THE SEVENTH SUMMIT OF THE AMERICAS 2015

Panama City

Panama

According to World Report 2014: Cuba | Human Rights Watch, 

 

 “The Cuban government continues to repress individuals and groups who criticize the government or call for basic human rights. Officials employ a range of tactics to punish dissent and instill fear in the public, including beatings, public acts of shaming, termination of employment and threats of long-term imprisonment.”

En los siete años que lleva Raúl Castro como dictador designado, se han producido más de 200 casos de muertes y desapariciones, de ellos 166 documentados; 15 homicidios extrajudiciales; 86 presos han fallecido por denegación de asistencia médica; 46 presos se han suicidado; y 4 presos fallecieron por huelga de hambre -probablemente la única forma de protesta que les queda a los prisioneros, por los tratos inhumanos y degradantes a que son sometidos: Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Wilman Villar Mendoza, Yordanis Ballagas Ramírez y Roberto Antonio Rivalta Junco.

 

El amplio reconocimiento internacional a la dictadura de los hermanos Castro no ha provocado una mejoría en materia de derechos humanos, todo lo contrario, como lo demuestran las6.424detenciones arbitrarias por motivos políticos documentadas el pasado año 2013.

 

El domingo 10 de agosto de 2014 le envié el primer correo al presidente de Panamá con relación a la Cumbre de las Américas, porque su Gobierno invitará a la dictadura de los hermanos Castro para que participe en la Cumbre que se realizará en el Istmo en abril de 2015.

 

La información que tengo es que hay poderosos intereses políticos y económicos detrás de la invitación a la Cuba castristaPor ello, les he explicado exhaustivamente al presidente de Panamá, a Ramón Fonseca Mora y Milton Henríquez -presidentes de los partidos Panameñista y Popular- y a Teresita Yániz -veterana líder de los democristianos panameños, que nació y se crió en Cuba-, que es ilegal la invitación hecha por el Gobierno de Panamá a la tiranía cubana, para que participe en la Cumbre de las Américas. Por ejemplo, la Carta Democrática Interamericana y la Declaración de Québec –documentos emitidos por “los Jefes de Estado y de Gobierno de las Américas elegidos democráticamente”- establecen explícitamente que los estados no democráticos no pueden participar en la Cumbre de las Américas.

 

De los correos remitidos al presidente de Panamá les he enviado copia abierta a: el Vaticano, las más altas autoridades estadounidenses, parlamentarios del Continente americano y la Internacional Demócrata del Centro, así como a la prensa nacional e internacional.

 

Considero que hay que evitar la participación de la dictadura comunista en la Cumbre de las Américas. De producirse, en Cuba tendremos tiranía por un siglo; al pueblo de Cuba la reunión de Panamá le saldría muy mal en todos los terrenos, a los hermanos Castro les saldría muy bien. Poderoso caballero es Don Dinero.

8,012 political arrests in Cuba

during the first ten months of this year

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights (CCHR) has documented 413 political arrests by the Castro regime during the month of October 2014.


This bring the total number of political arrests during the first ten months of this year to
8,012. These are only political arrests that have been thoroughly documented. Many more are suspected.


In just ten months, these 8,012 political arrests nearly quadruple the year-long tally of 2,074 political arrests in 2010.


To provide further perspective, since the Obama Administration began its efforts in 2009 to unilaterally ease sanctions and engage Castro’s dictatorship, political arrests have nearly quadrupled --and at this monthly rate, will more than quadruple by year’s end.


The Castro regime clearly feels it’s enjoying
a high-level of impunity.


You know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, why do you think that Cuba is a democratic state?

 

President Varela, I repeat the fifteen emails that I sent to you in relation to the Summit of the Americas.

 

I just want you to answer my questions. Can you answer my questions please?

 

Thanking you in advance for your attention, 

José Martí:

Cuando un pueblo emigra, sus gobernantes sobran.

77,000 Cubans have died

trying to escape from communism

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

In October 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution gave birth to the deadliest regime type in history –communism. In less than 100 years, communism has claimed more than 100 million lives on four continents. There are really only two communist countries left, Cuba and North Korea. The exodus from North Korea began in the mid-1990s. The exodus from Cuba began in 1960.

 

Teresita Yániz, veteran leader of Panamanian Christian Democrats, was one of the Cubans that escapedfrom Castro’s Cuba with the help of the Catholic Church. I’m negatively surprised with her silence. The veteran leader of Panamanian Christian Democrats does not have the right to complicit silence about the invitation of Panama’s government to Cuban dictatorshipto attend VII Summit of the Americas. Teresita Yániz know that it is illegal and immoral, and against the democratic principles, because the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas, and it will be an offense to the Cuban people.

 

President Varela, a half-century after continue the exodus of Cubans. In the last year some 39,000 Cubans emigrated, some 20,000 legally and the rest without official permission. According to a New York Times report published in print yesterday,

 

More Cubans took to the sea last year than in any year since 2008, when Raúl Castro officially took power and the nation hummed with anticipation. Some experts fear that the recent spike in migration could be a harbinger of a mass exodus, and they caution that the unseaworthy vessels have already left a trail of deaths.

 

A version of this article appears in print on October 10, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Rickety Boats, Cuban Migrants Again Flee to U.S.

 

In the 55 years later more than hundred thousand (100,000) Cubans have died victims of the communism. It is the horrific legacy of the dictatorshipimplanted by Fidel and Raúl Castro. What do you think of it?

 

For decades many people around the world have died trying to escape from communism. For example, during the history of the Berlin Wall (from 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989), at least 136 people died trying to cross from East to West Berlin.

 

Over the last half century, more than seventy-seven thousand (77,000) Cubans have died trying to escape from Castro’s Cuba in flimsy boats and homemade rafts, while hundreds of thousands more have completed the journey, many of them in mass migrations in 1965, 1980 and 1994.

 

Cubans were born in 138 countries during the last decade. The migration from Cuba has expanded to countries other than the United States: 300,000 Cubans were living outside Cuba and the United States.

 

Although the United States has been intercepting illegal immigrants from Cuba since twenty years ago, and an unknown number died trying to reach U. S., Cuban exodus persists. The United States Coast Guard spotted 3,722 Cubans in the past year, almost double the number who were intercepted in 2012. Under the migration accord signed after the 1994 crisis, those captured at sea are sent back to Cuba.

 

According to a New York Times article,

 

Every day at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m., somebody died,” Mr. La O said… Nine people, including a pregnant woman, died and were thrown overboard, and six more got on inner tubes and disappeared before the Mexican Navy rescued the survivors, Mr. Sánchez said. Two more died at shore. Mr. La O said he survived by drinking urine and spearing fish.

 

President Varela, I invite you to read the whole New York Times report.

 

Cuba’s Castro is the only dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. Besides, the Castro brothers continue to support terrorism. Castro’s Cuba still on U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

 

A quarter century after of the collapse of the Soviet Empire -called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) or simply the Soviet Union by communists themselves-, and the end of the Cold War, the Castro regime is still in power. Cubans around the world constantly affixed our sights to Cuba and planned for how to achieve a free, democratic Cuba. Despite our efforts, the Castro brothers are maintaining in power, enjoying a life of luxury that most Cubans can’t even imagine, lording over the Cuban people.

 

As you know, Cuba is a totalitarian communist state headed by General Raúl Castro Ruz. My homeland is suffering a fierce and painful dictatorship. It is not a politic problem, it is a human problem, a issue that every human must pay attention to it. Unfortunately, many people around the world see Castro’s Cuba as a symbol of ‘resistance to imperialism’, and the entire world see Cuba as a beautiful tourist destination, while countless Cubans have died and continue to die trying to escape of totalitarian tyranny.

 

Why Panama’s Government persists in invite to the well-known narco-trafficker Raúl Castro Ruz to the Summit of the Americas? You know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, this action of the Government of Panama is illegal and against the democratic principles. I am very upset with this conduct. I think that it is an insult to the Cuban people, because it will strengthen to the Cuban dictatorship. Will continue the physical destruction and the anthropological damage caused to my homeland, and will continue the exodus of my compatriots, because they do want their children born in a free country not a police state.


It will be an offense to the Cuban people that the democratically elected presidents applaud the West’s only dictator -which is what Gen. Raúl Castro Ruz is, by any dictionary’s definition-, especiallyif you take in consideration that the Summit of the Americas has among its top goals promoting democracy in the region.

 

President Varela, why you not invite Cuban democracy activists to Summit of the Americas? For example, invite Juan Carlos González Leiva. As you know, one month agothe blind Cuban democracy activist exposes brutality of Castro regime at the United Nations Human Rights Council,

 

 Il Cenacolo gave the floor to a blind Cuban lawyer who spoke about beatings and arbitrary detention and being held without trial because he had held a human rights congress. He also spoke about torture and ill treatment of other human rights defenders and political activists by Cuban State security agents.

 

Besides, you know that Fidel Castroseverely damaged the Panamanian people. He supported Noriega knowing full well that he was a dictator Papa Doc Duvalier style: corrupt and cruel”. I repeat to you my invitation to read The process of political protest in Panama, 1968-1989, by Brittmarie Janson Pérez.

 

President Varela, this is the fifteenth time that I explain to you why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas. Why do you persist in prolonging the tragedy suffered by the Cuban people since more than half century ago?

 

President Varela, I remind to you  these  words  of Martin Luther King,

 

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.

 

I just want you to answer my questions. Can you answer my questions please?

Sen. Rubio:

Summit of the Americas should exclude Cuba

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a possible Republican presidential hopeful in 2016, wrote to you on Monday, asking you to cancel an invitation to the Summit of the Americas which Panama hosts in 2015.

 

In a letter to you, President Varela, Rubio highlighted the Cuban regime’s appalling record of human rights abuses, and argued that Cuba’s participation in Panama would undermine the credibility of the Summit, which aims to promote and defend democratic rule in the hemisphere.

 

The Cuban regime’s record of human rights abuses and violations of international law are not matters open for debate, but undeniable and appalling facts,” wrote Rubio. “Therefore, Cuba’s participation in the Summit of the Americas in Panama will undermine its credibility and have grave consequences for the region’s consensus to promote and defend democratic rule.

 

I urge you to avoid this outcome, and instead work with the Cuban people to support their demands for a democratic future for their country,” Rubio added.

 

President Varela, a PDF of the letter is available here. The full text of the letter is below:

 

October 6, 2014

 

His Excellency Juan Carlos Varela
Palacio de las Garzas
Eloy Alfaro Avenue
Panama City, Panama

 

Dear President Varela:

 

Congratulations on your recent election.  I look forward to working with your government to deepen our nations’ historical relations, and advance our shared interests in a democratic, prosperous and secure Western Hemisphere.  To that end, I deeply regret your government’s invitation for Cuba’s authoritarian regime to participate in the VII Summit of the Americas to be held in Panama.

 

Over the last three decades, the Western Hemisphere has gone through a remarkable transformation.  Free markets, open economies and transparent governments accountable to the people through regular and free elections have become the norm; while security cooperation against transnational criminal activities is taking hold.  Much of this consensus has been enshrined in the declarations of previous Summits and in the commitment of each member of the Organization of American States to govern democratically in accordance to the Inter-American Democratic Charter.  By any measure, the actions of the Cuban regime stand in stark contrast to these principles and obligations.

 

The Cuban people have been denied the right to freely choose their government for more than 55 years, and Cuba’s one-party regime enjoys the dubious distinction of having the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere.  The regime routinely uses beatings, violent mobs, long-term imprisonment and arbitrary arrests to silence its critics, human rights defenders, and independent journalists.  The Cuban regime remains the Hemisphere’s only U.S.-designated State Sponsor of Terrorism, and just last year it was caught attempting to use the Panama Canal to illicitly transfer military equipment and weapons to North Korea in violation of multiple United Nations’ Security Council resolutions.

 

The Cuban regime’s record of human rights abuses and violations of international law are not matters open for debate, but undeniable and appalling facts.  Therefore, Cuba’s participation in the Summit of the Americas in Panama will undermine its credibility and have grave consequences for the region’s consensus to promote and defend democratic rule.  I urge you to avoid this outcome, and instead work with the Cuban people to support their demands for a democratic future for their country.

 

Sincerely,

***********************

President Varela, I believe that a thoughtful analysis of the Cuban situation and of the true nature of the Castro’s dictatorship is imperative.For two months I have made every effort to explain you it. Why do you think that Cuba is a democratic state?

 

I repeat to you my invitation to watch the videos that show the killing of children by Cuban tyranny.

 

You know that Cuba is suffering a fierce and painful tyranny that keeps to the Cuban people in misery. I repeat to you my invitation to watch the videos that show the misery that suffers the Cuban people.

 

Besides, to you know that Fidel Castroseverely damaged the Panamanian people. He supported Noriega knowing full well that he was a dictator Papa Doc Duvalier style: corrupt and cruel”. I repeat to you my invitation to read The process of political protest in Panama, 1968-1989, by Brittmarie Janson Pérez, a Panamanian anthropologist.

 

President Varela, why the Government of Panama persists in will play hosts to the well-known narco-trafficker Raúl Castro Ruz?

 

You know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

I just want you to answer my questions. Can you answer my questions please?

Freedom of speech

continues to be forbidden by Cuba’s Government

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

As you know, Cuba is a totalitarian communist state headed by General Raúl Castro. Its characteristics are:

 

1- Elaborate guiding ideology.

   

2- Single mass party, led by a dictator. Eight years ago Raúl Castro assumed power inherited from his brother Fidel. The Castro brothers’have tyrannized over Cuba for 55 years.

   

3- System of terror, using such instruments as violence and secret police.

   

4- Monopoly on weapons.

   

5- Monopoly on the means of communication.

   

6- Monopoly on education. The brainwashing begins in kindergarten.

 

7- Central direction and control of the economy through state planning.

 

President Varela, what do you think of it?

 

I remind to you that four years ago, the Chilean senator Isabel Allende, daughter of toppled president Salvador Allende, supported the statement of the deputies of his party, the Socialist Party, which calls on the Cuban authorities to release prisoners of conscience. The senator Allende declared:

 

The freedoms of opinion, association and assembly were freedoms that we fought in the Socialist Party and we will always fight. Would that actually be a reaction from the Cuban authorities and understand that the world today condemns societies that do not respect the right to freedom of opinion”.

 

President Varela, what has changed in Cuba? Yesterday, on October 5th, Catalina Botero finalized her mandate as Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commssion on Human Rights (IACHR). Botero declared:  In Cuba “there is no freedom of expression, is not guaranteed in any form”.

 

I remind to you that in reprisal for my complaints the Cuban military regime has not given me a new passport, so I can not leave Panama. President Varela, I repeat to you my petition for that Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister, Isabel de Saint Malo, call to Cuba’s Ambassador in Panama.You will do?

 

You know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, why do you think that Cuba is a democratic state?

 

I just want you to answer my questions. Can you answer my questions please?

More of 20 Ladies in White were detained today

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

As you know, although the Ladies in White (Spanish: Damas de Blanco) were awarded with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament in 2005, they face frequent acts of harassment and detentions before or after attending Mass.

 

Today, Sunday 5 October, more of20 Ladies in White were detained in the Cuban provinces of Matanzas, Holguin and Santiago de Cuba.

 

President Varela, while you are attending Mass in Panama, in the province of Matanzas, 100 km from Havana, Cuba, 19 Ladies in White were detained for doing what you do:

 

1- Caridad Burunate Gómez

2- Maira García Álvarez

3- Tania Echeverría Menéndez

4- Yenisleydis Millo González

5- Yudaimis Fernández Martínez

6- Lázara Rodríguez Roteta

7- Zaida Hernández Rubí

8- Odalis Hernández Hernández

9- Yamila Sendra Ruiz

10- Mercedes la Guardia Hernàndez

11- Marisol Hernández Socorro

12- Leticia Ramos Herrería

13- Katiuska Rodríguez Rives

14- Amada Rosa Herrería Rodríguez

15- Merle Ramona Álvarez Leiva

16- Annia Zamora Carmenate

17- Niurvis la Rosa Hernández

18- Yanetsis Carmona Olivera.

19- Aleida Cofiño Rivero.

 

It is unknown how many Ladies in White were detained today in the provinces of Holguin and Santiago de Cuba.

 

President Varela, what do you think of it?

 

You know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, why do you think that Cuba is a democratic state?

 

I just want you to answer my questions. Can you answer my questions please?

The eighth commandment

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

I remind to you that according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church,

 

The eighth commandment forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. This moral prescription flows from the vocation of the holy people to bear witness to their God who is the truth and wills the truth. Offenses against the truth express by word or deed a refusal to commit oneself to moral uprightness: they are fundamental infidelities to God and, in this sense, they undermine the foundations of the covenant.

 

A month ago, on September 8, I to you asked:

 

Why the Government of Panama misrepresents information?

 

On 7 September was published that the Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister, Isabel de Saint Malo, said: “The Governments of the United States and Canada ‘understand’ that Cuba participate” in 2015 Summit of the Americas. “We hope to be hosting 34 heads of state, including President Obama and Mr. Raúl Castro”, declared the Panama’s Vice President.

 

President Varela, you know that the United States government disapproves Panama’s plans to invite the Cuban communist dictatorship to the Summit of the Americas. I repeat to you my invitation to read the statements of Jen Psaki. In Daily Press Briefing on 2 September, a journalist asked to the spokesman of the United States Department of State: 

 

The Secretary is meeting with Panama’s vice president. Panama recently extended an invitation to Cuba to attend the Americas Summit in 2015, and this is the first such invitation for Cuba in a number of years. Does the State Department have any response?

 

The spokesman of the United States Department of State said:

 

Well, as I understand it, it was an announcement of intention to invite. I would refer you to the Government of Panama for any questions regarding formal invitations.

 

We – from here, our view is that at the 2001 Summit of the Americas, all participating governments agreed to consensus that ‘The maintenance and strengthening of the rule of law and strict respect for the democratic system are at the same time a goal and a shared commitment and are an essential condition of our presence at this and future summits.’ So we should not undermine commitments previously made, but should instead encourage – and this is certainly our effort – the democratic changes necessary for Cuba to meet the basic qualifications. But of course, we look forward to the day when all 35 countries in the region can participate in the summit process”.

 

President Varela, did you understand now or shall I explain more?

 

President Varela, for all the above reasons, which are clearly explained in my email, to you should be not surprising that the United States reaffirmed a week ago (September 26) its opposition to Cuba’s participation in the Summit of the Americas, on grounds that only “democratic” countries should attend.

 

Two days ago, October 1, U.S. Senator Robert Menéndez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to you regarding his intent to invite Cuba to the April 2015 Summit of the Americas. In the letter, the Chairman wrote:

 

Cuba’s participation would undermine the spirit and authority of the Summit of the Americas … The Government of Cuba remains this hemisphere’s must enduring dictatorship, having deprived the people of Cuba of democratic rule for more than a half century. To this day, the Cuban Government continues to deny its citizens their most fundamental political and human rights, and criminalizes all forms of free expression, free association, and dissent in the country.”

 

President Varela, the obvious lies told by the Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister, Isabel de Saint Malo, it is a flagrant violation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Why do you kept silent?

 

Besides, you know that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas. President Varela, why do you think that Cuba is a democratic state? Can you answer my question please?

Blind lawyer denounces

tortures committed by the Castro dictatorship

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

It is only one of the latest formal accusations of tortureperpetrated by the Castro brothers’ regime against members of the opposition -it has been commonpractice since more than half century ago. For example, I invite you to read this whole report. I invite you to watch the videos, too, that show to the victims denouncing the atrocities committed by the Cuban military regime: video 1, video 2 and video 3.

 

This is the tenth time that I explain to you why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

Blind Cuban democracy activist Juan Carlos González Leiva spoketwo weeks agoat the United Nations Human Rights Council: “Il Cenacolo gave the floor to a blind Cuban lawyer who spoke about beatings and arbitrary detention and being held without trial because he had held a human rights congress. He also spoke about torture and ill treatment of other human rights defenders and political activists by Cuban State security agents.”

 

President Varela it is very important, because describe the tortures and abuses that has been subjected a blind lawyer, so please read the whole speech:

 

United Nations Human Rights Council
September 15, 2014

 

I am Juan Carlos González Leiva, spent 20 years as a blind lawyer defending human rights, suffering beatings, arbitrary arrests and organized mobs. From March 4, 2002 to April 26, 2004, was detained in the Police Center of Pedernales, Holguín, without trial, for celebrating a congress about human rights. There, systematically they sprayed chemical substances over me that burned my skin and occasioned hallucinations, strong headaches and allergies.

I was confined without access to the press, telephone, correspondence, or religious assistance. Murderous prisoners threatened me and prevented me from sleeping night and day. In my cell were left exposed electric cables with current.


Human rights defenders in my country are victims of a constant policy of repression.


For example: In 2014 I was
beaten together with 10 activists in the street. Agents dislocated my left leg and right shoulder and I lost consciousness when they applied a choke hold. Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez” and his wife Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera were arrested, beaten and transferred to the local police headquarters where Antúnez was placed in a choke hold losing consciousness several times and was injected by state security agents with an unknown substance. His home was invaded and sacked.

Other activists arbitrarily detained and beaten were: José Daniel Ferrer García, Yusmila Reina Ferrera, Geobanis Izaguirre Hernández and Ernesto Ortiz Betancourt.

I ask the United Nations protection for me and all the activists inside Cuba because soon I will return to my country to continue defending human rights.

**************************************

President Varela the Castro regime’s delegation interrupted blind Cuban democracy activist three times.

 

President Varela, have you read the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter?

 

President Varela, have you read the Declaration of Quebec City?

 

President Varela if you have read at least 1 of these documents, you know that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, do you think that Cuba is a democratic state? Can you answer my question please?

 

This is the tenth time that I explain to you why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, I repeat the nine emails that I sent to you in relation to the Summit of the Americas.

Ongoing violations and abuses

of human rights in Cuba.

Cuban police made at least 7,188 political arrests until August

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

This is the ninth time that I explain to you why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

In August the Cuban police and security forces did make at least 632 politically-motivated arrests. At least 138 opponents were physically attacked and 19 suffered acts of repudiation. I invite you to read here the whole report, and details of each arrest recorded in August.

 

Today, Sunday September 28, 2014, were arrested the independent journalists Bernardo Arévalo Padrón and Alberto Sánchez Martiatu, who were to cover the abuses suffered by the Ladies in White (Spanish: Damas de Blanco).It is only the latest in a series of politically-motivated arrests of Cuban independent journalists. For instance, three weeks ago, on Tuesday 9 September, Reporters Without Borders published: Independent journalist arrested, pressured to leave Cuba.

 

President Varela, I invite you to read an excerptfrom the testimony of CPJ Americas program coordinator Suzanne Bilello before the U.N. Human Rights Commission on Aug. 27. She offered similar testimony at a joint hearing of the Congressional Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights and the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on June 27”.

 

As you know, although the Ladies in White were awarded with the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament in 2005, they face frequent harassment and detentions before or after attending Mass.

 

President Varela, I repeat to you my invitation to watch the videos that show the repression of the Castro regime to Ladies in White: video 1 and video 2

 

President Varela, as you know, the arbitrary detention of critics of the regime has increased in recent years. The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and Reconciliation (CCHRNR) documented

6,424 in 2013

6,602 in 2012

4,123 in 2011

2,074 in 2010

 

I invite you to read, too,human rights abuses in Cuba.

 

President Varela, you know that Cuba is the only Western country without any free elections in 66 years. It is also the only Western country where it has been illegal to be a member of the opposition since 1960, that is, for more than half century!

 

Besides, you know that in Cuba the brainwashing begins in kindergarten: Children across the country begin each school day with the chant “Pioneers for Communism, We will be like Che!” I repeat to you my invitation to watch the videos that show the children primary target in Cuba brainwashing.

 

President Varela, if you know the damage that causes the dictatorship of the Castro brothers, why the Government of Panama helps to maintain to the longest dictatorship in the history of the West?

 

President Varela, I remind to you that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, I repeat the eightemails that I sent to you in relation to the Summit of the Americas.Can you answer my request please?

Why Castro’s Cuba

has continued to spy in United States?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo will begin an official visit tomorrow to Cuba, with the aim of promoting the participation of the tyranny of the Castro brothers at the Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Panama in April of 2015.

 

Why the Government of Panama persists in to help the communist dictatorship? You know why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas. Besides, has continued the Castro espionage in the United States.

 

Despite the fact that as many as 25 years have passed since the cold war ended, the Cuban intelligence have persisted, with great priority, spying the U.S. government. This is an issue of concern to United States, considering the fact that the information that the Cuban intelligence accesses can be as well accessed by the U.S adversaries. For example, the Islamist extremists.

 

The Castro brothers maintain one of its largest intelligence networks within United States. For example, two weeks ago —on September 2, 2014— the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unveiled this report, which said,

 

The academic world —primarily defined as schools, colleges, universities, and research institutes— provides a fertile environment in which foreign intelligence services can operate. Consequently, the Cuban intelligence services (CuIS) are known to actively target the US academic world for the purposes of recruiting agents, in order to both obtain useful information and conduct influence activities.

   
Conclusion of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:

 

Academia has been and remains a key target of foreign intelligence services, including the CuIS. The CuIS actively target academia to recruit agents and to support Cuban influence operations. Unfortunately, part of what makes academic environments ideal for enhancing and sharing knowledge also can assist the efforts of foreign intelligence services to accomplish their objectives. This situation is unlikely to change, but awareness of the methods used to target academia can greatly assist in neutralizing the efforts of these foreign intelligence services.

 

President Varela, I invite you to read the report Cuban Intelligence Targeting of Academia. The Castro espionage machine is a formidable one, and those who choose to ignore it put the security of the United States in dire risk.

 

In the last two decades Cuba’s intelligence services have aggressively targeted the U.S. government and the Cuban émigré community. Five examples illustrate this point:

 

1- In the mid-1990s, the FBI dismantled a network of Cuban agents operating in South Florida. The second in rank was the Cuban intelligence Major, Ramón Labañino Salazar, who was my student at the University of Havana in the first half of the eighties. Some of these agents infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban exile organization that flew aircraft over the Florida straits to rescue rafters fleeing Cuba. In 1996, the Cuban government shot down two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft over international airspace, killing four individuals. Prior to the shoot-down, the Cuban government had tasked its agents to provide details about the organization’s flight plans.

 

2- In 2001, the FBI arrested Ana Belén Montes, a senior analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Montes acknowledged spying for Cuba for over a decade, and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence. Montes’ Cuban handlers, with whom she met in the United States, have never been identified.

 

3- In 2006, Carlos Álvarez —a Cuban professor at Florida International University— and his wife were arrested and charged with spying for Cuba. Mr. Álvarez admitted that he spied on Cuban exile groups for nearly thirty years. Mr. and Mrs. Álvarez pled guilty to certain charges arising from their espionage activities, and received a five and three-year sentence, respectively.

 

4- On June 4, 2009, the FBI arrested U.S. State Department employee Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, and charged them with spying for Cuba for three decades. Both plead guilty. Mr. Myers is currently serving a life sentence, and his wife is serving an 81-month sentence.

 

5- In 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment charging former State Department employee Marta Rita Velázquez with conspiracy to commit espionage. Velázquez allegedly introduced Ana Belén Montes to the Cuban intelligence service in 1984. Velázquez currently resides in Sweden and remains outside the reach of U.S. justice.

 

President Varela, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can not to say how many Cuban spies might be in Miami. Do you can to say me how many Cuban spies might be in Panama? Due to the clandestine nature of intelligence operations, it is impossible to know just how many Cuban spies have arrived in Panama and are now living among us. I suspect of one of them, but I can not prove it.

 

Basically the Cuban intelligence service never had to be reinvented, other than by the name, from the former Intelligence Directorate (DI Dirección de Inteligencia) to the General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI, Dirección General de Inteligencia), with original training by the former Soviet KGB. The DGI has been and remains a contingency of very well-trained, organized and financed agents of covert and hostile espionage throughout the Americas and elsewhere.

 

The DGI is responsible for all foreign intelligence collection. The 50-year history of the nefarious operations of the DGI has included active involvement in aiding leftist and dictatorial movements in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

 

The Castro espionage has been linked to villainous associations with the Chinese and Iranians. As well, Cuba has been expanding intelligence operations with others in the Middle East and South Asia.

 

President Varela, I invite you to read: Lefebvre, S. Cuban Intelligence Activities Directed At the United States, 1959–2007, 2009, (Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group).

 

I remind you that in reprisal for my complaints the dictatorship of the Castro brothers has not given me a new passport, so I can not leave Panama.

 

President Varela, this is theeighthtime I explain to you why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, I repeat the seven emails I sent to you.Can you answer my request please?

Why the President Varela

helps to perpetuate

the misery that suffers the Cuban people?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

The theme for the VII Summit of the Americas 2015 will be “Partnership for Democratic Development and Security in the Americas”. Strictly speaking, all that the Castro’s regime denies the Cuban people for over half a century ago.

 

It is the seventh time I write you about the Summit of the Americas. You know why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

You already know a lot about Cuba, because I have done a detailed analysis -substantiated with citations, examples and videos-, of the  physical destruction, the anthropological damage, the assassinate of women and children and others crimes against humanity made by the tyranny of the Castro brothers since 1959.

 

Up to December 15, 2008, Cuba Archive has documented more than 8,200 fatalities or disappearances, which are almost three times the 2,296 disappearances or killings by the dictatorship of Pinochet.

 

President Varela, as I have demonstrated to youin Cuba:

 

1- There’s no freedom of expression.

 

2- There’s no freedom of association. The regime does not allow any independent labor union to operate legally. The opposites of the dictatorship can not organize political parties.

 

3- There are no children’s rights. For example:

a) The brainwashing begins in kindergarten.

b) The abuse of minors in Cuban detention centers.

c) The use of child soldiers.

 

4- The parents are not freedomto educate their sons and daughters.

 

5- There’s no religious freedom.

 

6- There’s no freedom of enterprise.

 

7- There’s no due process protection.

 

8- Although Cuba migration reform, there’s no freedom of movement for tens of thousands of Cubans. In reprisal for my complaints the Castro dictatorship has not given me a new passport, so I can not leave Panama.

 

9- There are no free elections.

 

10- There are continued repressive actions against human rights activists and human rights victims complaining of abuses.

 

President Varela, I have demonstrated you, too, that the Castro brothers continue to support terrorism. Castro’s Cuba still on U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Also on the list are Syria, Iran and Sudan.

 

You know that Cuba is suffering a fierce and painful tyranny that keeps the Cuban people in misery. I invite you to watch the videos that show the misery that suffers the Cuban people.

 

However, the Castro brothers live a life of luxury that most Cubans can’t even imagine. For example, Juan Reynaldo Sanchez, a Lieutenant Colonel in Cuba’s Armed Forces who spent 17 years as Fidel Castro’s bodyguard/valet, says that Fidel Castro controlled about 20 luxury homes, a Caribbean island getaway with a pool in which dolphins swam, the 88-foot yacht Aquarama II and several fishing vessels whose catch was sold for dollars deposited in his accounts. I invite you to read.

 

I remind you that Forbes magazine estimated Castro’s fortune in at least 900 million dollars. Many of those who are familiar with the business of the Castro brothers believe that Forbes is being too conservative. I remind you, too, the participation of the Castro brothers in drug trafficking. I repeat to you my invitation to read Raúl Castro, Cartel Linked.

 

President Varela, so that you have some idea of how was Cuba in 1959, you can verify in theYearbook of the United Nations that in the 1950s -before the Castro brothers took power- my homeland had a vibrant economy –although with large capital outflows to foreign investors-, with rising rates of economic and social progress, but with great territorial inequalities in the distribution of products, services and opportunities -although less than now.

 

In 1950, following a request from the Government of Carlos Prío Socarrás -the last freely elected president of Cuba-, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD or World Bank) sent a technical mission led by Adam Francis Truslow and composed of 17 principal economists. For several months conducted a study of the Cuban economy, later known as Report of the Truslow mission, which said:

 

The overall impression of the mission of observations throughout Cuba, is that the living standards of farmers agricultural workers, industrial workers, office workers and others is much higher than those of their counterparts in other tropical countries and groups most of the countries of Latin America.”

 

Three years later, in 1953, the national per capita income of Cuba was $325, greater than Italy ($307), Austria ($290), Spain ($242), Portugal ($220), Turkey ($221), Mexico ($200), Yugoslavia ($200) and Japan ($197). (Economic Development, Charles P. Kindleberger. Editorial: McGraw-Hill,New York, 1958).

 

In 1958, Argentina and Cuba had the best standard of living in the region. Guillermo Almeyra, Argentinean Marxist academic, acknowledges that Cuba “was second in development after Argentina”. According to the Cuban professor Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba was ranked third in the region in terms of the national per capita income, surpassed only by Venezuela and Uruguay.

 

James Petras, American Marxist academic, acknowledges that:

 

While most Asian and Latin American countries lagged behind Cuba in the 1960’s, they have far surpassed Cuba in diversifying their economies, developing competitive export manufacturing sectors and lessening their export dependence on a narrow group of exports. By adding value to their products, Asian countries have increased earnings, which has led to higher wages and a better ‘fit’ between advanced education and occupational opportunities”.

 

On February 16, 1959, a month and a half after of the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro   affirmed:

 

“(…) with the advantage of a rich country, where you can plant all the time in the year, an intelligent people and enthusiastic people, anxious to achieve a better target people achieve a higher standard of living than any other country in the world”.

 

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara  wrote:

 

In 1958 the Cuban population was 6.5 million people with a per capita income of about $350 … imports of food and fiber from agriculture amounted on average to 28% of total imports. Cuba had a coefficient of 0.75 heads of cattle per capita, the index stood just below the great cattle countries”.

 

Two months ago Russia wrote off $32 billion of Cuba’s outstanding debt, which represents the main bulk of the funds obtained from the Soviet Union. Other countries have done something similar with the Cuban debt. But, Cuba’s credit is among the worst in the world.

 

According to Samuel Farber, Cuban Marxist academic,  Between 1960 and 1990, Cuba received about 65 billion dollars from the Soviet Union”. (Cuba Since the Revolution of 1959: A Critical Assessment. Editorial: Haymarket Books, 2011).

 

President Varela, to give you an idea of what such aid represents note that through the Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave $13 billion in economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. That is, the Cuban regime received of the Soviet Union the equivalent of five Marshall Plan!

 

What did the Castro brothers with those assets? In the last half century the average Cubans have suffered a severe rationing system -was introduced in 1962- that not allow eating beef or drinking milk. At seven years old, Cuban children lose the right to receive milk at an affordable price. The General Raúl Castro acknowledges in this video.

 

To drink milk, Cuban children depend on aid sent by emigrants. Only Cuban emigrants in the United States sent more than $3,500 billion in remittance in kind in 2013.

 

It’s very easy to understand why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas: For the reason that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.This is the seventh time I explain to you.

 

I reiterate to you that can ask me any question about Cuba.

 

President Varela, I repeat the six emails I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Why the Government of Panama

misrepresents information?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

On 7 September was published that the Panama’s Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo said: “The Governments of the United States and Canada ‘understand’ that Cuba participate” in 2015 Summit of the Americas. “We hope to be hosting 34 heads of state, including President Obama and Mr. Raúl Castro”, declared the Panama’s Vice President.

 

President Varela, you know that the United States government disapproves Panama’s plans to invite the Cuban communist dictatorship to the Summit of the Americas. I repeat to you my invitation to read the statements of Jen Psaki. In Daily Press Briefing on 2 September, a journalist asked to the spokesman of the United States Department of State: 

 

The Secretary is meeting with Panama’s vice president. Panama recently extended an invitation to Cuba to attend the Americas Summit in 2015, and this is the first such invitation for Cuba in a number of years. Does the State Department have any response?

 

The spokesman of the United States Department of State said:

 

Well, as I understand it, it was an announcement of intention to invite. I would refer you to the Government of Panama for any questions regarding formal invitations.

 

We – from here, our view is that at the 2001 Summit of the Americas, all participating governments agreed to consensus that ‘The maintenance and strengthening of the rule of law and strict respect for the democratic system are at the same time a goal and a shared commitment and are an essential condition of our presence at this and future summits.’ So we should not undermine commitments previously made, but should instead encourage – and this is certainly our effort – the democratic changes necessary for Cuba to meet the basic qualifications. But of course, we look forward to the day when all 35 countries in the region can participate in the summit process”.

 

President Varela, did you understand now or shall I explain more?

 

President Varela, why do you persist in will play hosts to the well-known narco-trafficker Raúl Castro Ruz?

 

It is the sixth time I write you about the Summit of the Americas. President Varela, I repeat the five emails I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Why the Government of Panama

persists in violating international rules?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

It’s very easy to understand why Castro’s Cuba can not participate in the Summit of the Americas: Because the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.This is the fifth time I explain to you.

 

Although it is very easy to understand, Panama’s Vice President, Isabel de Saint Malo, said again yesterday that Panama will invite communist tyranny to 2015 Summit of the Americas.

 

United States government disapproves Panama’s plans to invite the Castro’s regime to the Summit of the Americas. I invite you to read.

 

We are many who believe that it is very suspicious behavior Panamanian government relationship with the Cuban dictatorship.

 

It is the fifth time I write you about the Summit of the Americas. Why do not you answer me?

 

President Varela, I repeat the four emails I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Violator ofreligious freedom

in the Summit of the Americas?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

I hope that you not accept violations of religious freedom. Excuse me, have you received my emails? It is the fourth time I write you about the Summit of the Americas. Why do not you answer me?

 

President Varela, taking advantage that the Panamanian delegationwill depart today for Rome –you will meet with Pope Francis the next Friday-, I remind to you the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

 

I invite you to read the articles 5, 39, 53 and 62 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba. Would you accept that the Constitution of Panama had similar articles? Of course that not, I believe there is not a Christian who accepts.

 

Besides, in Cuba the brainwashing begins in kindergarten. Children across the country begin each school day with the chant “Pioneers for Communism, We will be like Che!” I invite you to watch the videos that show the children primary target in Cuba brainwashing.

 

After the Castro brothers rose to power in 1959, they imposed restrictions on religious activities. Cardinal Manuel Arteaga was persecuted by the regime; Cardinal Arteaga took refuge in the Argentine embassy and the Nunciature of the Holy See (Vatican embassy) from 1961 to 1962, when he was hospitalized at San Juan de Dios Hospital in Havana. He died at the same hospital a year later, at age 83. In September 1961 the Castro brothers deported 131 priests including Auxiliary Bishop Eduardo Boza Masvidal. The Church was silenced.

 

Cuba officially became an atheist nation in 1962, but the Christmas holiday was celebrated until 1968, when Fidel Castro prohibited with the pretext that it was interfering with the sugar harvest.  After that the Soviet Union ceased to exist on December 26, 1991, the atheist guidelines outlined in the Cuban Constitution were removed. In 1997 Fidel Castro restored the holiday to honor the visit of Pope John Paul II.

 

But there’s religious freedom now? While the Constitution of Cuba guarantees religious freedom, restrictions on religious activity are still prevalent in the Castro’s Cuba. The government’s repression of peaceful human rights activists included preventing some of them from attending religious services. For example, are repressed Ladies in White and Baptist Church.

 

Ladies in White (Spanish: Damas de Blanco) is an prominent Human Rights organization formed in 2003 by wives and other female relatives of jailed dissidents. Although they were awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament in 2005, they face frequent harassment and detentions before or after attending Mass. For example, on July 13, AFP reportedCuba cracks down, arrests 100 women dissidents.

 

I invite you to watch two videos that show the communist’s repression to Ladies in White: video 1 and video 2

 

The Nobel laureate Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu endorsed the statement ‘It is time for repression to cease in Cuba’.

 

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has released a new report on religious freedom in Cuba, which shows that the number of documented violations of religious freedom almost doubled in the first half of 2014 compared to 2013. One of the most serious cases involved the destruction of a large church and pastoral home in Santiago de Cuba on 2 July 2014. Some religious leaders reported being temporarily detained and imprisoned multiple times over the course of the past year.

 
The report details the regular, severe and sustained harassment of Protestant pastors and lay workers in different parts of the country, as well as sporadic reports of violent beatings. This situation prompted Reverend Homero Carbonell, who for more than 50 years has been a leader in the Western Baptist Convention, a denomination recognised by the government, to accept asylum in the US on 31 July. In 2010,
Reverend Carbonell published an open letter denouncing a sustained campaign of harassment against the Trinidad First Baptist Church in the city of Santa Clara. In the letter he announced his resignation as pastor and expressed hopes that his retirement would result a cessation of government persecution of the church. Despite his retirement, however, the Cuban government maintained pressure on the church, freezing its bank accounts, and continue to target Reverend Carbonell and his family.

 

The Cuban Communist Party’s Office of Religious Affairs regulates religious life in Cuba, retaining the authority to officially recognize religious groups and grant building permits for houses of worship. Furthermore, the Office of Religious Affairs approves or denies religious visitors, imports of religious literature, and public performance of religious services. Government restrictions on religious groups have led to the confiscation of humanitarian aid intended for hurricane survivors and the detention of pastors traveling to help victims in eastern Cuba.

 

Certain groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, have been waiting years for official recognition. Additionally, Jehovah’s Witnesses have discouraged members from university education because it is believed that admission and curriculum requirements are incompatible with the group’s beliefs.

 

While the activities of all religious groups are restricted, the Catholic Church has been awarded extra freedoms, including the ability to print periodicals, conduct religious services in prisons, and operate their own websites.

 

On May 14, 2014, Pope Francis granted a private audience to the family of Oswaldo Payá, a Cuban dissident and founder of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), who died on July 22, 2012, when the car he was traveling suffered an automobile accident, the cause of which has not yet been determined.

 

According to the press release on Payá’s website, the topics discussed with the Pope included “the death of Oswaldo Payá; government repression, especially of the democratic opposition; the Cuban reality and the proposed referendum; and the current situation of the Church in Cuba.” I think it’s momentous. President Varela, what do you think?

 

On May 12, ZENIT -offers a view of the “world seen from Rome”- published an interview with Ofelia Acevedo in which she reiterated the need to conduct an independent investigation of the crash that killed her husband.

 

According to The Washington Post,

 

Oswaldo Payá’s death in Cuba two years ago still awaits a proper investigation

               

TWO YEARS ago Tuesday, a blue rental car was wrecked off a deserted road in eastern Cuba. In the back seat was Oswaldo Payá, one of Cuba’s best-known dissidents, who had championed the idea of a democratic referendum on the nation’s future. Mr. Payá’s voice was not the loudest against the Castro dictatorship, but it was one of the most committed and determined. On the day of the car crash, he had been trying for more than a decade to bring about a peaceful revolution, one that would empower Cubans to decide their own fate and end the half-century of misrule by Fidel and Raúl Castro.

 

Mr. Payá endured harassment and intimidation for his efforts. Many of his friends and allies were jailed. He received threats by phone and other warnings, some violent. But he did not give up. On the day of the crash, Mr. Payá was traveling with a young associate, Harold Cepero, across the island to meet with supporters of the Christian Liberation Movement. In the front of the rental car was a visitor from Spain, Ángel Carromero, a leader of the youth wing of that country’s ruling party, and one from Sweden.

 

The car spun out of control after being rammed from behind by a vehicle bearing state license plates, according to Mr. Carromero. While he and the associate from Sweden survived, Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero were killed. Mr. Carromero says he was then coerced to confess and subjected to a rigged trial in order to cover up what really happened. Mr. Carromero’s videotaped “confession,” broadcast on television, was forced upon him; he was told to read from cards written by the state security officers. He was sentenced to four years in prison for vehicular homicide and later released to return to Spain to serve out his term.

 

Since then, there has been no serious, credible investigation of the deaths. Cuba has brushed aside all demands for an international probe that would reveal the truth. Mr. Payá held dual Cuban and Spanish citizenship, but Spain has been shamefully uninterested in getting to the bottom of the story. The truth matters — to show the Castro brothers that they cannot snuff out a voice of freedom with such absolute impunity.

 

On May 14, Pope Francis received Mr. Payá’s family at his private residence. We don’t know what the pope said, but Mr. Payá’s daughter, Rosa Maria, delivered a letter carrying an impassioned appeal for the cause of democracy and human dignity in Cuba. Hopefully, the pope will keep listening to the voices demanding change in Cuba and speak out for democracy and freedom there. The values that Mr. Payá fought for in Cuba must not be forgotten. Other dissidents are still struggling, despite crackdowns, beatings, jailings and persecution, and they must not be forsaken.

 

President Varela, I repeat to you that:

 

The circumstances surrounding Payá’s death have many questioning if it was a targeted killing: “Oswaldo Payá crossed red lines with the Cuban government before his death.”

 

Cuban dissidents call for transparent investigation of Oswaldo Payá’s death: “The Christian Liberation Movement called on the Cuban military junta Monday to carry out a ‘transparent’ investigation of the deaths of its founder Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, a champion of civil society, and dissident Harold Cepero Escalante.”

 

Why the Government of Panama not call on the Castro’s regime to authorize an international investigation of the deaths of Payá and Cepero?

 

President Varela, I repeat the third email I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Cuban narco-trafficker

in the Summit of the Americas?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

Don’t you know that Fidel y Raúl Castro  have been implicated in drug trafficking? For example, according to The New York Times:

 

In his second day of testimony at the Federal Court trial of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, the witness, Carlos Lehder Rivas, said he met twice in Havana with Gen. Raul Castro, Cuba’s Minister of Defense, to gain permission for cocaine shipments to fly over Cuban territory on their way to Florida.”

 

Who was Carlos Lehder Rivas? He was one of the founders of the Medellin Cartel. When he was captured, he was one of the principal chiefs of the drug cartel.

 

After Colombian Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla was assassinated, then president of Colombia Belisario Betancur announced that he would be willing to extradite the nation’s wanted drug-traffickers. In 1987, Carlos Lehder Rivas was captured and extradited to the United States. At the time, his arrest and extradition was the hardest to beat drug cartel. He was tried on drug-smuggling and racketeering charges.

 

The American fugitive Robert L. Vesco died in November 2007 in Cuba. He was wanted in the United States for crimes ranging from securities fraud and drug trafficking to political bribery. He was protected by the Castro brothers since 1982. Fidel Castro said in 1985 that Cuba allowed Vesco to come for medical treatment, accusing U.S. officials of persecuting the fugitive. Cuban dictator did not specify the nature of the medical problems of Vesco.

 

A U.S. federal grand jury indictment accused Vesco of working with Carlos Lehder Rivas to win Cuban permission for drug flights over the island. According to the indictment, Vesco obtained approval from Cuban authorities for this arrangement. Cuban Air Force General Rafael del Pino, who defected in 1987, reported that all the planes flying over Cuba that veered off from the approved air corridors for commercial and private aircraft had to be cleared with the office of Raúl Castro at the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

 

According to ABC News:

 

Federal prosecutors in Miami were prepared to indict Raul Castro as the head of a major cocaine smuggling conspiracy in 1993, but the Clinton Administration Justice Department overruled them, current and former Justice Department officials tell ABC News. The officials say Castro, as Cuban Defense Minister, permitted Colombian drug lords to pay for the use of Cuban waters and airstrips as staging grounds for smuggling runs into the United States in the 1980s and early 1990s. ‘It was a major investigation involving numerous witnesses that was killed at the highest levels in Washington,’ said a former Justice Department official with direct knowledge of the case. ‘There were numerous national security and intelligence issues that would have made the case difficult,’ said Tom Cash, the former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Miami.  Convicted Colombian drug boss Carlos Lehder of the Medellin cartel testified in a 1991 federal trial that he met twice in Havana with Raul Castro to arrange safe passage for cocaine flights over Cuban airspace. The draft indictment, as described by a former Justice Department official who saw it, listed Raul Castro as the leader of a conspiracy involved in smuggling seven and a half tons of cocaine into the United States over a 10-year period. At least a dozen other Cubans were also to be indicted…”

 

There are well known links between the Colombian guerilla groups and the cocaine trade. For decades, Fidel y Raúl Castro have been implicated in narco-trafficking. For example, in July 1982 was published Havana’s Drug-Smuggling Connection:

 

U.S. intelligence received the first informant reports as early as 1975. Scattered, largely unsubstantiated, they were greeted with skepticism. But by the fall of 1981 the proof was undeniable: in return for massive payoffs, Fidel Castro was providing the protection of Cuban ports and territorial waters to major drug smugglers shuttling between Latin America and the southeastern United States

 

…in later 1975, some of Colombians's largest drug smugglers met secretly in Bogotá with Cuban Ambassador Fernando Ravelo-Renedo to negotiate a release of their ships and crews. Ravelo-Renedo responded with Havana's counteroffer. In return for payment of up to $800,000 per vessel, the ambassador said, Cuba was prepared not only to ignore motherships detected in its waters, but to provide refueling and repair services in its ports. Upon leaving port, the vessels would be provided Cuban flags and gunboat escorts to the feeder boats out of the Florida Keys.”

 

In December 1982, four high-ranking Cuban officials were accused in absentia by a U.S. federal grand jury in Miami on drug smuggling charges:

 

1- Aldo Santamaría Cuadrado. At that time he was Vice Admiral and Chief of Cuban Navy. Then he was a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba. He “would supervise in Cuba the protection and re-supply of ships transporting marijuana from Colombia to the United States by way of Cuba”, according to the indictment. Now in the town of Santa Fe, Havana, Cuba, a junior high school named after him! It’s unbelievable, but true.

 

2- René Rodríguez Cruz. At that moment he was president of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples -often used as a cover for DGI intelligence activities. Then he was a member of the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba.

 

3- Fernando Ravelo Renedo, who used to be Cuba’s Ambassador in Colombia, and who at that moment are a high official in the Foreign Ministry. He is godfather of the daughter of Colombian drug trafficker Juan (Johnny) Crump. Crump is in the federal witness protection program.

 

4- Gonzalo Bassols Suárez, who at that time are minister-counselor in the Colombia Embassy.

 

Admiral Santamaría Cuadrado and Rodríguez Cruz were always known to be close friends of the Castro brothers.

 

In May 1983 accumulating evidence led Ronald Reagan to say, “We have strong evidence that high-level Cuban government officials have been involved in smuggling drugs into the United States.”

 

President Varela, I invite you to read Raúl Castro, Cartel Linked:

 

Files and a videotape that belonged to slain drug lord Pablo Escobar implicate Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s brother in Medellin cocaine cartel activities, a TV news program reported.

 

The videotape, portions of which were aired by the TV news program QAP on Monday night, showed a man identified only as David pleading with Escobar to let him live after surviving an assassination attempt.

 

You know I helped you with Raul Castro on the island with respect to the shipment,’ David says, referring to Cuba’s defense minister, who is Fidel’s brother.”

 

Pablo Escobar was the world’s most powerful drug trafficker.In 1987, Escobar controlled an estimated 40% of the Medellin drug cartel’s business, and had accumulated at least $3 billion over the years, Forbes reported. 

 

Jhon Jairo Velásquez aka ‘Popeye’ was Military head of the Medellin cartel. One of the closest to Escobar said that Fidel Castro connected to Escobar con his brother Raúl and thus a cocaine trafficking operation starts. Popeye reiterates the drug smuggling charges against Fidel and Raúl Castro

 

I invite you to read Pablo Escobar’s sister says the drug kingpin had relations with Fidel Castro and this book

 

Further evidence of just such Cuban government involvement was offered in the July 1988 trial of a Miami-based drug ring, in the course of which the U.S. government attorney charged “the evidence in the trial demonstrated that Cuban territory was used with the knowledge, approval and cooperation of the Cuban government. These were not simply a few low-level Cuban officials. They demonstrated knowledge at high levels of the Cuban defense establishment.”

 

The Castro brothers knew about the activities of their top officers and their coast guard, because in Cuba nothing moves without the knowledge of them.

 

On February 28, 1988, Cuban drug trafficking Reinaldo Ruíz, was arrested in Panama. Reinaldo was the cousin of Capt. Miguel Ruíz Poo of Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior.Reinaldo and his son Rubén were allowed by Cuban authorities to land their plane at the Varadero Beach airport for refueling after dropping their drug cargoes off the Cuban coast near the Bahamas. Drug smuggling fast boats would come from Florida to pick up the cargoes. Cuban coast guard radar monitored U.S. coast guard cutters and helped the fast boats evade them.

 

On April 10, 1987, Reinaldo Ruíz launched his first cocaine smuggling operation through Cuba with American co-pilot Richard Zzie.  The conspirators were to fly three hundred kilos of Colombian cocaine into Varadero packaged in Marlboro cigarette boxes, transfer them to speedboats and ship them off to Miami.  The returning plane was to fly clean, the drugs aboard the speedboats.  A Cuban MiG had escorted the original flight into Cuba.

 

On a second drug run Reinaldo Ruíz hired another pilot, a former nationalist Chinese air force pilot by the name of Hu Chang. Unbeknownst to Ruíz, Chang was a DEA informant who ran a small air taxi operation at Miami International Airport. Working with DEA agents, Chang and Ruben Ruíz picked up five hundred kilos of cocaine in Colombia and flew to Cuba. They landed at Varadero on May 9, 1987.  As in the previous operation, the cocaine was unloaded, taken to the Cuban Coast Guard safehouses and loaded onto the Miami bound speedboats.  At the end of the mission Chang was debriefed by DEA.  Reinaldo Ruíz eventually paid Chang $100,000.00, later turned over to DEA agents.

 

As part of the investigation DEA agents started videotaping Chang’s office.  Fifty hours of videos during the next few months iced the Cuba case. There were multiple discussions about high ranking officials and protection by the Castro regime. Important names were thrown about.   Raúl and Fidel Castro’s names kept coming up. Rubén Ruíz bragged about flying into military runways. 

 

On April 23, 1989, Reinaldo Ruíz (who died of a heart attack on New Year’s Eve in 1990) and Rubén were convicted of drug trafficking.

 

Two months later, on June 12, Division General Arnaldo Tomás Ochoa Sánchez was arrested in Havana. It was performed a drug-smuggling show trial: Fidel Castro betrayed two of his closest associates and sentenced them to death. I invite you to watch the video that show the show trial. Besides, Raúl Castro appeared on live television and gave an emotional speech.

 

One month later, on July 14, after of a trial of the type of the ‘Moscow Trials’ of the 1930s, Division General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez was shot with Colonel Antonio ‘Tony’ de la Guardia and Captains Antonio Padrón and Jorge Martínez.

 

One month later, on August 26, the trial begins against Fidel Castro’s trusted right hand, Division General José Abrantes Fernández, who headed the Ministry of Interior, the Cuban KGB. Seven were jailed for lengthy terms, including General Patricio de la Guardia and Division General Abrantes. Abrantes died in prison just two years later.

 

President Varela, everything indicates that the main purpose of the trials was to protect to Castro brothers from new revelations in U.S. courts about the relations between they and the Medellin cocaine cartel. I invite you to read Castro’s Final Hour, by Andrés Oppenheimer, an Argentine journalist whois the co-winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize.

 

On December 20, 1989, three months after of the trial against Division General José Abrantes Fernández, occurred the American invasion to Panama, code-named Operation Just Cause. The dictator Manuel A. Noriega was captured and brought to the United States for trial. He was convicted on charges of racketeering, money laundering and drug trafficking.

 

The federal grand jury that indicted Noriega heard testimony on Castro’s involvement in the drug business. For example,José Isabel Blandón Castillo, former Panama’s Consul-General in New York and one of the closest advisers to the dictator Noriega, declared thatFidel Castro was an active partner with Panamanian military strongman Noriega in a drug smuggling operation.”

 

According to Blandon:

 

Castro also acted as a mediator in a dispute between the Medellin Cartel and Noriega. The dispute when Noriega raided a Cartel laboratory in the Darien province of Panama in June, 1984… The Cartel decided to kill Noriega in revenge, and Noriega turned to Castro for help. At Noriega’s request, Blandon met with Castro in Havana on June 21 or 22, 1984. Castro recommended that Noriega return the $5 million in protection money and return the plant, personnel and equipment to the Cartel.”

 

President Varela, you know that Fidel Castroseverely damaged the Panamanian people. He supported Noriega knowing full well that he was a dictator Papa Doc Duvalier style: corrupt and cruel”. I repeat to you my invitation to read The process of political protest in Panama, 1968-1989, by Brittmarie Janson Pérez, a Panamanian anthropologist.

 

Excuse me,  have you received my emails?  It is the  third  time  I write you about the Summit of the Americas. Why do not you answer me?

 

President Varela, I repeat the second email I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Summit of the Americas with a communist tyranny?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

You know that Cuba has a communist tyranny, regardless of all other considerations and preferences. I invite you to read Cuba is a totalitarian state led by Raúl Castro, by the Department of State.

 

Of course, tyranny is tyranny whatever name one gives it. But the communist tyranny is the worst, the most destructive, the most degrading; the atrocities committed under the Castro brothers are incomparably more hideous, on a larger scale, and more numerous than for any which Pinochet is responsible.

 

President Varela, I remind to you that the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter and the Declaration of Quebec City explicitly state that non-democratic states can not participate in the Summit of the Americas.

 

Castro’s Cuba signed the Viña del Mar Declaration. In that document, signed by Fidel Castro and the presidents of all other Iberoamerican countries during Sixth Ibero-American Summit, which was held in Viña del Mar, Chile, in November 1996, the Cuban dictator promised to respect democracy and civil and political rights. However:

 

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), “on March 18, 2003, Cuban authorities began a week-long crackdown on human rights activists and independent journalists that culminated in the arrest of about 100 activists. They were all taken to the offices of the Department of State Security and subjected to long interrogations and other types of psychological torture… The Prosecutor General of the Republic of Cuba filed motions with the Court requesting sentences that ranged from 15 years in prison to the death penalty in some cases. Summary trials took place starting April 3, 2003, without allowing any time for the defendants’ families to mount a proper defense… None of the accused was acquitted (although during the hasty trial it was not possible to demonstrate the guilt of any of them with the evidence presented by the prosecution). The 75 persons were sentenced to prison terms of between 6 and 28 years… the IACHR learned that in the early hours of April 11, 2003, the Cuban State executed Lorenzo Enrique Copello Castillo, Bárbaro Leodán Sevilla García, and Jorge Luis Martínez Isaac, convicted of hijacking a launch in Havana Bay and taking its passengers hostage.”

 

Cuba Archive has documented 166 deaths and disappearances from 7/31/2006 to 12/15/2013, that is, since Raul Castro assumed power inherited from his brother.

 

The number of political prisoners in Cuba has climbed to 114.

 

According to the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR), the total number of arbitrary arrests in the first seven months of this year is 6,556.

 

Arbitrary detention of critics of the regime has increased in recent years. The CCHRNR documented 6,424 in 2013, 6,602 in 2012, 4,123 in 2011 and 2,074 in 2010.

 

President Varela, you know that the Cuban government prevents me entering my own country, because I denounce the violations of human rights. ¿What do you think of it?

 

President Varela, there are currently 70 American fugitives living in Cuba.

 

Last week, Chilean opposition accuses Cuba and Argentina to protect murderers of the Senator Jaime Guzmán. “Others which are proven in Cuba despite the denial of that country in respect of that reality”, said the Senator Juan Antonio Coloma of the Independent Democratic Union party (Unión Democrática Independiente, UDI).

 

On January, 22, 2013, a United Press International (UPI) report said Chile to confront Cuba over terrorists, because a judicial investigation determined that Galvarino Apablaza, Mauricio Hernández Norambuena and Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann organized the Guzman assassination. The terrorist Juan Gutierrez Fischmann -alias “El Chele”, “Diego” or “Commander Gabriel”- was married six years with the Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela Castro Espín, with whom he had a daughter named Gabriela Gutiérrez Castro, who is 26 years old. Everything indicates that  Juan Gutiérrez Fischmann continues living in Cuba.

 

Panama is governed by the alliance of the Panamanian and Popular parties; for it a week ago I sent a copy of my email to Ramón Fonseca Mora and Milton Henríquez, presidents of these political parties, and to Teresita Yániz de Arias –who is the vice president of the Popular Party-. Why they haven’t talked of it? What I can say about Teresita Yániz? Especially she, the veteran leader of Panamanian Christian Democrats was born and was raised in Havana, Cuba.

 

They are also responsible for the abominable offense that the Panamanian government intends to give to the Cuban people, for the simple reason that it will strengthen the communist dictatorship. They have kept silent, which leads one to assume that it really are an accomplice in this affair.

 

President Varela, Munich is well-known because eight decades ago hosting the summit of infamy. Do you wish that Panama will be remembered in a similar way?

 

President Varela, I repeat the first email I sent to you. Can you answer my request please?

Castro’s Cuba in Summit of the Americas?

What has changed in Cuba?

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

 

Juan C. Varela

President of Panama

 

President Varela:

 

I’m writing to you because Panama will invite the Castro dictatorship to 2015 Summit of the Americas.

 

President Varela, why do you think that the dynastic dictatorship that is the greatest violator of human rights in West must be present at a meeting of democratically elected governments?

 

If it will succeed, you would be giving a boost to the brutality of the Castro’s regime –-it was declared guilty by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

 

President Varela, I invite you to watch the videos that show the killing of children by Cuban dictatorship.

 

President Varela, you know that Fidel Castro “severely damaged the Panamanian people. He supported Noriega knowing full well that he was a dictator Papa Doc Duvalier style: corrupt and cruel”.

 

President Varela, I invite you to read The process of political protest in Panama, 1968-1989, by Brittmarie Janson Pérez, a Panamanian anthropologist.

 

This week, The Economist  published ‘Rekindling old friendships’: “Cuba is once again resorting to geopolitics to support a failing economy”.

 

President Varela, Russia has always used the Castro’s regime to extend its influence in the region. The Guardian, a British leftist newspaper, said: “Russia to reopen spy base in Cuba as relations with US continue to sour”. Russia-US relations have plummeted over the Ukraine conflict and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

 

President Varela, I remind to you that on July 28, 2014, the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Ocean Maritime Management Company, Ltd., the operator of the North Korean ship known as the Chong Chon Gang that was interdicted by Panama on July 10, 2013, with illicit arms shipment from Cuba, that violate the U.N. ban on the trading of arms with North Korea.

 

I take you back that on July 13, 2013, Panamanian diplomats met with Cuba’s vice foreign minister, Rogelio Sierra Díaz, who flew to Panama to appeal for the ship’s release. His appeal was rejected.

 

The Castro brothers’ regime initially described the intercepted cargo as nothing more than aid in the form of sugar. When weapons were discovered under the bags of sugar, the authorities in Havana then attempted to dismiss the cache as “obsolete” items that were en route to North Korea for repairs (the UN prohibits all arms transfers to North Korea).

 

But the inspection showed that the Government of Cuba lied. The vessel was carrying 25 shipping containers with military equipment inside. The cargo included two Mig-21 jet fighters. The jet fuel inside their tanks, along with maintenance logs, indicated that they had recently been flown. Ammunition and 15 apparently new MiG engines were also discovered.

 

Besides, the white bags of brown sugar that hid the armament were themselves unusual. Sugar of that sort is usually shipped in bulk, not bagged, because it is almost always refined after it arrives at its destination.

 

Shortly after the ship’s interception, General Kim Kyok Sik, the army chief who had met Raúl Castro in August, was dismissed. “North Korea announced on December 13, 2013, that it had executed the uncle of its leader Kim Jong”. In its unprecedented character assassination of Mr. Jang before his summary execution, North Korea said, among other things, that he “stretched his tentacles” into areas where he should not have been interfering. Whether the arms deal with Castro’s Cuba was an example of that may never be known.

 

In March 2014, the U.N.’s Panel of Experts published its official report on North Korea's illegal trafficking of weapons, in conjunction with the Castro’s regime.

 

President Varela,this muggling of weapons could endanger the lives of the habitants of the cities of Colon and Panama.

 

President Varela, I invite to youto read Cuba missile crisis: When nuclear war seemed inevitable.

 

President Varela, Cuba Archive has documented 166 deaths and disappearances from 7/31/2006 to 12/15/2013, that is, since Raul Castro assumed power inherited from his brother.

 

Due to the ongoing nature of the work and the difficulty of obtaining and verifying data from Cuba, Cuba Archive is currently examining additional cases. Experience has shown that as additional outreach efforts are undertaken, many more cases are likely to be uncovered.

 

President Varela, I remind to you the systematic violations of human rights in Cuba. For example, in July 2012, the Social Christian leader Oswaldo Payá and fellow dissident Harold Cepero were died in a controversial car crash. Payá’s family maintains that the car was deliberately forced off the road.

 

A devout Christian, Oswaldo Payá was the founder of the Christian Liberation Movement, which campaigns for political change, civil rights and the release of political prisoners. Payá won the European parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2002 for his efforts and was nominated twice for the Nobel peace prize by the former Czech president, Vaclev Havel.

 

The circumstances surrounding Payá’s death have many questioning if it was a targeted killing: “Oswaldo Payá crossed red lines with the Cuban government before his death.”

 

Cuban dissidents call for transparent investigation of Oswaldo Payá’s death: “The Christian Liberation Movement called on the Cuban military junta Monday to carry out a ‘transparent’ investigation of the deaths of its founder Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, a champion of civil society, and dissident Harold Cepero Escalante.”

 

Why the Government of Panama not call on the Castro’s regime to authorize an international investigation of the deaths of Payá and Cepero? President Varela, reflect on:

 

1- Opposition activist Juan Wilfredo Soto died in May 2011 after complaining of a severe police beating.

 

2- Laura Pollán, the former head of the Ladies in White, who died of a suspicious ailment on October 14, 2011.

 

Two prisoners of conscience who were adopted by Amnesty International died amid lengthy hunger strikes in the last four years: Orlando Zapata Tamayo died on February 23, 2010 and Wilman Villar Mendoza died in January 2012.

 

On September 11, 2013, Amnesty International declared: Cuba must immediately release prisoner of conscience. “It is a sad reflection of the state of the rule of law in Cuba, when people are convicted to prison terms not for what they have done but for what they might do”, said Javier Zúñiga, Special Adviser at Amnesty International.

 

In 1950, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 10 December as Human Rights Day. Regrettably in Castro’s Cuba this is a day of intimidation, acts of harassment, beatings and arbitrary arrests. For example, on December 10, 2013, at the same time as in South Africa the President Obama shakes hands with the General Raúl Castro, in Havana members of the Ladies in White were arrested and the home of Antonio Rodiles –nephew of Major General Samuel Rodiles and leader of the independent group Estado de Sats-, was besieged by the police and plainclothes agents. High school students were taken outside Rodiles’ residence and remained them there throughout the day.

 

Raul Castro’s  speech on January 1, 2014, confirmed that he will continue increasing repression against Cuban citizens peacefully expressing themselves. On January 10, 2014, the retired Cuban teacher Ariel Hidalgo published In a normal country, that was a reply to Castro’sspeech of January 1. In his paper this Cuban Marxist says:

 

What country has a law that prohibits bringing happiness to children? And if it does not have, what authority was the arrest and seizure of the gifts? In a normal country an ideological deviation would not be considered the right of children to have a decent toy”.

 

Elizardo Sánchez, dean of Cuba’s dissident movement and spokesman of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCHRNR), revealed in its monthly report that 963 Cubans were arrested for political reasons in June; this number is smaller than record-setting May, when 1,120 Cuban citizens were arrested for political reasons. The total number of arbitrary arrests in the first seven months of this year is 6,556. These only included political arrests that have been thoroughly documented.

 

Arbitrary detention of critics of the regime has increased in recent years. The CCHRNR documented 6,424 in 2013, 6,602 in 2012, 4,123 in 2011 and 2,074 in 2010.

 

According to CCHRNR, the number of political prisoners in Cuba has climbed to 114. The CCDHRN includes on its list the twelve (12) dissidents sentenced in the Black Spring of 2003 and who are now out on parole, a condition that prevents them from traveling abroad.

 

Sonia Garro Alfonso -a member of the Ladies in White- and her husband, Ramón Alejandro Muñoz, have remained in prison for more than two years after their imprisonment and haven’t been tried. They were arrested during a crackdown preceding the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Cuba in March 2012.

 

State measures to control the press were especially harsh during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. Dozens of independent journalists and bloggers were detained a week ahead of the visit.

 

The Castro’s regime violates the right of assembly established by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. For example, the leftist historian Manuel Cuesta Morúa organized an alternative forum to the II Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). On January 26, 2014, two days before the Summit, Cuesta Morúa was arrested. After four days of confinement in a police station, the Social Democratic leader was released with the charge of “spreading false news against international peace”, requiring Cuesta Morúa to report his presence each week at the same police station where he was under arrest.

 

President Varela, all this amply confirmed that the Castro dictatorship hasn’t interest in making changes that lead to a process of national reconciliation and a free society. I remind you The Leopard, written by Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa: “Everything must change, so that everything can remain the same”.

 

Besides, the conditions in Cuba’s prisons are inhuman. The political prisoners suffer degrading treatment and torture. I invite to youto read Memory to Red Hot, by a Cuban Marxist teacher.

 

Cuba is the only Western country without any free elections in 66 years. It is also the only Western country where it has been illegal to be a member of the opposition since 1960, that is, for more than half century!

 

Moreover, in accordance with the article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

    (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

    (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

 

However, the Cuban government prevents me entering my own country, because I denounce the violations of human rights. I am on the blacklist of the regime, but under what law is it issued?

 

Tens of thousands of Cubans are prevented from entering our own country; mothers who die without ever seeing their children, grandchildren who do not know their grandparents. I have not been able to meet with the eldest of my granddaughters. This is cruel and inhuman! 

 

As well, the need to obtain permission to leave Cuba has not disappeared completely; certain categories of Cubans continue to be subject to the same limitations in place before the migration reform was implemented by the Castro government in January 2013.

 

With this type of repression, the Castro’s regime has in mind to prevent the Cuban diaspora to denounce its crimes. The Castro government has developed a highly effective machinery of domination never before seen in West.

 

I hope that Panama’s President will recognize that Cubans who fought peacefully for the democratization of our country are victims of political persecution. Why the President of Panama did not has done a call to the Government of Cuba to lift all restrictions against free movement of Cubans?

 

I envy those who have a passport because in reprisal for my complaints the Castro dictatorship refuses to issue me a new passport, so I can not leave Panama.

 

Castro’s Cuba has the most restrictive laws on free speech and press freedom in West. The constitution prohibits private ownership of media outlets and allows speech and journalism only if they “conform to the aims of a socialist society.”

 

Cuba’s legal and institutional structures are firmly under the control of the Castro brothers.

 

Laws criminalizing “enemy propaganda” and the dissemination of “unauthorized news” are used to restrict freedom of speech under the guise of protecting state security. Insult laws carry penalties of three months to one year in prison, with sentences of up to three years if the president or members of the Council of State or National Assembly are the objects of criticism.

 

Four years ago, the Chilean senator Isabel Allende, daughter of toppled president Salvador Allende, supported the statement of the deputies of his party, the Socialist Party, which calls on the Cuban authorities to release prisoners of conscience. The senator Allende declared:

 

The freedoms of opinion, association and assembly were freedoms that we fought in the Socialist Party and we will always fight. Would that actually be a reaction from the Cuban authorities and understand that the world today condemns societies that do not respect the right to freedom of opinion”.

 

President Varela, what has changed in Cuba?

 

You can ask me any question about Cuba and the university education, which are my two great passions.I will try to answer it.

 

President Varela, can you answer my request please?

 

Thanking you in advance for your attention,

 

Manuel Castro Rodríguez

Panama ID: E-8-91740

Seleccione idioma

José Martí: El que se conforma con una situación de villanía, es su cómplice”.

Mi Bandera 

Al volver de distante ribera,

con el alma enlutada y sombría,

afanoso busqué mi bandera

¡y otra he visto además de la mía!

 

¿Dónde está mi bandera cubana,

la bandera más bella que existe?

¡Desde el buque la vi esta mañana,

y no he visto una cosa más triste..!

 

Con la fe de las almas ausentes,

hoy sostengo con honda energía,

que no deben flotar dos banderas

donde basta con una: ¡La mía!

 

En los campos que hoy son un osario

vio a los bravos batiéndose juntos,

y ella ha sido el honroso sudario

de los pobres guerreros difuntos.

 

Orgullosa lució en la pelea,

sin pueril y romántico alarde;

¡al cubano que en ella no crea

se le debe azotar por cobarde!

 

En el fondo de obscuras prisiones

no escuchó ni la queja más leve,

y sus huellas en otras regiones

son letreros de luz en la nieve...

 

¿No la veis? Mi bandera es aquella

que no ha sido jamás mercenaria,

y en la cual resplandece una estrella,

con más luz cuando más solitaria.

 

Del destierro en el alma la traje

entre tantos recuerdos dispersos,

y he sabido rendirle homenaje

al hacerla flotar en mis versos.

 

Aunque lánguida y triste tremola,

mi ambición es que el sol, con su lumbre,

la ilumine a ella sola, ¡a ella sola!

en el llano, en el mar y en la cumbre.

 

Si desecha en menudos pedazos

llega a ser mi bandera algún día...

¡nuestros muertos alzando los brazos

la sabrán defender todavía!...

 

Bonifacio Byrne (1861-1936)

Poeta cubano, nacido y fallecido en la ciudad de Matanzas, provincia de igual nombre, autor de Mi Bandera

José Martí Pérez:

Con todos, y para el bien de todos

José Martí en Tampa
José Martí en Tampa

Es criminal quien sonríe al crimen; quien lo ve y no lo ataca; quien se sienta a la mesa de los que se codean con él o le sacan el sombrero interesado; quienes reciben de él el permiso de vivir.

Escudo de Cuba

Cuando salí de Cuba

Luis Aguilé


Nunca podré morirme,
mi corazón no lo tengo aquí.
Alguien me está esperando,
me está aguardando que vuelva aquí.

Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé mi vida dejé mi amor.
Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé enterrado mi corazón.

Late y sigue latiendo
porque la tierra vida le da,
pero llegará un día
en que mi mano te alcanzará.

Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé mi vida dejé mi amor.
Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé enterrado mi corazón.

Una triste tormenta
te está azotando sin descansar
pero el sol de tus hijos
pronto la calma te hará alcanzar.

Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé mi vida dejé mi amor.
Cuando salí de Cuba,
dejé enterrado mi corazón.

La sociedad cerrada que impuso el castrismo se resquebraja ante continuas innovaciones de las comunicaciones digitales, que permiten a activistas cubanos socializar la información a escala local e internacional.


 

Por si acaso no regreso

Celia Cruz


Por si acaso no regreso,

yo me llevo tu bandera;

lamentando que mis ojos,

liberada no te vieran.

 

Porque tuve que marcharme,

todos pueden comprender;

Yo pensé que en cualquer momento

a tu suelo iba a volver.

 

Pero el tiempo va pasando,

y tu sol sigue llorando.

Las cadenas siguen atando,

pero yo sigo esperando,

y al cielo rezando.

 

Y siempre me sentí dichosa,

de haber nacido entre tus brazos.

Y anunque ya no esté,

de mi corazón te dejo un pedazo-

por si acaso,

por si acaso no regreso.

 

Pronto llegará el momento

que se borre el sufrimiento;

guardaremos los rencores - Dios mío,

y compartiremos todos,

un mismo sentimiento.

 

Aunque el tiempo haya pasado,

con orgullo y dignidad,

tu nombre lo he llevado;

a todo mundo entero,

le he contado tu verdad.

 

Pero, tierra ya no sufras,

corazón no te quebrantes;

no hay mal que dure cien años,

ni mi cuerpo que aguante.

 

Y nunca quize abandonarte,

te llevaba en cada paso;

y quedará mi amor,

para siempre como flor de un regazo -

por si acaso,

por si acaso no regreso.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

me matará el dolor;

Y si no vuelvo a mi tierra,

me muero de dolor.

 

Si acaso no regreso

me matará el dolor;

A esa tierra yo la adoro,

con todo el corazón.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

me matará el dolor;

Tierra mía, tierra linda,

te quiero con amor.

 

Si acaso no regreso

me matará el dolor;

Tanto tiempo sin verla,

me duele el corazón.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

cuando me muera,

que en mi tumba pongan mi bandera.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

y que me entierren con la música,

de mi tierra querida.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

si no regreso recuerden,

que la quise con mi vida.

 

Si acaso no regreso,

ay, me muero de dolor;

me estoy muriendo ya.

 

Me matará el dolor;

me matará el dolor.

Me matará el dolor.

 

Ay, ya me está matando ese dolor,

me matará el dolor.

Siempre te quise y te querré;

me matará el dolor.

Me matará el dolor, me matará el dolor.

me matará el dolor.

 

Si no regreso a esa tierra,

me duele el corazón

De las entrañas desgarradas levantemos un amor inextinguible por la patria sin la que ningún hombre vive feliz, ni el bueno, ni el malo. Allí está, de allí nos llama, se la oye gemir, nos la violan y nos la befan y nos la gangrenan a nuestro ojos, nos corrompen y nos despedazan a la madre de nuestro corazón! ¡Pues alcémonos de una vez, de una arremetida última de los corazones, alcémonos de manera que no corra peligro la libertad en el triunfo, por el desorden o por la torpeza o por la impaciencia en prepararla; alcémonos, para la república verdadera, los que por nuestra pasión por el derecho y por nuestro hábito del trabajo sabremos mantenerla; alcémonos para darle tumba a los héroes cuyo espíritu vaga por el mundo avergonzado y solitario; alcémonos para que algún día tengan tumba nuestros hijos! Y pongamos alrededor de la estrella, en la bandera nueva, esta fórmula del amor triunfante: “Con todos, y para el bien de todos”.

Como expresó Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas en el Parlamento Europeo el 17 de diciembre de 2002, con motivo de otorgársele el Premio Sájarov a la Libertad de Conciencia 2002, los cubanos “no podemos, no sabemos y no queremos vivir sin libertad”.