, director del Legado Nacional para la Democracia (NED, por su sigla en inglés).
Esta iniciativa premia "la lucha por la democracia de activistas y opositores intramuros" en la isla y es también un homenaje a la figura de Boitel, "cuyo compromiso ético ha renacido dentro de la disidencia", agregó Rivero.
Boitel nació en 1931, participó en la lucha contra la dictadura de Fulgencio Batista y luego contra el régimen castrista. Fue preso político y tras un intento de fuga de la prisión de Isla de Pinos (actualmente Isla de la Juventud) murió en una huelga de hambre.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Fidel Castro and Nuclear Holocaust: Twenty Years of Evidence


Aramis here.


Most people are unaware that the Communist leader of totalitarian Cuba, Fidel Castro, repeatedly demanded a nuclear first strike by the Soviet Union against the United States of America for decades. If a world leader actively lobbying for nuclear holocaust seems unthinkable to you, then you do not know Fidel Castro.

Yet another reason to support the nonviolent Cuban Resistance and return the Island to her people is that Cuba does not want to incinerate her neighbors, unlike the head of the totalitarian regime imposed on her for 50 years.

Here is the evidence:

A letter from Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev to Fidel Castro about the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis dated October 30, 1962 and posted at the National Security Archive. See paragraph 11:

"In your cable of October 27 you proposed that we be the first to launch a nuclear strike against the territory of the enemy. You, of course, realize where that would have led. Rather than a simple strike, it would have been the start of a thermonuclear world war.

Dear Comrade Fidel Castro, I consider this proposal of yours incorrect, although I understand your motivation."



Now, the New York Times reports the following today:

"In the early 1980s, according to newly released documents, Fidel Castro was suggesting a Soviet nuclear strike against the United States, until Moscow dissuaded him by patiently explaining how the radioactive cloud resulting from such a strike would also devastate Cuba...

The National Security Archive, a private research group at George Washington University, recently made public documents that reveal the nuclear threat in new detail. The two-volume study, “Soviet Intentions 1965-1985,” was prepared in 1995 by a Pentagon contractor and based on extensive interviewing of former top Soviet military officials.

It took the security archive two years to get the Pentagon to release the study. Censors excised a few sections on nuclear tests and weapon effects, and the archive recently posted the redacted study on its Web site.

The Pentagon study attributes the Cuba revelation to Andrian A. Danilevich, a Soviet general staff officer from 1964 to ’90 and director of the staff officers who wrote the Soviet Union’s final reference guide on strategic and nuclear planning.

In the early 1980s, the study quotes him as saying that Mr. Castro “pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the U.S. up to and including possible nuclear strikes.”

The general staff, General Danilevich continued, “had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the U.S.”

Monday, September 14, 2009

Directorio: March in Santa Clara Demands End to Repression, Surprises Secret Police

From the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

March in Santa Clara Demands End to Repression, Surprises Secret Police
Message to the dictatorship: No more impunity. Message to Juanes: More so than concerts, we need freedom.

Santa Clara. September 14, 2009. Cuban Democratic Directorate. On Friday afternoon, September 11, the women of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights led a march against repression and impunity and for the dignity of the Cuban people down a main Santa Clara thoroughfare. The members of the Rosa Parks Movement, dressed in black in sign of mourning for the oppression suffered by the Cuban people, carried signs reading: “March against impunity,” “End repression,” “Youth, Awaken!” “We All Are the Resistance,” and



”Juanes: Moreso than concerts, what we Cubans need is freedom and respect for human dignity.”

Read more.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy announces Forum on Democracy and Economics for October 10, 2009

Cuba. 8 September 2009. Cuban Democratic Directorate. The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia [MCJD]) has called on all Cuban youth to participate in theCuban Youth Forum for National Agreement on Democracy and Economics that will begin with a conference on October 10, 2009 and will continue in other events to be announced. MCJD, founded in 1990, is the longest active youth group in the Cuban civic opposition movement, known for their advocacy for university autonomy and academic freedom on the Island.

The Forum aims to focus the will and energy of the Cuban youth toward what the organizers call “a charge for real and lasting freedom for Cuba and all Cubans,” according to a statement issued by MCJD.

“The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy and its University Students without Borders project calls upon all Cuban youth on the Island and abroad to participate in the next Cuban Youth Forum for National Agreement on Democracy and Economics. We also invite the University Student Federation (Federación Estudiantil Universitaria [FEU]) and the Young Communists Union (Unión de Jóvenes Comunistas [UJC]) to take part in the debates,” reads the statement.

Additionally, the young activists invited representatives of young democratic international community, governments, and media to the forum. Their aim is to make participation in this gathering an “unavoidable moral duty” given the “manifest inability of government authorities to face up to and respond satisfactorily to the accumulated crisis of this nation, whose roots are in the regime-established authority and repression,” according to the group.

The organizers are asking youth participants to prepare 3 to 5 page papers on democracy and economics, touching on topics detailed in their official announcement such as freedom, constitutionality and civil society, family and society, land distribution problems in Cuba, the two-currency system, private property, and self-employment. The papers can be e-mailed to MCJD at mcjduniversitariosinfronteras@yahoo.es or forojuvenilcubano@yahoo.com until November 27, 2009. They can also be sent to the coordinators in exile for the group: Janisset Rivero, Cuban Democratic Directorate at info@directorio.org.

Below is the MCJD’s invitation to the Forum and an excerpt from the document detailing the topics and procedures for the event.


Invitation to the Cuban Youth Forum
                
The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (Movimiento Cubano de Jóvenes por la Democracia) and its University Students without Borders project call upon all Cuban youth on the Island and abroad to participate in the next Cuban Youth Forum for National Agreement on Democracy and Economics. We also invite the University Student Federation in Cuba (FEU) and the Young Communists Union (UJC) to take part in the debates.

We invite the Christian Democrat, Liberal, and Socialist youth of theAmericas and Europe as well as all people of goodwill around the world to take part as observers. We request the presence of national and international press, as well as of the accredited diplomatic bodies in Havana.

Young Cuban: in our actions today lies the sacred destiny of our country and of tomorrow's man. Your duty is to decisively say “present” when our nation calls: to gather for a charge for real and lasting freedom for Cuba and all Cubans.

Our  e-mail forojuvenilcubano@yahoo.com.


RULES OF THE FORUM
1 .- Upon notification, registration, and approval all representatives of organizations, movements and currents of Cuban thought sufficiently recognized for their role in independent civic action in Cuba may participate in the Cuban Youth Forum for National Agreement on Democracy and Economics. Also, under the same rules of the forum, we extend our invitation to young Cubans living outside of Cuba, as well as to young people who are members of official organizations such as the Federation of Cuban Students (FEU) and the Union of Young Communists (UJC).
2 .- The Cuban Youth Forum for National Agreement on Democracy and Economics is designed exclusively for analysis and decision making about the problems of Cuban society regarding issues of democracy and economics.
3 .- Those interested in participating in the Forum are required to give notice as early as possible on the subject or subjects they wish to address, for which they must send their personal information and the information on the organization they will represent, along with a summary of no more than two paragraphs on the subject or subjects. The papers sent to the addresses outlined below or to the territorial delegations will be accepted until November 27, 2009, as work will continue for future meetings on these issues.
4 .- The participants must draft their papers, of no more than five and no fewer than three typed pages, in a clear and precise manner and submit two copies. Once edited, as a historical memory of the event, they may be collected, along with  the programmatic platform that will be developed in accordance with the civic proposals of the movements, organizations and elements that make common cause for freedom in Cuba and for Cubans.
5 .- The papers of a comparative nature or based on statistics must be supported by posters or charts to ensure they will be fully understood.
6 .- The topics placed to be analyzed pertinent to the necessary solutions to the difficult Cuban problem detailed in the above mentioned items, may drew with equal appreciative interest on all opinions and formulations, from ground-level experiences to the broadest topics of the macroeconomics of society.
7 .- The organizers of the Forum on Democracy and Economy especially invite a select number of persons from Cuban civil society and with proven expertise in the subjects to be considered for national agreement. Additionally, active representatives of organizations, institutions and movements with high social prestige for defending civil liberties and restoration of the rule of law in Cuba, as well as representatives of respected news agencies accredited in Havana and diplomatic personnel who have given special attention to the Cuban civic movement will all be invited as guests.
8 .- The papers must be sent to the following addresses: mcjduniversitariosinfronteras@yahoo.es or forojuvenilcubano@yahoo.com 
Also to the coordinators for the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy abroad:
Janisset Rivero of the Cuban Democratic Directorate: info@directorio.org

DEMOCRACY 
1.- Freedom. Understood and practiced as the first principle inherent to human beings, who have full faculties and the right to decide to take conscious actions focused on goals and purposes of both personal and collective natures.
2.- Constitutionality and civil society in Cuba. Analysis and proposals for a constitutional assembly in Cuba.
3.- The rule of law and civil order in Cuba. The democratic system of government. The elected nature and the ability to revoke the functions and political and administrative offices of the State. Equal opportunities for all eligible citizens with intellectual competence and public respectability to elected office.
4- Family and Society. Rescue of moral values and the moral dignity of Cuban society.
5- Education and faith. The absolute freedom of individuals to choose the type, manner and place they want to educate and instruct their children as legitimate parental rights usurped by the Castro regime. 
6.- SPECIAL TOPIC OF THE FORUM IN THE SECTION ON DEMOCRACY
UNTRAMMELED NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF THE CUBAN CIVIC MOVEMENT AND THE PRESSING NEED FOR AMNESTY FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS AND PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE. 
The immorality of governments that place economic interests before dignity, justice and solidarity with the suffering people of Cuba who are subjected militarily. Disloyalty of the United Nations to the principles and precepts that constitute its fundamental basis in matters of freedom and human rights.