HUMAN RIGHTS | Defending human dignity
24 April 2007
U.S. Praises Cuban Opposition’s Call for Democracy in Cuba
Jailing of Cuban journalist draws global condemnation
Washington -- The United States has praised a statement from representatives of the Cuban opposition movement calling for peaceful democratic change in Cuba.
In its statement, released April 16 in Spanish, members of most of Cuba’s leading opposition groups said they were united in their call for Cuba to change peacefully from communist rule to democracy, freedom, social justice and human rights for all the Cuban people.
The statement added that the task of achieving democratic change in Cuban society is up to “Cubans and only Cubans.”
The Bush administration's Cuba transition coordinator, Caleb McCarry, told USINFO April 20 that the statement is an “important message to the Cuban people and the outside world from Cuba's peaceful democratic opposition.”
The United States, said McCarry, “supports the right of the Cuban people to define a democratic future for their country.”
McCarry oversees day-to-day operations of the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. The commission, co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, was created in 2003 to ensure that the U.S. government is prepared to assist Cuba’s peaceful transition to democracy. (See related article.)
Michael Parmly, chief of mission at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, added that U.S. policy “has been to give the Cuban people the lead in deciding their country's future.” Parmly told USINFO that the statement from the opposition Cuban group, dubbed “United for Freedom,” represents the “views of many Cubans who have been advocating for human rights and democratic change for a long time."
The Cuban opposition’s statement also urged the release of all political prisoners from Cuban prisons who have been “imprisoned unjustly for defending, promoting, and peacefully exercising universally recognized human rights.”
More than 20 members of Cuba’s opposition movement have signed the statement.
Signatories include prominent dissident leaders Oswaldo Payá of the Christian Liberation Movement; Elizardo Sanchez of the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation; Martha Beatriz Roque and Rene Gomez Manzano of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society; and members of the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) opposition movement, which consists of wives and other close female relatives of imprisoned Cuban dissidents. Among its many honors, this last group was named one of the three winners of the 2005 Sakharov Prize for the promotion of freedom of thought. (See related article.)
U.S. CONDEMNS JAILING OF CUBAN JOURNALIST
The United States has joined two global press freedom advocacy groups in condemning a four-year prison sentence given to Cuban independent journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan after a one-day trial April 13.
Cuban authorities arrested Sánchez, a reporter for the Miami-based news Web site CubaNet, that same day at his home in the province of Matanzas for being a “pre-criminal social danger.” The Cuban regime is said often to use the vague charge to jail its critics, even if no crime has been committed.
Robert Blau, a political and economic counselor at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said the United States “associates” itself with the criticism given by the press groups of Sánchez’s arrest.
Blau told USINFO that Sánchez was “an independent journalist just doing his job. We note that Sanchez’s reporting frequently covered issues such as human rights abuses and economic mismanagement in Matanzas province.”
The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said Sánchez “was even denied the right to an attorney, so his conviction was entirely arbitrary.” The group said the press freedom situation in Cuba has not improved since Raúl Castro was named Cuba’s acting president on July 31, 2006.
Joel Simon, executive director for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said “it is outrageous that Cuba has once again thrown a journalist in jail after a summary trial on a trumped up charge. We call on Cuban authorities to release Sánchez immediately, as well as the other 24 independent journalists unjustly imprisoned on the island today.”
The 25 journalists in Cuban prisons make Cuba the world’s second leading jailer of journalists after China, said the CPJ. Cuba imprisoned 22 of those journalists in a March 2003 crackdown on press freedom in Cuba that has been dubbed "Black Spring." (See related article.)
The State Department said in a human rights report released April 5 that Cuba had at least 283 political prisoners and detainees at the end of 2006.
The section of the human rights report dealing with Cuba is available on the State Department Web site.
More information about the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba is available on the commission’s Web site.
The statements by Reporters Without Borders and CPJ are available on the groups’ Web sites.
