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Friends,<br><br>
A new international disinformation campaign is being undertaken against
Cuba. The case of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban prisoner who died
on February 23rd after going on a hunger strike, is being manipulated by
the global corporate media to mobilize anti-Cuban sentiments around the
world. For helpful background on the case you can go to Monthly
Review zine: <br>
<a href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/lamrani040310.html">
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/lamrani040310.html</a> . <br><br>
It is very important for progressive people in the U.S. to learn about
this case, understand how it is being orchestrated as part of the
continuing destabilization efforts against Cuba and show support for Cuba
at this critical moment.<br><br>
The Mexican chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity initiated a
website to counter the campaign and gather signatures to support Cuba.
At <a href="http://www.porcuba.org/">www.porcuba.org</a> you
can sign on to the declaration in defense of Cuba by going to the tab
"para adherirse."<br><br>
Below is the declaration and statements from the Cuban National Assembly
and from UNEAC, the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists about the case and
the anti-Cuba campaign. <br><br>
(On March 11th the European Parliament approved a resolution condemning
Cuba for its treatment of Orlando Zapata as a political
prisoner.)<br><br>
En Defensa de Cuba<br><br>
In Defense of Cuba <br><br>
In response to the European Parliament Resolution of March 11 regarding
Cuba, we intellectuals, academics, social activists, critical thinkers
and artists of the Network in Defense of Humanity declare: <br><br>
1. That we share the sensibility shown by the European parliamentarians
about political prisoners. Like them, we call for the immediate and
unconditional freedom of all political prisoners, in all the countries of
the world, including those of the European Union. <br><br>
2. We deeply regret, as they do, the death of the common prisoner,
Orlando Zapata, but we are opposed to his death, the first “… in almost
40 years” according to the Parliament, being distorted for other
political ends that are contrary to those in defense of human rights.
<br><br>
3. That urging “… the European institutions to give unconditional support
and encouragement for the initiation of a peaceful political transition
toward a plural democracy in Cuba” is not only an act of interference,
but it also presumes a sole model of democracy which certainly shows
itself to be more and more insufficient and questionable. We reject that
proposal because of our commitment to the principles of non-intervention
and self-determination of the peoples—principles defended by the UN as
well. <br><br>
4. The search for and deepening of democracy presumes, among other
things, to transcend the formal and invent new forms that are
authentically representative, and that are not necessarily restricted to
multiple parties. As is well known, often the decisions over the great
problems of the world are made unilaterally by small interest groups with
great power, over and above the regime of parties. <br><br>
5. That to try to justify the interference into the internal political
affairs of the Cuban people by manipulating the case of Orlando Zapata
through the media—a common delinquent who by no means was a political
prisoner—coincides with the counter-insurgency policies that are being
applied in Latin America to hold back or distort the emancipatory
processes of transformation that are in motion. This is in addition to
the criminal blockade that the Cuban people have been subjected to, for
the simple fact of not accepting impositions and for defending the right
to decide its destiny with dignity and independence. <br><br>
6. That we share the concern shown by the parliamentarians about respect
for human rights in Cuba, but we extend that concern to the whole world.
In the same way that you are concerned about the case of the delinquent
who died (in 40 years there has been no previous occurrence), we invite
you to demand the end of the occupation of Gaza and the aggression
against the Palestinian people, which has caused not one, but thousands
of deaths; an end to the intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan that has
sown death and terror in towns and cities; of the bombardments of those
places with the argument that it is defending democracy; an end to the
double occupancy of Haiti; the closing of the prison in Guantánamo and
the return of that territory to Cuba, to whom it belongs; and the return
of the Malvinas Islands to Argentina. And certainly, we call for an end
to the blockade, which violates the human rights of the Cuban people and
which puts in doubt the moral<br>
authority of those who demand humane treatment for a delinquent when it
is denied for an entire people. <br><br>
7. The economic and media assault that Cuba is being subjected to, even
before the death of the prisoner Orlando Zapata, constitutes an act
against the human and political rights of a people that decided to forge
a different path. <br><br>
We demand respect for the internal processes of the Cuban people in
deciding and exercising its democracy, and adherence to the universal
principles of no intervention, in accordance with the United Nations.
<br><br>
Network in Defense of Humanity. <br><br>
<br>
<b>Statement from the National Assembly of People’s Power<br><br>
</b>IN the wake of a media campaign mounted by powerful corporations,
fundamentally in Europe, which have ferociously attacked Cuba , and after
a dirty debate, the European Parliament has just passed a resolution of
condemnation against our country that manipulates sentiments, brandishes
lies and conceals realities.<br><br>
The pretext utilized was the death of a prisoner, initially sentenced for
a common crime and subsequently manipulated by U.S. interests and
mercenaries at its service, who, of his own free will, refused to eat,
despite warnings from and intervention by Cuban medical specialists.
<br>
This lamentable event cannot be utilized to condemn Cuba by adducing that
a death could have been avoided. If there is one field in which our
country does not have to defend itself in words, given that the reality
is irrefutable, it is in that of the fight for the lives of human beings,
whether born in Cuba or in other countries. Just one example is the
presence of Cuban doctors in Haiti for more than 11 years prior to the
earthquake in January of this year, a fact silenced by the hegemonic
press.<br><br>
Behind that condemnation lies profound cynicism. How many children’s
lives have been lost in poor nations because of the decision by rich
countries represented in the European Parliament not to meet their
commitments to development aid? All of them knew it was a mass death
sentence, but they opted to preserve the levels of waste and the
continuation of consumerism to suicide in the long term.<br><br>
We Cubans are also offended by that attempt to teach us a lesson at a
time when immigrants and the unemployed are being repressed in Europe ,
but while here, in neighborhood meetings, people are proposing their
candidates for municipal elections, freely and without
intermediaries.<br><br>
Those countries which participated in or allowed the clandestine air
transport of detainees, the establishment of illegal prisons, and the
practice of torture, lack the ethical authority to pass moral judgments
on a people under attack and brutally blockaded.<br><br>
Such a discriminatory and selective condemnation can only be explained by
the failure of a policy incapable of bringing a heroic people to their
knees. Neither the Helms Burton Act, nor the European common position,
which emerged in the same year in the same circumstances and with the
same purpose, both of them damaging to our national sovereignty and
dignity, have the most minimal future, because we Cubans reject
imposition, intolerance and pressure as a norm within international
relations.<br><br>
National Assembly of People’s Power of the Republic of Cuba<br><br>
<b>Statement by the Secretariat of UNEAC ( Union of Cuban Writers and
Artists)<br><br>
</b>While the Book Fair was taking place from one end of our country to
the other and hundreds of Cuban doctors were saving lives in Haiti , a
new campaign against Cuba was being cooked up. A common criminal with a
proven history of violence, who had become a “political prisoner,”
announced that he was undertaking a hunger strike for the installation of
a telephone, stove and television in his cell. Incited by unscrupulous
individuals and despite everything that was done to prolong his life,
Orlando Zapata Tamayo died and has now been converted into a regrettable
symbol of the anti-Cuba machinery. On March 11, the European Parliament
passed a resolution “energetically condemning the avoidable and cruel
death of the dissident political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo,” and in
an offensive act of intervention in our internal affairs, “urged European
institutions to unconditionally support and unreservedly encourage the
start of a peaceful process ofpolitical transition toward a multi-party
democracy in Cuba .” <br><br>
A petition titled “Orlando Zapata Tamayo: I accuse the Cuban government,”
is currently circulating to collect signatures against Cuba . The
petition claims that this inmate was “unjustly imprisoned and brutally
tortured,” and that he died “denouncing these crimes and his country’s
lack of rights and democracy.” At the same time, it shamelessly lies
about our government’s alleged practice of “physically eliminating its
critics and peaceful opponents.” On March 15, a Spanish newspaper
displayed the face of Zapata Tamayo, when this man had died and was in
his coffin, and announced that certain intellectuals had adhered to the
petition, adding their signatures to those of old and new professionals
in the internal and external counterrevolution. <br><br>
We Cuban writers and artists are fully aware of how the corporate media
and hegemonic interests link up with international reactionary forces on
any pretext whatsoever to damage our image. We are aware of the merciless
and ghoulish distortion of our realities and the daily fabrication of
lies about Cuba . We also know the price that is paid by those people who
have tried to express themselves within culture with their own nuances.
<br><br>
Never in the history of the Revolution has a prisoner been tortured. Not
one single person has disappeared. There has not been one single
extrajudicial execution. We have founded our own form of democracy,
imperfect, yes, but far more participatory and legitimate than the one
they want to impose on us. Those who have orchestrated this campaign do
not have the moral authority to teach us lessons in human rights.
<br><br>
It is essential to halt this latest aggression against a blockaded and
pitilessly harassed country. To that end, we appeal to the conscience of
all intellectuals and artists who do not harbor spurious interests with
respect to the future of a Revolution that has been, is, and will be a
model of humanism and solidarity. <br><br>
Secretariat of UNEAC ( Union of Cuban Writers and Artists)<br>
National Leadership, Hermanos Saíz Association<br>
16-03-2010<br><br>
<br><br>
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