BUILDING A NEW NATION

BUILDING A NEW NATION
2007-09-11.
Alfredo M. Cepero

After months of studies, analysis and painstaking exchanges between
members of the Cuban opposition, both inside and outside the island, the
leaders of 13 organizations and political parties decided to join their
efforts in order to exert a deep and lasting influence over the drastic
changes needed to open a path from the present communist dictatorship to
a real, representative and participatory democracy.

The result was the Alliance for a New Nation, signed in Cuba and in
exile on May 20th of this year by representatives of political parties,
human rights movements, workers unions, civic organizations and
Christian groups.

In the course of its first meeting, the General Assembly elected 32
years old Rafael Avila Perez as President of the Permanent Council, in
charge of running every day operations. The other members of the
Permanent Council are: Carlos Miyares, Carlos Ríos Otero, Ulises
Calderón, Vladimir Alejo, Carlos Ríos García and Alfredo M. Cepero (the
only one living in exile). The founding members organizations in Cuba
were: Partido Popular Joven Cuba, Instituto Juvenil Cristiano de
Estudios Sociales, Unión Lucista, Movimiento Popular Pro Derechos
Humanos "Miguel Valdés Tamayo", Centro de Información sobre Democracia,
Sindicato Independiente "Cambio", Partido Republicano de Cuba, Frente
Democrático Independiente "Elena Mederos", Movimiento de Derechos
Humanos "Municipios de Cuba"; and in exile: Partido Nacionalista
Democrático de Cuba, Asociación Cubanos por la Libertad, Federación
Sindical de Plantas Eléctricas y Asociación pro Democracia en Cuba.

The ANN has adopted as its mode of operation what it calls: "An active
resistance, without violence, but with initiatives that will deprive the
communist regime of its domain over the political agenda." After an
appeal in June to the European Union asking the organization to condemn
the repressive acts of the political police and support Cuban civil
society, the ANN has embarked in what could become the most effective
tool implemented so far in opposition to the communist regime. It is a
unique campaign to expose and denounce as a circus the fraudulent
electoral process being implemented by the dictatorship between the
months of October and December of this year.

The campaign will ask Cubans to vote NO in their ballots and will be
carried out through a parallel count to the count of the communist
authorities, utilizing the same electoral laws of the regime. For
instance, articles 131,132 and 133 of Cuba's electoral law estipulate
that "voting is free, equal and secret for all Cubans older than 16
years of age." According to ANN, the objectives are to "initiate a
process of civil disobedience that will undermine the dictatorship and
conduct to a system of freedom and democracy as well as to demonstrate
the fraud of the official count". Leaders of the ANN hope that this
campaign will achieve the same success as the one in East Germany in
1989 that led to the demise of the communist regime in that country.
But, regardless of its results, this campaign is a clear indication that
young Cubans inside the island are determined to gain their freedom on
their own and without waiting for any outside support or accepting any
interference from abroad.

http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/article.asp?artID=11539