To promote a nonviolent transition to a Cuba that respects human rights, political and economic freedoms, and the rule of law.
“The methods of repression we’ve seen in Venezuela are textbook Cuban tactics for crushing dissent and terrorizing opponents. That is hardly surprising. To those of us who have been paying attention, the expansive Cuban presence in Venezuela answers a lot of questions about the nature and intentions of the Maduro regime. Back in 2021, under the Trump administration, the State Department reported, “The Cuban intelligence and security apparatus has infiltrated Venezuela’s security and military forces, assisting Nicholas Maduro to maintain his stranglehold over his people while allowing terrorist organizations to operate.” As Maria Corina Machado, one of Maduro’s foremost political opponents and a champion of the Venezuelan people, said in a recent interview, “We have known for a long time that Cuba has had a terrible impact in multiple areas: in methods of repression, persecution, espionage, and torture. And we have seen truly heartless things in recent days.”
Yesterday, September 19th, the Rafto Foundation, a Norwegian human rights foundation, gave its annual prize, the Rafto prize, to jailed Cuban dissident artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara for his “fearless opposition to authoritarianism through art”. According to NBC News in their reporting, “Four past laureates of the Rafto prize — Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, South Korea’s Kim Dae-jung and Iran’s Shirin Ebadi — later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.“
Jose Rodriguez Herrada, who had been convicted to three years and six months in prison for his participation in the mass protests in Caibarién, Villa Clara, on July 11, 2021, was released on September 13. After being released from Guamajal prison in Santa Clara City, the 52-year-old “ex-convict” was warmly greeted home by family and friends. 14ymedio was able to find the official reason for his incarceration.
“According to sentence 137 of 2021, to which this newspaper had access, the head of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) unit of Caibarién, Ariel López Águila and Yandier Moreno Urbay, a Political Officer of the Ministry of the Interior in the territory, assured the Court that José Rodríguez Herrada, together with activists Carlos Michael Morales and Javier Delgado Torna led a large group of people who “shouted slogans against the Government” and incited other neighbors to join the protest.”
Jose Rodriguez Herrada
Martin Luther King Jr., in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail wrote, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” What began as a profound injustice in Cuba in 1959, and was often ignored is now having terrible consequences in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.
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