[News] Cuba & the Ladies in White

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaritta-alarcon/ladies-in-white_b_527517.html>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaritta-alarcon/ladies-in-white_b_527517.html
Ladies in White

Margarita Alarcon
April 7, 2010

People, in general, have to be entitled to 
protest, disagree, and feel at liberty to 
complain. Whether these individuals, with 
something to complain about, wear one particular 
form of garb or another, and whether they carry 
daisies, signs, or gladiolas is of no difference. 
This said, it is my humble opinion that the self 
proclaimed Ladies in White, of the Cuban counter 
revolution, should be allowed a space where they 
may complain about whatever and whomever they 
deem appropriate. Just as long as they, and the 
people they encounter along the way abide by rules of civility.

Protests have been common place for ages. All 
over the world, groups of people and 
organizations go through a standard process 
before staging any kind of march, protest or 
manifestation. Usually, the process includes 
applying for permits or licenses by which city or 
town governments, or the police, issue 
authorization. After authorization, these groups 
or individuals are allotted a date, a timetable, 
and a space where in they may do all the protesting they desire.

In the early 1990s I recall ultra right wing 
Cuban Americans from the New Jersey area 
protesting my father's presence in New York City, 
Cuba's role at the Security Council in the UN, 
and our nation's rational view (pretty much 
unique in those days), regarding President Bush 
Sr.'s invasion of Kuwait. Those protestors 
organized themselves and marched from one end of 
Lexington Avenue, starting a little below 38th 
street, all the way up towards East Harlem. They 
stopped short of reaching the upper East Side 
because it is a known fact in NYC that the Cuban 
American community of NJ takes the Dominican 
community of Washington Heights, the Boricuas of 
Spanish Harlem, and the African Americans of 
Harlem very seriously. Those social groups would 
always organize a counter march in favor of the Cubans.

In a previous post I mentioned that Cuba has more 
than enough to protest about and more than enough 
to get out in the media. The husbands of these 
Ladies in White have been accused of being 
sponsored by a foreign government by using the 
funds allotted to Cubans on the island. These 
funds are intended to create a "social 
opposition" within the so called "independent 
civil society," and to "identify the adequate 
means in order to put a quick end to the Cuban 
regime and organize the transition."

Funds during the Bush Jr. administration rose 
from 3.5 million yearly to 20 million and 
continue at that level today. These ladies, whose 
husbands have been sentenced to prison terms for 
being accused of acting on behalf of the 
interests of a foreign government logically have 
as much right as the next person to be annoyed. 
They will of course want to make their feelings 
known, even when members of their families were 
caught red handed. They have the same right to 
protest as the Cuban government does. They have 
the right to take punitive action against 
nationals working at the bequest of the United 
States- which coincidentally is gravely punished 
and prohibited by the US itself.

So, let the protests begin. Let the Cuban 
government allow for them to take place, by 
granting these ladies a permit to do so. Of 
course, with proper police security to warn off 
any onlookers who deem it appropriate to heckle, 
push, shove, or whatever aggressive lime lighting attitude may play about.

I then would request that the foreign press, 
Amnesty International, and the rest of the 
political and non political organizations out 
there, cover the much less publicized protests of 
the thousands of Cubans on the island who want an 
end to 50 years of economic, political, cultural 
and scientific punishment. Or end the acts of 
sabotage and terrorism that the island and all of 
the people outside of the island have been 
subject to for the past 50 years. This is 
including but not exclusive to acts such as the 
murder of Carlos Muñíz Varela, a 26 year old 
Cuban American shot and killed in San Juan Puerto 
Rico. Or multiple bombings in the city of Miami, 
against the places of work of individual's hoping 
to reconcile with the government on the island. 
Or acts of sabotage, like the downing of a Cuban 
civilian aircraft with 73 passengers on board.

More to the point, these Ladies in White protest 
their husband's incarceration and they want them 
home. There is a lesser known group of ladies in 
Cuba, not because they have less reason or 
passion, but simply because they get less coverage and demand less attention.

This other group of ladies is smaller in size and 
they too have reason to protest. They do not wear 
white and they do not carry flowers. They carry 
the conviction of their truths and the truths of 
their husbands. More importantly, the truth of an 
entire nation - including that of the infamous Ladies in White.

These are the wives, mothers, and daughters of 
the Cuban Five. Five men imprisoned for the past 
decade in the United States for fighting the same 
acts of hatred which the Cuban nation has been 
dealing with for the past 50 years. They did not 
act on behalf of a foreign government. They were 
not in the United States to topple the government 
there, or "take steps directed at training, 
developing and strengthening of the opposition 
and civil society." They were there to help 
protect both the people of Cuba and the people in 
the US who believe that a better reality across the straights is possible.



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