I think that the relationship or link between the “new kind” of dissident movements, if you can call them that, youth protest movements, and the traditional opposition, is occurring, but spontaneously. One of the fundamental tasks of the Cuban government and of the intelligence services of state security has been to keep the opposition fragmented, and they are very concerned that this may create a synergy between youth groups, such as the one that just one week ago organized a protest march on a very busy street, and dissident factions. Many of these groups have no clear political ideology, as the traditional dissident movements do, but if a public scenario is created on the street, in which that synergy becomes possible, the Cuban government would have serious reasons to be worried, and I think that´s what worries them.
It’s not just that Yoani Sanchez [Yoani Sanchez is a Cuban journalist and blogger. She is well known for her critical reporting of the regime and conditions in the country] and other bloggers have physically accompanied the Ladies in White Movement [The Ladies in White Movement, or Damas de Blanco, is a Cuban civil society group made up of female relatives of political prisoners], in these protests that took place a week ago in memory of the Black Spring of 2003. [The Black Spring was a government crackdown on activists and dissidents.]
In addition to being there, physically, and the relationship that has been built between these groups, a cordial relationship, and a constant communication through Twitter and other media that the traditional dissident did not have before. Besides that, the Ladies in White are acting as the “fence sitters” of other protests in other places, because they make protests that are not pre-announced, except for a small group, they invite the press to witness, they go around the city in an unplanned way, and I think that forces a security operation, a display that can be very costly, not only in terms of logistics, but in terms of image. What most worries the Cuban regime is that these protests take place in the street and make the dissident movement visible.
As long as they are gathered in a house, or doing something once in a while in a church, they can control them, but when they go to a very central street in Havana, other people suddenly realize: hey, there are dissidents here. Who are these women who are dressed in white? Why are they surrounding them? And increasingly they have realized that to organize these crowds, these acts of repudiation, people are not willing to hit these women, as they were at some time in the 80´s.
It´s a bit more complicated, that would create them serious problems, because, well, they are women, there is a whole symbolism in this white thing, there is a good reason — that they are defending their families who are prisoners. They do care a lot, and I think here is where the key link between bloggers and young people who are able to understand the political causes of these people, but at the same time they are not quite a political party because they are a protest movement.
Ernesto Hernández Busto is an essayist, journalist and blogger and a recognized authority on technology and democracy. He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1968.
As a young man, he became active in the Paideia movement, a group of artists and writers that sought to reform cultural policy in Cuba. The response of security forces to this group of young intellectuals influenced his decision to emigrate. At the age of 21, he left Cuba “to escape the oppressive atmosphere of a totalitarian society, which was suffocating in all areas of life.”
From 1992 to 1999, he lived in Mexico, where we wrote for Vuelta magazine, edited by Octavio Paz, as well as other literary journals and publications. Since 1999, he has lived in Barcelona, Spain, where he works as an editor, translator and journalist.
His books include ‘Perfiles derechos. Fisonomías del escritor reaccionario’ (Barcelona, 2004; III “Casa de América” essay prize) and ‘Inventario de saldos. Apuntes sobre literatura cubana’ (Madrid, 2005). He has also published literary translations from Italian, Russian, French and Portuguese.
Since 2006, he has edited and published Penúltimos Días (www.penultimosdias.com), one of the most important websites on Cuban issues, with more than 70 contributors in 12 countries and over 10 million page views. He has participated in various forums on digital activism as “Internet at Liberty 2010” (organized by Google and the European Central University) and “Personal Democracy Forum Latin America,” among others. His blog is widely recognized as among the most authoritative and comprehensive websites covering events in Cuba.
He wrote the chapters on Cuba’s for Freedom House’s “Freedom on the Net” report (2010 and 2011). He is a frequent contributor to the Spanish newspaper El País, on policy and technology.
Read his blog at www.penultimosdias.com and follow him on Twitter: @penultimosdias
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
See all Cuba videos