Madrid Spain.- The citizen group Change Now! issued a statement demanding that “the oligarchic group abandon power in Cuba”, as the best way out for the Island to come out of the deep crisis that goes through
The text points out that there is a national consensus on who is responsible for this crisis: “a small group of people, an autocratic power elite who must unconditionally demand their immediate removal from power.”
“Change can and must be non-violent. (…) The Cuban people is only one and we have the human resources, the talent, the initiative, the global relations and the financial resources to achieve a prosperous Cuba for the good of all. Between all of us, we can build the Cuba that we deserve”, highlights the statement.
We reproduce the full statement below.
CHANGE NOW!
We are Cubans of different beliefs, personal experiences, genders, professions, races. We are united by the conviction that it is time for change for the reconstruction of the country with everyone and for the good of all. We want to share our common convictions with the Cuban nation. We feel that for Cuba this is a time of personal decisions of great importance, and we want to help identify ideas, unite wills and thus facilitate the process of collective and effective actions that this time calls for.
Where we are? In a society with large sectors of poverty, with water, health, education and transportation services in ruins, with a million-dollar housing deficit. Ours is a town plagued with fines and unaffordable prices for basic services and food. But in the country the lack of basic freedoms of thought, expression and organization prevent the transformation, agreed and non-violent, towards an open, free and prosperous society. In 1959, in the middle of the last century, freedom was promised with bread and bread without terror. In 2022, in the second decade of the 21st century, there is no bread and terror abounds against those who demand it. There is no way to make up that reality with speeches and doctrines.
We must leave that past behind by agreeing on how to enter the future we deserve right now. Yes, our future. We do not have to continue begging inside or seeking outside the country what is rightfully ours. What is at stake in this year 2022 is the future of all Cubans, not just that of a few families.
Who block the development of the productive forces with absurd laws, crush dreams, disregard the basic needs of citizens, repress freedom, make misery grow and push tens of thousands to emigrate to escape that daily death?
Who persecute free thought, art and the very essence of freedom, killing, torturing, imprisoning and banishing our brothers?
Why not invest in the priority needs of national development? In whose name are the shares of the GAESA companies, why does nobody audit their accounts, why are their headquarters and bank accounts located in other countries while the companies they have in Cuba are legally their “branches”?
Who traffics our doctors, exposes them to dangers to their safety, snatches 80% of their salaries and forces them to work as informants against their own patients, while their absence is felt in our hospitals?
Who squandered billions of Soviet subsidies for three decades on overseas military adventures, internal repression, and continue to do so today on half-empty luxury hotels instead of investing them in immediately protecting the people’s energy and food security?
We know the answer: it is “they”. Barely a thousand people who have appropriated the royal power and the country for their enrichment. “They” are the ones left over.
“They” are the same ones that since July 11 of last year have installed judicial and police terror to suppress the protests and now face the fact that the people continue to demand freedom every day throughout the country that they plunged into an economic crisis. and humanitarian of great proportions. The same ones that today disguise themselves with humanitarian arguments against the famine and catastrophes that they created. Those who use their international apparatus of agents of influence, propaganda and lobbying in the US and Europe to lift sanctions so they can continue to enrich themselves and repress citizens. The best humanitarian aid to the Cuban people is to consistently support them in their struggle for a democratic society, with political and economic freedoms based on the rule of law.
The new Cuba will belong to everyone and for everyone, without distinction of skin, creed, ideology or opinion, the Cuba that we will build together; because Cubans are Cubans in Havana and Pinar del Río, in Miami or New York, in Tokyo or Madrid.
We are a transnational society broken into pieces by the current system. Those who broke our families, prevented all contact between them for many years and still treat us as second-class citizens, present exile as a focus of hatred that awaits the moment to snatch away the people’s homes, schools and health centers. Today it is clear that they have turned those services into ruins and what now sustains the economy of many families in Cuba are the remittances sent by their relatives from abroad. The same ones that still require a “permission” to be able to visit the country where they were born. We Cubans do not need reconciliation preached to us. We are reconciled.
There is no law or intention to reclaim schools or hospitals, that is an old propaganda lie. Those of us who are abroad will help rebuild these services and build the million homes that are needed.
We can reunify and rebuild the great Cuban nation, not in 20 years, nor in 50. In just 5 years, Cuba will be another. Once political and economic freedoms are guaranteed, economists and experts calculate that around 5,000 million dollars, from Cubans abroad alone, will be injected in the first year into micro, medium and large family businesses on the island. They will add significant investments from other countries and people of other nationalities.
The Cuban people is only one and we have the human resources, the talent, the initiative, the global relations and the financial resources to achieve a prosperous Cuba for the good of all. Between all of us, we can build the Cuba that we deserve. All, with the exception of the current autocratic oligarchy and its unconditional repressors, fit into this change. We include and call to join the military, militants and honest officials to this just demand for bread and freedom.
The autocratic elite that has disregarded the needs of the people must leave power now. It’s time for the people.
Change can and should be non-violent. Whoever opposes it, whatever his justification, will suffer the consequences of his irresponsibility. There are several historical experiences of changes that have occurred with minimal or no violence and where space was found for all those who cooperated in opening doors to the necessary change.
As people of peace, but always irreducible in the face of the blackmail, pressure and violence of our oppressors, we announce our willingness to start working together with all the people and sectors that can contribute to rapid and solid change at the same time. Soon we will collect your ideas to reflect together.
Women, men, young, old, white, black, on the island and in exile. Today, We are One! Together we can achieve the free, prosperous and independent Cuba that all Cubans deserve.
- General Rafael Del Pino
- Carlos Alberto Montaner. writer, journalist
- Rolando Cartaya. Independent journalist, former political prisoner. Founding member of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights
- Mario Felix Llerena. Baptist Pastor
- Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, Dr. in Biological Sciences, ecologist, farmer, prisoner of conscience
- Emily Morales. Entrepreneur
- Jorge Sanguinetty. PhD in Economics
- Magdelidia Hidalgo. activist and peasant
- Anamely Ramos. Art history teacher and activist
- Sayy Gonzalez. Entrepreneur and activist
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