Moderate Dissident Group Convenes Congress

POLITICS-CUBA:
Moderate Dissident Group Convenes Congress
By Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Sep 10 (IPS) - A moderate dissident group in Cuba that aspires
to become a "political majority" in the future announced Thursday that
it would hold a congress in 2010.

The social democratic group, Arco Progresista (AP), says 150 to 200
delegates from around the country will take part in the congress.

The aim is for 12 months of preparations to culminate in September 2010
in two days of "strategic" debates and the election of a board of AP
leaders.

In the past, similar initiatives have been squelched by Cuba's communist
government, which considers all dissidents "mercenaries" in the service
of the hostile U.S. policy towards Cuba. But the organisers of next
year's congress believe that conditions have improved.

"We are facing new circumstances, both within and outside the country,
which create better conditions for a climate of tolerance, especially
with regard to an approach like ours, which is progressive," AP
spokesman Manuel Cuesta Morúa told IPS, after making the announcement to
the press.

AP, which started out as a coalition of social democratic groups,
declared itself a political party in July 2008 as a result of the
merging of the Corriente Socialista Democrática Cubana (Cuban Democratic
Socialist Current), the Coordinadora Socialdemócrata de Cuba (Cuban
Social Democratic Coordinator, in exile), the Partido del Pueblo
(People's Party), the Movimiento Juvenil Socialdemócrata (Social
Democratic Youth Movement), the Proyecto de Estudios de la Mujer
(Women's Studies Project), Cambio Tranquilo (citizen network for
peaceful change), and the "Diego Vicente Tejera" Centro de Estudios
(Studies Centre).

"We represent an option and a voice…a social minority that wants to
become a political majority," said Cuesta Morúa.

According to the documents handed out to the press, the "first AP
congress" will focus on "the Cuban crisis with a strategic approach that
is fundamental for the future: the social, cultural and political
institutionalisation of social democracy in Cuba."

With that aim, the plan is to push, through the year-long preparations
that began this week, for "social insertion" in municipalities and
communities, to convene experts to "propose directions for the new
country," and to design "the necessary and possible options" for social
democracy.

AP plans to "gradually open" offices at the municipal level for people
who identify with the social democratic alternative to register as members.

"For a long time we have set forth an ideological position in the name
of citizens who do not even know us, who do not know what possible
identities they might have, politically speaking," says the document,
which introduces a series of questions to be included in a survey that
the group hopes to carry out.

The questionnaire asks whether or not the respondent is familiar with
the AP, and asks respondents to provide a three-word definition of
"democratic socialism," name one difference between "social democrat"
and "communist," and list three basic "political aspirations" for Cuba.

"We are launching a process that we call the Arco Progresista
(Progressive Arc) in the streets, which means we will ask citizens to
identify a direction and option for Cuba," said Cuesta Morúa, who added
that "a sound country cannot be built without its citizens."

"Out there (on the streets) there is deep dissatisfaction…We want to
offer an option to those who feel upset. We have the political capacity
to do so," said the dissident leader.

He also said that no fundamental changes are possible without the voice
of a "critical citizen majority."

Leonardo Calvo, one of the group's vice presidents, clarified that the
AP is not fighting for a change of government or to replace any specific
individual, but for the creation of "a new kind of coexistence, and to
restore the citizen's voice, space and ability to determine their own fate."

In its platform, the AP advocates the "recognition of all economic
rights," the free exercise of workers' right to unionise, and a
"comprehensive, in-depth" new agrarian reform effort that would put the
land back in the hands of farmers.

With respect to relations with the international community, it calls for
"critical, constructive dialogue, and non-isolation and cooperation as a
means of modernising Cuba," and says that "a substantial change" in U.S.
policy towards Cuba would contribute to that end.

In addition, the AP "reaffirms its opposition to the embargo and to
meddling of any kind in Cuba's internal affairs," and "promotes
recognition of the rights of all citizens and minorities without
conditions or discrimination of any kind."

The Cuban constitution only recognises the Communist Party, which it
defines as "Martiano (for independence hero José Martí) and
Marxist-Leninist, the organised vanguard of the Cuban nation" and "the
highest leading force of society and the state."

Alternatives voiced by dissidents, who are fragmented in small groups of
different political tendencies, generally go unnoticed by most people in
this Caribbean island nation of 11.2 million.

The Proyecto Varela (Varela Project), an initiative presented in 2002 by
dissident leader Oswaldo Payá of the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación
(Christian Liberation Movement) to promote a referendum on several
proposed constitutional changes, was pulled out of obscurity in this
country by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter (1977-1981).

On a visit to Cuba in May 2002, the former Democratic president
mentioned the Varela Project in a speech at the University of Havana,
which was broadcast live to the entire nation.

In June 2002, a month after the Varela Project delivered its petition,
with just over 11,000 signatures, to parliament, some eight million
Cubans approved a constitutional reform that declared socialism in Cuba
"irrevocable." (END/2009)

POLITICS-CUBA: Moderate Dissident Group Convenes Congress - IPS
ipsnews.net (10 September 2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48400