By Raúl Rivero (tel: 53 7633232). Reporters
Without Borders -
From your
Cuba correspondent
In the days when Cubans had the right to form political parties –
between 1902 and 1959, when Fidel Castro came to power – there were only
half a dozen of them. Under socialism, such activity is a crime, yet there are
now over 100 groups in existence with various aims and ideologies. Cubans like
to say that when someone decides to oppose the government, they don't join an
existing group but create their own, signing up members of their family and a
few friends.
So despite the strictness of the political police, dozens of tiny political
groups have sprung up in difficult and uncertain conditions and are trying to
operate on a national scale or at regional or neighbourhood level. Many of them
aren't really parties, but just hints of a future civil society. For the last
five years, teachers, engineers, architects and doctors have been working in
this direction.
The institution all the peaceful opposition groups grew out of is the Cuban
Committee for Human Rights. Some of its founders have been forced into exile and
others have died, but the Committee, founded in 1978, continues to operate under
the leadership of Gustavo Arcos Bergnes.
Another leading group is the National Commission for Human Rights and
National Reconciliation, headed by Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz. Like the
Committee, it publicises human rights violations in Cuba and has a permanent
support network for political prisoners staffed by more than 300 people.
Democratic Solidarity, a centre-left political party, is active in nearly
all the country's provinces, while a smaller party of similar views is working
in the capital to encourage discussion and debate. Another, the Christian
Liberation Movement, led by Oswaldo Payá, has branches in several regions
and was recently recognised by the Christian Democrat International.
A few young former Marxist-Leninist teachers have set up the Democratic
Socialist Tendency, which is controversial because it is both harshly attacked
by the government and indirectly and sometimes openly criticised by fellow
regime opponents.
Vladimiro Roca leads the Social Democratic Party, which is supported by
other such parties in the Caribbean but has lost most of its influence since
Roca was jailed in 1997.
Roca was convicted along with three other prominent peaceful opponents of
the regime in March 1999. They are known as "The Group of Four." One
of them was Marta Beatriz Roque, who is now out of prison and heading an
economic research group. The other two are Félix Bonne, founder of a
study group of university teachers, the lawyer René Gómez Manzano,
founder of the Agramontist Tendency, a group of lawyers who for several years
have defended people accused of political crimes.
There are also numerous groups of trade union, ecological and cultural
activists, independent librarians, families of political prisoners, along with
anti-abortion groups, government hostages (people banned from leaving the
country) and families of people who have been exiled from their home towns. The
list is incomplete but the groups could grow and proliferate.
The government, always eager to discredit the enemy, dismisses the
opposition is just a handful of people and accuses them of being in the pay of
the United States. As ever, the authorities claim only they know how to love
Cuba. | 