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By Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat. Posted on Thu, Mar. 20, 2003
in The Miami
Herald.
Traditionally, two forms of struggle against the Castro regime have been
posited: one, armed revolution; the other, dialogue and understanding.
The former aims to fragment the ruling elite and provoke a military
takeover. The latter targets the same elite, too, but it does so to encourage
the purported reformers in their confrontation with the ''hard-liners'' and,
thus, find an opening that will permit a democratic evolution.
We respect those who advocate either proposal. But that is not our road.
Nonviolent civic struggle is directed at the Cuban citizenry.
Civic struggle says to the oppressed people: '''Change begins with you. If
you do not demand your rights, if you do not regain your self-esteem, oppression
will prevail because only we Cubans can change this situation.'' It is a
movement of popular affirmation in the face of those in power.
The civic movement invites the individuals who are part of this elite to
join, as citizens, because their own rights, too, are violated by the
dictatorship that they support.
The Varela Project is the expression of this movement of citizen power that
has been coalescing in Cuba for more than a decade. It is not an instrument of
negotiation because it demands unalienable rights that are not negotiable.
The growth of this movement -- starting with the Cuban Committee for Human
Rights; proceeding through the nationwide organization of groups, committees,
unions and movements that are independent from the totalitarian power; achieving
civic protests and now the mobilization of citizens -- is the most forceful
evidence of how the Cuban people have awakened from a long and damaging lethargy
imposed by a totalitarian revolution.
The movement of citizen power is a movement of liberation. It does not wait
for Fidel Castro's death or for magical solutions before urging Cubans to step
forward in a quest for change. It does not look to Washington or the Palacio de
la Revolución for one thing or another. It looks at the ordinary Cuban --
sweaty, tired, struggling to survive day in and day out -- and says to him: "Only
you can improve your life. Add your voice to the voices of those who demand
freedom. We believe in you because we believe in ourselves. We the oppressed are
more numerous than the oppressors. Besides, look: The dictatorship has left a
legal crack here. Through it, we can take the first step.''
The civic movement, of which the Varela Project is a faithful expression,
prepares citizens to build a new political order from a regained sovereignty.
This regained sovereignty shows the world the new face of Cuba, gradually
replacing the humiliating images of domesticated masses gathering at a public
square.
This new face attracts international sympathy. It allows Cuba's civic
leaders to tell their people, while holding a record of international
achievements: "See how the world supports us when we demand our rights.''
Those who say that the Varela Project merely attempts to democratize
communism are wrong. The Varela Project is a radical movement, because it goes
to the root of the Cuban issue. It mobilizes a lethargic citizenry and breaks
away cleanly from the culture of violence that spawned the Castro regime.
Read it, study the pronouncements of its creators, look at the dynamics of
the movement's nationwide development. Pluralism and a multiparty system are the
very essence of its postulates.
No dictatorship has ever resisted with success the transformations made by a
mobilized civilian society. The countries that have gone through that process
today enjoy the best-guided democracies.
In the face of the communist virus, which erodes the values of the national
body to dominate it, the civic movement represents the antibodies that hope to
restore the natural defenses of any society against the abuse of power. This is
the legacy of civic health that we must leave to the future generations of
Cubans.
Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat is national secretary of the Miami-based
Cuban Democratic Directorate. | 
