CUBA

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17 October 2006
European Nations Form New Group in Support of Democratic Cuba

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -– A new group, consisting of nations from Central and Eastern Europe, is forming to help promote the transition to democracy in Cuba.

The formation of the “Friends of a Democratic Cuba” was highlighted October 13 in Miami, where U.S. State Department official Paula Dobriansky and U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, among others, spoke at a “Cuba Transition to Democracy Summit.”

The “Friends” group consists of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Slovenia. The group, opposed to the repression carried out by the current Cuban regime, supports a peaceful transition from communism to democracy in the Caribbean nation.

Using their own experience with totalitarianism, the European countries intend to promote such goals as the freeing of all political prisoners in Cuba, the cessation by Cuban authorities of hostile activities against Cuban dissidents, and the strengthening of bonds between civil society in Cuba and Eastern and Central Europe. The group also wants to help the Cuban people gain access to outside information, especially to the Internet. A global press advocacy organization, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, says Cuba is one of the world's "most repressive countries" with respect to online free expression. (See related article.)

The participants in the Miami meeting, which included several members of the Florida delegation in the U.S. Congress, said recent events in Cuba “have increased interest by the international community in Cuba’s future, and, specifically, the need for a democratic transition in that oppressed island.”

The Miami meeting aimed to identify specific ways to help the Cuban pro-democracy movement by drawing from the experiences of former European Communist states. In addition, the meeting assembled what its backers said was a “broad cross-section of officials on how to accelerate democratic change in Cuba.”

In his speech at the meeting, Gutierrez, the U.S. commerce secretary, said Cuba is "poised" for change from dictatorship to democracy in light of the fact that the country's ailing Fidel Castro “is not coming back to power.”

Gutierrez said in his prepared remarks that despite the Cuban government’s claims to the contrary, Castro's health is "deteriorating," and will prevent him from reassuming his position as dictator of Cuba. The Cuban regime announced July 29 that while he recuperated from intestinal surgery, Castro was handing over power to his brother Raul Castro. (See related article.)

Speaking to an audience that included current and former government officials from Latin America and Europe, Gutierrez said that as Cuba enters "this time of uncertainty -– and opportunity" a key ingredient in this transition is the "right of the Cuban people to participate fully and freely in the governance and economy of their country."

He described the Miami meeting as a "call to action for all nations to take part" in making Cuba's dream of democracy a reality.

The Cuban people must be the "ones to define the path to their democratic destiny," Gutierrez said. He offered the examples of Czechoslovakia and Poland, whose transitions to democracy could serve as models for Cuba.

Citizens of Cuba, said Gutierrez, "deserve the very same opportunity” as those in Europe’s former communist states “to organize to express their preference as to how they are governed and who governs them."

Gutierrez said that in Poland, the country's transition to democracy came in the form of a labor movement, the Solidarity Trade Union. Workers' strikes ultimately forced the government to the negotiating table, which led to the establishment of a democratic government, the commerce secretary said.

In Czechoslovakia, Gutierrez said anti-communist dissent manifested itself through plays, music and poetry, and a human rights manifesto called "Charter 77" became the catalyst for change, "bringing together a broad range of political activists who negotiated the peaceful transition of power" in 1989.

Gutierrez said the principal route for Cuba's "return to the community of democracies" will be through free, multiparty elections. Those elections, he said, require a guarantee of the rights of free speech, free press, free worship, as well as legalizing all peaceful political activity, releasing all political prisoners, establishing an independent judiciary and ensuring the right to private property.

He also said Cuba must allow for the creation of independent trade unions and associations, must guarantee fundamental human rights, must end the "climate of fear and repression," and remove both Fidel and Raul Castro, "or anyone else hand-selected by the current regime" from power

Gutierrez emphasized that the greatest threat to the Castro regime is not the U.S. government, but rather "the entrepreneurial spirit of the Cuban people -– their ability to invent, to express, to dream, to create."

The text of Gutierrez’s speech is available on the Commerce Department Web site.

For information on U.S. policy, see Cuba and the United States.

See also information on the U.S. Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba on the commission’s Web site.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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