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Vicki Huddleston. Posted on Thu, Aug. 01, 2002 in
The
Miami Herald.
The path to Cuba's freedom has now been opened by Project Varela. Osvaldo
Payá, its creator, and the 100 dissident groups backing it, collected and
presented to the National Assembly more than 11,000 signatures -- the number
legally required for a referendum. Most Cubans learned of Project Varela when
former President Jimmy Carter endorsed it in his widely broadcast speech urging
democratic reform.
Some say that, because there will be no referendum on the project, it has
failed. Wrong. It has succeeded because people all over Cuba are asking to sign
it and are talking about their rights. They ask for, and we provide, the
speeches of both Presidents Carter and Bush. They are enormously frustrated with
the smallness of their lives. As Payá says, "They are overcoming
their fear, and when that happens, Varela will succeed.''
Once Cubans put their fear aside, they will demand change. Now Project
Varela organizers are calling upon all Cubans everywhere to sign the petition.
Your support will reinforce and validate the efforts of those in Cuba who are
claiming their right to democratic change.
Cuban American National Foundation Chairman Jorge Mas Santos said that the
goal was for CANF to delineate a path to freedom and economic and social
reconstruction of a post-Castro Cuba.
Here are a few principles:
• Support the peaceful opposition in Cuba. By doing so, you will build
up forces for change that even now are loosening the bonds of fear, that for too
long have held hostage the Cuban people. Your support would encompass all
legitimate dissidents. Félix Bonne, a dissident leader, told me that
''Cuba now has a right, left and center.'' This mean that Cuba has an
independent, thoughtful opposition that has divergent views across the political
spectrum. But to succeed, these groups must represent their constituents in Cuba
and avoid becoming captives of supporters abroad.
The groups forming Todos Unidos have made it a rule not to express views on
the embargo, because this is a matter between the U.S. and the Cuban
governments, not between the Cuban opposition and the Cuban people. A wise
decision. We must avoid using these brave individuals to validate our views or
polices.
The world has taken too long to recognize the courage of Cuba's dessidents.
One reason is that it has focused not on internal repression but on U.S. policy.
Finally this is being overcome with the welcome nominations of Payá and
Gustavo Arcos, another dissident, for Nobel prizes.
Not only is the dissident movement growing in Cuba; so, too, is civil
society. Dissidents Marta Beatriz Roque, René Gómez Manzano and
Bonne are organizing for early 2003 an assembly of more than 240 groups to
review ways to grow civil society. Independent journalists, librarians,
physicians and farmers hope to attend.
• Improve the lives of Cubans and prepare them for self-governance.
President John F. Kennedy proclaimed that ''those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.'' You have the means to make
it a peaceful revolution.
The late Jorge Mas Canosa was committed to getting impartial and timely
information into Cuba through Radio and TV Martí. He was right. The power
of information and ideas will assure the Cuban people of winning Fidel Castro's
''battle of ideas.'' More Cubans are gaining access to information via TV,
radios, e-mail, Internet, books, newspapers and magazines. Yes, the government
still controls the media, but control is eroding.
You can speed up this process by encouraging people to put transistor
radios, Spanish-language magazines, newspapers and books in humanitarian
shipments. If everyone is doing this, it becomes very difficult to confiscate
these packages as so many Cubans rely upon them. Every Cuban American can do
something to help prepare friends and family in Cuba for a peaceful transition.
• Provide a positive vision of the future. If Cubans believe that the
future will be better than the present, they will opt for change. Given the
shrinking economy and the lack of freedoms, it should not be difficult to
convince them that they have everything to gain.
You can help Cuba's 11 million people make the best choices by taking away
fear and letting them make decisions about their future. As our greatest
president said, democracy is a government ''of the people, by the people and for
the people.'' Abraham Lincoln had the love and patience to bind the wounds of
our nation, and so, too, must you lead in reconciling division and creating a
positive vision of Cuba's future.
You will have to have a greatness of spirit to support, but not control. If
there is to be democracy in Cuba, Cubans on the island must make the decisions.
Cubans on the island need and want your support. If you empower them, you will
ensure an enduring friendship.
Vicki Huddleston is the outgoing chief of the U.S. Interests Section in
Havana. This column is excerpted from her recent speech before the Cuban
American National Foundation. | 
