Popular civil disobedience started on 11 July will put an end to Cuba’s dictatorship and its satellites

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) The 11th of July of 2021 (11-J) people peacefully took to the streets of Cuba with the chant of “freedom”, proclaiming the failure of the 62-year-old dictatorship, clamoring “down with communism” and pouring out their desperation due to the lack of food, medicines, and hope with the outcry “we are not afraid”. The regime’s response was the “order of battle” given by dictator Castro through Miguel Diaz-Canel, an order that continues producing dead, thousands of wounded and detained, torture, forcible disappearances and “terrorism of State” with “counterfeited prosecutions” and “shocking sentences”. The popular civil disobedience, however, continues and the 11-J signals the beginning of the end of Cuba’s dictatorship and its satellites in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.

On 11-J, women, men, youth, artists, all Cubans, decided to exercise their “human right to freedom of expression” to ask for a change, “Homeland and Life”. They did so after over 62 years of a dictatorship self-proclaimed to be the “Cuban Revolution”. With its leader Fidel Castro dead and with impunity, and the nation subjected under a fascist control system, the island was converted into a prison and Cuban citizens were stripped of their status as citizens in order to be converted into subjected survivors.

The 11-J represents a civil disobedience movement desperately organized through the social media and opportunities offered by the 21st century communicational revolution. A popular expression based on the basic needs of the fundamental human right that is the “right to life”, because in Cuba there were neither food, nor health services, nor medicines, nor education, nor any hope for the Cuban people, all while a small family/military elite that holds power through an institutionalized system for the violation of human rights lives in opulence in and outside of the country.

The so-called Constitution of Cuba is only a “dictatorial statute” that regulates the subjection of the people, the elimination of freedom, and the “terrorism of State” as a form of government. Proof enough is the reading of Title 1, Chapter 1, Fundamental Principles of the Nation, that in its article 4 states; “The defense of our socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of every Cuban. Treason is the most serious of crimes, whoever should commit treason will be subject to the most severe sanctions. The socialist system that this Constitution supports is irrevocable…Citizens have the right to combat through any means, including armed combat when other means are not available, against anyone (sic) that intends (sic) to topple the political, social, and economic order established by this Constitution”.

A regime that imposes an “only party” in the text of what it calls Constitution confesses of terrorism, as proven in reading Title 1, Chapter 1, Fundamental Principles of the Nation, Article 5 that states; “The Communist Party of Cuba, unique, Martiano, Fidelist (sic), and Marxist-Leninist, the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, sustained in its democratic character as well as its permanent linkage to the people, is the superior driving force of the society and the State. It organizes and orients the communal efforts (sic) towards the construction of socialism and its progress toward a communist society…”.

It is frightening; to know what they consider laws, especially penal laws, to know their judicial organization and their court-proceedings that are changeable according to the manipulation and best interests of the regime. Matters such as the “pre-criminal dangerousness” that condemns a person because the regime knows what he or she thinks and considers this a crime, is a crime without commission or omission by the accused! These and more are proof of not only the dictatorial nature of the regime, but of the commission of “crimes against humanity” established in “despicable laws”.

Beyond institutionalizing the violation of human rights and being a regime based on terror, Cuba’s dictatorship sustains itself through; open violence, torture, assassinations, extortion, and attacks against its people and a very effective international coercive system that was expanded in the 21st century, a period that turned Castroism into Castrochavism with the infusion of resources by, and the very timely death of, Hugo Chavez. This way, Cuba is today the lead dictatorship of the transnational organized crime group self-labeled as “21st Century Socialism” that controls dictatorships in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua and the governments of Argentina with Fernandez/Kirchner and of Mexico with Lopez-Obrador.

The movement started on 11-J in Cuba has not stopped, protests have continued and have even increased. The Cuban Observatory reports there were 258 protests in Cuba in the month of June of this year, 81 in Havana, 19 in Camagüey, 18 in Holguin and Villa Clara . . . and past months have had similar or greater numbers. The dictatorship is increasing its violence and terrorism, but is now internationally seen as oppressive and as the lead narco-State, and its staunchest supporters now hide not to give it a helping hand.

Cuba, the “Dictatorship-In-Chief” of Castrochavism has just passed one year following the 11-J protests without any historical, let alone circumstantial viability, because it does not have; the support of the people (its popular support no longer exists), it does not have a minimally accepted economy (humanitarian crises), it does not have neither a credible discourse nor a narrative (no one believes any longer the fallacy of it being a Cuban Revolution), is being left without its historical leaders (this past year 23 of their chiefs and leaders have died), and institutionalized crime is now evident.
The 11-J movement in Cuba is the beginning of the liberation of the Cuban people that will result in the ending of Cuba’s dictatorship and that of its satellites from Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua. The internal and international impact of the 11-J is expanding and grows and the peoples continue their fight for freedom in spite of the blindness of important democratic leaders.
*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas