Madrid/Part of the Cuban exile in Miami met this Monday in the Varela room of the Hermitage of La Caridad to meet a new opposition alliance called the Liberation Agreement. The presentation was given by Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, and Rosa María Payá, who has the same position within Pasos de Cambio (a platform of which Cuba Decide is a part).
Both have now joined together in this proposal for “the liberation and consolidation of a comprehensive plan for the reestablishment of Democracy and the Rule of Law in Cuba, constituting a democratic alternative for Cubans and offering a viable framework for national reconstruction,” the organizers maintain.
Payá, member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and daughter of the late Orlando Payá, was interviewed in the previous hours by the Spanish newspaper The Worldto whom she told, excitedly, that this time she does trust in an imminent change in Cuba. “The Berlin Wall of our times is now tearable,” he said.
The opponent defends, throughout this conversation, the role of organizations abroad as unifying elements that help manage a system change. In the last two years, he assures, his NGO has been working with six documents prepared by different platforms to prepare a guide to phases that involve the liberation, stabilization, transition and, finally, democratization of the country.
In addition, he said, there is another team dedicated exclusively to promoting economic recovery, which in his opinion is urgent, although not as urgent as political change. And it also deals with the strategy of a team that can lead Cuba’s economic recovery. “If we Cubans understand something very clearly, it is who is responsible for the misery in Cuba and it is the responsibility of the Castro family and the group of generals that is in power and that manages that power from an intelligence apparatus, which is also a repressive apparatus. The worst of all crises is the political crisis, which keeps hundreds of people in prison for political reasons simply for the exercise of saying what they think or trying to survive,” he declares.
Payá considers that the United States is the most relevant international actor when it comes to “helping the Cuban people” at this time and is also the one who thanks that the perspective of change is more real today than in the last 67 years. “The people who are in power have weapons and are willing to use them against the unarmed people. Given this reality, international pressure is also necessary, which has changed qualitatively based on the actions of the US Government, both to weaken the network of support that came from authoritarianism towards the Cuban regime, such as subsidies from Venezuela, to direct sanctions on the Cuban repressors,” he emphasizes.
However, he also believes that “it is not up to the United States to define, nor do I think it is seeking to define or direct the Cuban people.” In that sense, Payá also responds to the possibility that the aforementioned conversations between Washington and Havana include a Delcy Cuban, something that he considers practically a fact, as well as the certainty that those people – from within the regime – will have to be dealt with.
“Of course, you will have to work with the people who operate these existing structures to definitively transform them. That is why the process has phases and that is why it is called transition. It is not that tomorrow there will be free elections in Cuba, but we will have a calendar so that there will be once we can transform the State and guarantee rights and freedoms so that the elections take place,” he admits. However, he calls to speak with the White House when asked if it is Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson of Raúl Castro, with whom the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is dealing.
Payá pointed out in the interview that “the change of system in Cuba involves forcing a military group to submit to the sovereign will of the citizens.”
Payá has pointed out in the interview that “the change of system in Cuba involves forcing a military group to submit to the sovereign will of the citizens” and that process requires, precisely, that they mobilize. He understands, however, that the regime continues to repress, as demonstrated by the arrest of the influencers by El4ticoand therefore urges the international community to strongly support a democratizing process in Cuba.
“The fact that Cubans physically disappear from the Island (almost two million have fled since 11J, most of them young) is like the ultimate metaphor of communism and what this regime means that demolishes the souls and bodies of human beings. This is very concrete, this is very literal and it is devastating. That is why it is the sense of urgency: Cubans are so clear that the only way out of the crisis is the way out of the dictatorship,” he claims.
The initiative presented this Monday was attended by members of different organizations who signed the agreement, once the initial speeches were concluded. Just two weeks ago, Cubans from inside and outside the Island also signed the “Agreement for a free Cuba”, an initiative promoted by civil organizations with one objective: to demand the end of the dictatorship and a transition to democracy.
That document urged, among other things, to create a group “in charge of laying the foundations for a process of truth, justice, memory and reconciliation, which coordinates the main aspects of the transitional period.” More than a hundred people, including economists, writers and artists, signed the proposal.
