Arab rebellions worrying dictators elsewhere

These are scary times for tyrants. Some of the world's most enduring dictatorships, the ones that looked as though they would never end, have met their demise in recent months. For now, the popular revolts have spread only through the Middle East. Unelected governments in other parts of the world are trying to make sure they're not next.

In countries such as Cuba, North Korea and Burma (renamed Myanmar), unelected regimes are raising the walls as they try to keep themselves safe from the very people they claim have nothing but love for their longtime rulers.

When Egyptian protesters, fed up with 30 years of rule by Hosni Mubarak, forced the president out of power, Cuba's Fidel Castro explained the events as a revolt against America. In his column in the Communist Party daily Granma, the iconic former Cuban president wrote, "After 18 days of harsh battling, the Egyptian people attained an important objective: to defeat the United States' principal ally in the heart of the Arab countries."

Castro defended Libya's Moammar Gadhafi until the end, painting the uprising as a brutal NATO onslaught against the defenseless Libyan people, an example of colonialist Western aggression aimed at grabbing Libyan oil.

Most Cubans have little if any access to the Internet or other sources of nongovernment-controlled media. An American contractor, 62-year-old Alan Gross, was sentenced to 15 years in a Cuban prison after he was found to have brought equipment to allow Internet access for members of the country's tiny Jewish community.

Information is even more tightly controlled in other dictatorships. In North Korea, televisions come factory-tuned to government propaganda channels, and there is essentially no Internet and virtually no cellphone service. Even so, a report by South Korea's Institute for National Unification says the North reacted to Arab rebellions with a number of urgent measures to prevent contagion. Police stations reportedly were ordered to intensify their ideological indoctrination programs, as additional security forces were deployed to prevent any trouble.

If any significant uprising happened to occur, there's little doubt that Pyongyang, with more than a million soldiers receiving privileges from their loyalty to the state, would quickly use force to suppress it.

Burma's rulers have also shown a willingness to use force to stop protests. Long before the Arab uprisings, young Burmese took to the streets to demand democracy. It happened on Aug. 8, 1988 (8-8-88). The military killed thousands of demonstrators and imprisoned their leaders. Buddhist monks launched another protest in 2007. The government again responded with violence.

Still, the Burmese opposition lives on, and the regime has put on a democracy charade. Fraudulent elections produced a new, supposedly civilian, parliament in fact dominated by the military. The new prime minister is a former general. But opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, after years under arrest, has been freed.

In an interview with the BBC, she told Egyptian demonstrators, "We're all with you." But the government says 0.8 percent of the country has Internet access. Local newspapers offer a parody of the news. Stories from Egypt during the January uprising, for example, included news of secret chambers discovered in the pyramids.

The real news, of course, is that tyrants can be toppled.

No dictatorship lasts forever. For the people who have struggled against all odds, facing imprisonment and worse for demanding democracy, the truth about what is happening to Middle Eastern dictators will slowly filter in. Their rulers already know the truth. They are watching closely, and they are not sleeping well at night.

By Frida Ghitis

Source: The Wichita Eagle

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Cuba After Castro

Social networks and media outlets have been spreading rumors on Fidel Castro's alleged death the past few weeks.. The speculations started in early August after an infected virus-email depicted the Cuban leader lying in a coffin. The fact that Castro has not appeared in public since the Communist party meeting in April 2011, and that he has stopped writing his editorials in the Cuban paper Granma elicited further suspicions about the status of his health. According to an op-ed in the Venezuelan paper El Universal, Castro's health situation is deteriorating; this could be the reason why Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decided not to go back to Cuba to continue receiving chemotherapy, and instead decided to go to Hospital Militar Carlos Arvelo in Caracas for treatment.

The Venezuelan state-run media, however, assured everyone that Castro is alive and healthy. On September 7, the program La Hojilla, run on Venezuelan Television, aired an interview with a Fidel Castro looking in good shape, putting to rest rumors about his health. "Those who are at this moment enjoying and believing that Comandante Fidel had a stroke, I'm sorry to inform you that he is alive and kicking," said Mario Silva, the program's host. In the interview, Castro joked about the rumors about his death: "They've killed me off any number of times," he said. "The guys who make these predictions make me laugh, as if for me death would be bad news."

Future Scenarios

After the revolutions in the Arab world, some opinion makers have wondered whether Cuba could be also hit by a spontaneous uprising against the regime, in which the economic crisis might deepen, despite policies of liberalization.

The Spanish political magazine Atenea argued that after the death of the Comandante, a possible scenario for Cuba could be the continuation of market liberalization's reforms while at the same time trying to keep alive the ideology of Catroism. Last April 2011, during the 6th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, Raul Castro took further steps towards economic reform and political liberalization. Reuters reports that Castro's brother "in public statements… has accused government cadres of laziness, corruption, neglect and ideological rigidity and has repeatedly urged them to reject old revolutionary dogma and embrace new ways of thinking."

The death of a charismatic leader such as Fidel Castro, along with the pursuit of economic liberalization, could, however, lead to the disappearance of Castroism, and with it, the dictatorial regime -- but not without a price to pay. Raul Castro lacks charisma, historical legitimacy and the needed consensus among the government's elite. This is why the after-Fidel time could be characterized by a power vacuum and instability, followed by uprisings and infighting. If such a situation emerged, there is a risk that Cuba could become a failed state if the international community would not help its transition. Of course, that would totally depend on who did the helping. A failed state in Cuba would be am extremely dangerous scenario: drug cartels could take advantage of the instability on such a strategically-situated island.

According to Atenea, a possible political scenario for the post-Castro-era in Cuba would be a negotiated transition. If Raul Castro will not manage to continue his rule on the island, the Cuban economic and military elite – pressured by the socio-economic crisis – could be willing to share power-quotas with other sector of the society. Following the example of South Africa, where a negotiated transition was led by Nelson Mandela, Atenea suggests that a Cuban dissident could be the means of democratizing the country. Again, the success of that, for Cuba and for the world, would depend on which dissident.

The path thorough democratization will not be easy for Cuba, a country for five decades under the grip of a dictatorship. Unless the Cuban people suddenly start an uprising against the regime, however, the Castro brothers have no intention of giving up power. As Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez said, Fidel Castro is more alive than ever, and willing to continue the fight against "Imperialism." Any popular revolt would be instantly repressed by the powerful Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, who now control 60% of the economy. In order to avoid giving up to this privileges, they will defend Castor's regime to the death.

Economic Liberalization

The fake news about Castro's death succeeded in bringing back the question of whether the ideology of Castroism can survive after Castro. Many analysts argue that Catroism is doomed to disappear: the island has no other choice but to liberalize its economy to overcome its current economic crisis. Some cautious measure towards the openness of the market has already taken place in Cuba under the presidency of Fidel Castro's brother Raul. Even Fidel Castro himself admitted that the Communist economic model failed: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he confessed last September, 2010.

As pointed out by a University of New Mexico paper by Mario Rivera, Cuba found it necessary long ago "to put into effect market-oriented policies," especially to address the severe economic crisis triggered by the loss of Soviet support after 1989 that left the country with nothing to sustain it. However, "even the most spontaneous and forceful change is occurring within revolutionary bounds, and… the fits and starts of liberalization policy have simply manifested the tactical agility of Cuban leaders. In this view, the cyclical nature of economic policymaking in Cuba is not cause for concern so much as a corollary of pluralism—of a plurality of intersecting and competing interests within the confines of a socialist civil society. The creation of mixed enterprises, joint ventures, and other hybrid forms of commerce, and the rise of managerial, entrepreneurial, and other social networks in the economy, is an indication of a potential for the development of capable institutions, both public and private, in a democratic direction," the paper noted.

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci

Source: Hudson New York 

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Cuba's brave "Ladies in White"

The Ladies in White walk in 5ta Avenida, Miramar, Havana, the last Sunday 28. Photo Roberto Guerra, Hablemos Press.

Raul Castro, Cuba's successor to brother Fidel, has recently unleashed his thugs on women peacefully protesting Cuban human rights abuses. The brutal attacks completely undermine Mr. Castro's attempt to appear moderate and will set back his carefully cultivated relationship with the European Union. Ultimately it could lead to a popular uprising.

The attacks are unconscionable, and betray a realistic fear that the Cuban public is fed up with Castroism and only lacks a spark to rise up against the geriatric dictatorship. The Cuban women's protest movement could supply that needed spark.

Members and supporters of the "Ladies in White" human rights movement attempting to assemble for protests after church services in Santiago de Cuba have been physically attacked by Cuban government agents every Sunday from July 24 through Aug. 28.

The women are expected to exercise their right of peaceful protest again this Sunday.

But don't expect eyewitness reports from the foreign press in Cuba. They are being kept away.

The most detailed account of the beatings is a report by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights on what happened Sunday, Aug. 7, in the vicinity of Santiago. It said state security officials and "Castro supporters" attacked women assembling for a protest march using "sticks and other blunt objects" causing "injuries, some considerable," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The women were forcibly taken by bus to the city outskirts and forced to walk back.

When some attempted another protest march the same afternoon they were again attacked.

Government bullies also broke into two homes of recently freed political activists who refused to be sent into exile as a condition of their freedom. The wife and daughter of former political prisoner Jose Daniel Ferrer and four other people were sent to the hospital with contusions and broken bones, the Federation report said.

According to Cuban dissidents, similar harassments, arrests, beatings and home invasions have been experienced by demonstrators on each of the past six Sundays.

In Havana on Aug. 18, a government-inspired mob punched, slapped and kicked members of a Ladies in White march, spit on them, pulled their hair and ripped clothes. Several of the 42 marchers reported bruises, according to their spokeswoman, Berta Soler, who spoke with the Miami Herald.

The Ladies in White harassed by the mob last August the 18th.

The government tactics could quickly backfire. On Aug. 23, a crowd of Cubans gathered in front of the steps of the capitol building in Havana was recorded on video as it booed, hissed and insulted government agents forcibly dragging away four women protesters.

One of the women, Sara Marta Fonseca, a member of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights, told a Spanish newspaper her hope is that "people will cross the barrier of fear and join the opposition to reclaim freedom."

Thanks to the Ladies in White and their supporters, the Cuban people are one step closer to realizing that hope.

Source: The Post and Courier

Cuba's "Ladies in White" ask Church to help stop violence

 

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Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Libya… Is Cuba next?

With the global financial crisis, ongoing Arab Spring and now the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s in Libya, there must be a collective worry for the world’s last remaining dictators and authoritarian governments.

Since free or cheap goods and money from other countries to dictatorships are in short supply and with the Internet being a collective unifying force that appears to be more powerful than many military governments, no leader in any repressive country can wake up in the morning without wondering if their country will be next to see an uprising.

The world’s people are demanding their freedom. People are tired of living under repression and now they can easily organize online.

With the spreading of the Arab Spring, I feel compelled to write this article posing the question… Is Cuba next? First, let me explain my reasons for posing this question.

The Arab Spring Contagion

Samia Nakhoul of Reuters from Beirut writes “The implosion of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year-old rule will put a new spring in the step of the Arab revolutions and demonstrate once again that these entrenched autocratic governments are not invincible.”

Rami Khouri, a Middle East analyst said this Arab Spring is an important development because “it shows there are different ways in which Arab regimes will collapse. It just shows once you get a momentum developing and the right combination—a popular will for change and regional and international support—no regime can withstand that.”

Today President Obama said “The people of Libya are showing that the universal pursuit of dignity and freedom is far stronger than the iron fist of a dictator.”

David Rothkopf of Foreign Policy writes about the Conclusions and implications of the fall of Gaddafi.

Many people, including myself, have given up trying to predict the end of the Castro regime but I think we can all agree that it is not a matter of IF the Castro’s Communist regime will end, it is a matter of WHEN it will end. Fidel and Raul must be feeling international political and economic pressures to give the Cuban people more freedoms and human rights respect. Yes, Raul has proposed many economic reforms but VERY FEW political reforms. That might work for China but Cuba is NOT China.

Will the Arab Spring affect US Cuba policy?

Also, worth mentioning here, will President Obama change his Cuba policy from the current approach of allowing more Americans to travel to Cuba to a more, hard-line approach as President Bush tried… and failed. With justice served to Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and now with Gadaffi on the run, will President Obama take credit for the downfall of these men and set his sights on the Castro brothers regime? I doubt it but since President Obama wants to win in November 2012, his vision and motivation may be corrupted by hard line, selfish advisers from Miami. Hopefully he will not start taking advice from the selfish politicians like Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and Senator Menendez… all who have been wrong about Cuba for their entire political careers. Sanctions do not work against Cuba and they will never work but I’ll save that argument for another article.

I hope President Obama elects to engage the Castro’s rather than to try to alienate them. Regarding Chavez in Venezuela, President Obama should play hard ball with him since he is trying to destroy Venezuela as Fidel Castro did to Cuba.

Cuba - A State Sponsor of Terrorism

Agree or not, Cuba is on the US state sponsor of terrorism list. I think that Cuba’s place on the US state sponsor of terrorism list is more political than based on any facts that Cuba actually sponsors terrorists. Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria are all on the list but North Korea is not? How about Pakistan since that’s where Osama bin Laden was living for years and that government didn’t know about it? What a joke...

Gaddafi coming to Cuba?

On August 4, I wrote an article about the Finance Secretary from Libya making a visit to Cuba. I found it odd at the time and now have to wonder if the Finance Secretary may have been asking Raul Castro if he would accept Gaddafi should he have to flee Libya. Interesting right? I would hope that Raul would have the sense to not allow Gaddafi to seek exile in Cuba.

If Gaddafi did land in Cuba, I see that as being more of a Fidel Castro move than a Raul Castro move. Gaddafi in exile in Cuba would certainly be a financial and cultural disaster for Cuba so I don’t think that Fidel is in charge that much where Raul would let him ruin everything that Raul has started. A younger Fidel would probably welcome Gaddafi and that brings me to Hugo Chavez. I can definitely see Chavez taking Gaddafi as an a “victim of US imperialism”.

Gaddafi coming to Venezuela?

According to The Telegraph, Gaddafi could flee to a country not signed up to the International Criminal Court such as Venezuela or Cuba.

A source told The Telegraph that Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela was looking the most likely destination if Gaddafi were able to, and chose to, flee Libya. Hugo Chavez has condemned NATO operations in Libya as an attempt to seize control of the country’s vast oilfields. “Chavez would take him as a victim of Western Imperialism,” the source said.

As recently as this morning, Chavez is supporting Gaddafi. If Chavez welcomes Gaddafi, you can expect democratic governments to condemn Chavez and bring all kinds of political pressure on him. Chavez will probably love the attention but this ultimately would be terrible for Cuba.

More Freedoms

I am no great political thinker, writer or analyst but I can’t help but to speculate on how people want their freedoms today in a collective way. The internet enables people to be free in many ways. Facebook and Twitter allow people to unite or at least find like minded people and that freedom of assembly can give way to hope for a change in one’s government and ultimately the hope for a better future.

Even in the US, we have the Tea Party (a movement I support) where millions of people have “assembled” online and at the voting booth to demand more freedom and less intrusion from our own government. In the US, we don’t need to take up arms and fight the government with bullets, we fight within the political process of freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press and free elections.

Now I know this is a reach but hear me out… Hewlett Packard has decided to get out of the computer manufacturing business. How the hell is this relevant you ask? Apple, Google, smartphones… these are the rebels fighting against the desktop computer and software that is only available on one computer. Today we want to be free from the computer for information and free from software that lives on one device. Microsoft. Are you listening?

Gene Marks of Forbes writes about Google buying Motorola Mobility where he compares Microsoft to the Roman Empire, a truly repressive government. He speculates that Microsoft (sort of a repressive regime since they USED TO own all computer operating systems and force us to do things there way).

He goes on to talk about how Google/Motorola/Android and Apple are freeing people from the desktop computer and Microsoft’s empire so oddly enough, I think his story is relevant to the Arab Spring uprisings. We all want to be free from any authoritarian regime. We are smart enough to make good decisions for ourselves.

So, is Cuba next?

Unfortunately not.

1. The Castros, by design, control all communication in Cuba. All the press is controlled by the government. All the radio and TV is controlled by the government. The Internet is by design slow and restricted. (Don’t let anybody tell you the US Embargo is to blame for any of this). The Castros do not want people to communicate because they know what can happen. When people communicate they can share ideas and find like-minded people and then assemble and then demand freedoms… way too risky for a failed political experiment called, oddly enough “La Revolucion”. Fidel and Raul do not want to have another Revolution in Cuba.

2. The Committee for the Defense of the Revolution is a Cuban government operation which is like having a Resident Assistant in every college dormitory. Every neighborhood has an active CDR staffed with people loyal to the Cuban government. It is their job to spy on their neighbors and to report any suspicious activity to the Cuban government. They get rewarded for reporting all of their neighbors’ “suspect” activities… and you would be surprised what is considered a “suspect” activity.

3. Since most all activities are illegal in Cuba, MOST Cubans have to break some law every single day of their life just to survive. The Castros have locked down the entire country in what many call and “island prison”.

In summary, I wish Democracy minded rebels well in their quest for freedom and democracy and I sincerely hope this ultimately leads to a new Cuban government where the Cuban people can enjoy a political process of freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press and free elections.

By Rob Sequin

Source: Havana Journal 

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Is the people who are changing things. Tyrants beware!

The above leaders have all pledged support for Gadhafi. Who's next?

To say that uprising in Libya and Syria is a foreign plot is an insult to people who are fighting for their freedom

Last Tuesday, in a joint statement, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez denounced what they called the West's “imperialist aggression” in Libya and Syria.

It is a wonder they did not try and get Cuba’s retired President Fidel Castro or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to endorse their condemnation. They would have certainly obliged. Back in March, Castro’s verdict on the Libyan uprising was that it was an American plot. Just over a week ago Mugabe called NATO “a terrorist group” because of its airstrikes against Qaddafi’s forces.

The notion that the uprisings in Syria and Libya are a Western plot is not merely a gross distortion of the truth; it is a vicious slap in the face of ordinary Syrians and Libyans. They are the authors of the uprisings, not the Americans or the French or the British. The hundreds of thousands of Libyans who rose up against Qaddafi's iron grip on power and the young Libyans fighting, and dying, to free their country did not do so because of a foreign plot. They did so because they wanted to be free and were inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. They took their destiny into their own hands. It has been the same for the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets of Syria's cities, willing to die for freedom and, in some cases, doing so. The suggestion that they are agents in a plot devised by NATO and the CIA is an insult to them and the memory of the thousands who have been killed.

In any event, if it were an American plot, it was one for which the Americans should be congratulated for getting their Middle East policies right for a change and doing something that was genuinely in tune with mass public sentiment.

The fact that men like Chavez trot out this lie says everything about them and their politics and nothing about reality. They have a world view that is hopelessly outdated — a world divided into thieving imperialists and, battling against them, anti-colonialist liberation movements led by themselves. That has long gone. The world has moved on. But it is a vision these dictators are desperate to retain. It is their justification for their dead hand on the levers of power.

The same was said by the ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of the protests in Egypt before he fell; they were organized by outsiders, he said. Qaddafi and Assad have come up with different villains behind the opposition to them — they accuse hard-liners — but the thinking is the same. They need someone to blame for the crisis and refuse to admit they are the problem.

For all their populist rhetoric and their glorification of their “people's struggle” against “imperialism,” it is their own people that the likes of Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Qaddafi and Assad fear their most. So they come up with nonsense about foreign or terrorist plots.

No one is taken in. The Syrians and the Libyans, like the Egyptians and the Tunisians beforehand, know that their uprisings are their alone, not something cooked up in the Pentagon. Others may support them, morally or with money or even arms and air raids, but the Arab Spring is a genuine Arab affair. Those who have to pretend otherwise show how little they understand the momentousness of what is happening.

Source: Albawaba

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Czech MEP meets dissidents in Cuba

Last week, twenty members of the Ladies in White were heckled for several hours by government supporters, who kept them encircled in the area. Surrounding streets were blocked off, and two ambulances and several police cars were stationed nearby.

The atmosphere in Cuba is like a pressure cooker that can explode at any time, Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas told Czech MEP Edvard Kozusnik, who met him briefly after his release from prison last week, Kozusnik said in a report he sent to CTK last Sunday.

Last year, Kozusnik successfully nominated Farinas for the Sakharov Human Rights Prize.

The public opinion in Cuba is changing as the public increasingly connects economic problems with the existing regime, Farinas said.

Nowadays people speak about it publicly, which was absolutely unthinkable three years ago, he added.

Kozusnik came to Cuba to support the local opposition in its effort to change the Communist regime.

Earlier this week, Farinas was imprisoned for 36 hours, Cuban dissidents have said.

Another Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya has warned that repressive forces are ready to take any steps in order to keep current Cuban Communist leaders in power.

Paya said Cuban opposition was preparing projects for the transformation of society in the direction of democratic free elections.

Kozusnik said Paya and others had collected the signatures of 40,000 Cubans for the support of the planned changes.

Kozusnik said the campaign was similar to the Czechoslovak Several Sentences petition, launched a few months before the Communist regime's fall in 1989.

Kozusnik gave the dissidents a symbolical chain of keys as a recollection of those that calmly rang the end of the Communist rule.

"I believe that Cubans will soon ring the end of the rule of arrogant despots, dysfunctional economy, demagoguery and hateful propaganda," Kozusnik said.

From the Czech experience:

Seeking Freedom Is a Learning Process

He has a degree in history, which he got only after the revolution of course.

In communist times he was only allowed to undertake a mechanical apprenticeship.

In literature he found a way to pass on principles of humanity and criticize injustice.

He belonged to the crowd of the youngest generation of Czech dissidents.

We are talking about Czech writer Petr Placák, alias Petr Zmrzlík.

[Jáchym Topol, Writer and Journalist]:

"Before 1989 Petr belonged to the active ones, to the activists, to those who fought. I think, that what he was doing or what we were doing, was built on Charter 77."

Placák issued two samizdat books.

As one of the closely watched dissidents, he was forced to write books under the pseudonym Petr Zmrzlík.

He became an inconvenience for the regime not only as a writer, but as an instigator of many activities against the totalitarian regime as well.

In 1988 he founded an organization "České děti" which issued leaflets and articles directed against the totalitarian regime.

[Jáchym Topol, Writer and Journalist]:

“I was one of the first members of the organization 'České děti.' And I can say that the thoughts and ideas coming from Petr’s head fell on fertile ground.”

As an editor-in-chief of the magazine “Babylon," Petr Placák is now guiding today’s young authors to learn the real values in society.

[Stanislav Skoda, Editor, Babylon Magazine]:

"We try to publish texts we write ourselves, they are about violations of freedom in the world, in Cuba, for example. I specialize mainly in Latin America as well as in China, in Burma and we’re just trying to find and point to the iniquities that are happening in a small town in the north of Czech Republic as well as in Beijing."

Placák first experienced the limiting of freedom in his childhood.

He was four years old when his native city Prague was occupied by the Red Army troops.

[Petr Placak, Writer]:

"Through the adults I understood that what was happening was horrible. And then it was increasing continuously. I mean the distance against the regime was more and more clear. And it still is actually getting clearer because when you read about it, you get more information. So it is a process that is still developing."

Petr Placák believes that people develop their opinions all their lives.

[Petr Placák, Writer]:

"When one is growing up, he is growing up in a way that he defines himself from his environment. Then of course, he is processing it further on but I think this is the fundamental of it when he is growing up."

Sources:  NTD News and Prague Dialy Monitor

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PRESS STATEMENT FROM "POR EL LEVANTAMIENTO POPULAR EN CUBA" ("FOR THE POPULAR UPRISING IN CUBA")

Please note that during the days of 21 to 26 February, will be performed a variety of individual and collective manifestations throughout the world (see list here: >http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=156452414409238

Throughout these days will be displayed in a peaceful manner, the support of Cuban exile to the protests to be held in Cuba around the same time, through this week, and namely on the 23rd - one-year anniversary of the death of the political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

The initiative "For the popular uprising in Cuba" appeared in FACEBOOK http://www.facebook.com/pages/Por-el-levantamiento-popular-en-Cuba/173839132658920 and has more than 3900 followers (by February 20) in several countries and has resulted in the organization of a wave of protests in cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Santiago de Compostela, Sevilla, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Berlin, Milan, Stockholm, Paris, Portland, Washington, Miami, Tampa, Los Angeles, Alberta Canada and several other countries, including Cuban cities we for obvious reasons did not quote, except Havana, where we have received confirmation of time and place for the protests against the Cuban dictatorship, in sharp challenge to the regime's repressive forces.

We insist on the entirely peaceful nature of the protests although it is likely to produce violent reactions from Cuban officials used to suppress with force any activity for the freedom of Cuba and they have demonstrated this on several occasions at the consulates in Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Norway; last year the Cuban Vice Consul bit a young demonstrator in Sweden.

We inform you our determination to exercise our right to manifest for the end of the oldest dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere, which consistently violates human rights and keep in prison journalists and dissidents, despite the best efforts of the EU to help to bring democracy to Cuba.

We ask everybody to cover these activities and help us to follow these days of protests.

Here are video links and links with the media impact of this initiative in various publications throughout the world.

CNN
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv9FBdXeyLw
TELEMUNDO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-ayUAWpnCg
BAYNEWS 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptI-42njXM
Diario “El Mundo”
http://www.elmundo.es/america/2011/02/02/cuba/1296604782.html
Diario “Nuevo Herald”
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2011/02/03/880321/grupo-de-facebook-trata-de-alentar.html
Radio Nederland Internacional
http://www.rnw.nl/espanol/bulletin/crean-el-sitio-del-movimiento-popular-en-cuba
ANTENA 3
http://www.antena3.com/videos-online/noticias/mundo/cuba-quiere-evitar-levantamiento-ciberdisidentes_2011021600007.html

From “Por el Levantamiento Popular en Cuba”.
Contact: levantamientoencuba@yahoo.com
Twitter: @levanta_cuba

Note from the Admin: Please, forgive the English mistakes, this statement appears this way on the group's page.

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Extended Street Footage- El Maleconazo- Cuban Uprising for Freedom on August 5, 1994

Amateur video footage of the "maleconazo" uprising in Havana, Cuba on August 5, 1994. This spontaneous demonstration of the Cuban people's desire for freedom is being remembered around the world on August 5, 2009 as "Cuban Resistance Day."

Video no profesional mostrando imágenes del levantamiento conocido como el maleconazo, ocurrido en La Habana, Cuba el 5 de agosto de 1994. Esta manifestación espontánea del deseo del pueblo cubano por la libertad se recordará en todo el mundo el 5 de agosto de 2009 como El Día de la Resistencia Cubana

5th August, 1994

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