An independence day with nothing to cheer
OUR OPINION: As long as Cuba is not free, OAS should not invite its
membership
In South Florida, there will be proclamations and receptions Wednesday
marking the 107th anniversary of Cuba's independence from Spain.
But in Cuba, now in its 50th year of totalitarian rule under Fidel and
Raúl Castro, there will be nothing but more repression. Cuba doesn't
commemorate the date, based on the brothers' outrageous belief that only
their 1959 revolution brought ``freedom.''
It is in this surreal totalitarian landscape that 11 million Cubans must
navigate day after day, in between standing in line for food rations and
trying to find cement on the black market to patch up decaying homes.
Those who complain publicly about their country's sorry state and lack
of freedom can expect harassment and jail time.
The universal rights of freedom of speech, association and assembly are
systematically violated in Cuba's one-party state, but you wouldn't know
that from the regime's apologists in this hemisphere.
Still in prison
As for political prisoners, which international human-rights groups
estimate at about 200, Cuba maintains there are none. Just last month,
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told European Union foreign
ministers to lift all sanctions imposed after Cuba arrested 75
dissidents in 2003.
Yet Cuba has done little to deserve better relations. Fifty-four
independent journalists, librarians and human-rights activists remain in
prison six years later, unfairly accused of being U.S. mercenaries. This
week, three Cubans were arrested for their democratic ideals -- a sign
that the regime refuses to live up to the universal declaration of human
rights it has committed to sign.
Ejected in '62
It is for those reasons and many more that a group of 300 Cuban
dissidents have sent a letter to the Organization of American States,
rejecting any attempt to return Cuba to the OAS. Cuba was kicked out of
the OAS in 1962, after firing squads killed hundreds, and thousands more
were sent to prison, including Cubans who had backed the revolution
until Fidel Castro turned to the Soviet Union and reneged on his promise
of democratic, multiparty elections.
This is no time to open the door to Cuba at the OAS, a message that
Berta Antúnez, the sister of a prominent Afro-Cuban dissident, Jorge
Luis ''Antúnez'' García, will share with U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek
Wednesday in Washington.
In Madrid, Cuban exiles and human-rights advocates will protest outside
the Cuban embassy to remind the world that after 50 years the communist
island remains the only country in the western hemisphere to outlaw
peaceful dissent.
The OAS should make it clear at its June meeting: Whether from the right
or the left, dictators are never welcome.
An independence day with nothing to cheer - Editorials - MiamiHerald.com
(20 May 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1056679.html
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