Requiem for the 10th of December

Requiem for the 10th of December (International Day of Human Rights) /
by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo
Posted on December 11, 2014

The 10th of December is one of the saddest days. That day the political
police – only source of governance in our island – brings out all of its
henchmen to suppress dissent. Many are dressed with their olive-green
monkey-like Ministry of the Interior uniforms – most are in plain
clothes. And you never really know which is worse, because street
clothing in Cuba is inherently cruel. This is how the violence of our
State Security disguises itself as a "counterrevolutionary rapid
response" by the loyal and "uniformed people." Plebeian and power are
two words that become one in our own tropical brand of nationalistic
despotism.

This mafia-like behavior is the real engine that drives the Revolution
of the Castros; firing squads and faith in a better future; jail for
non-conformists and ration-books for the faithful; repression of private
life and exile for those who escape. This is how the Communist Party has
hijacked our nation, whose sovereignty has been a myth since 1959, when
the island fell into the hands of a group of populist militants. In this
respect, it is important to note that neither a domestic rebellion nor
the so-long-awaited Yankee invasion would ever be a violation of
sovereignty when the very essence of the Castros' rule has been to
ignore the will of the Cuban people.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the continuing existence of the family's
octogenarian hegemonic brothers, the heirs of the family clan – the
pentarchy of Alejandro, Mariela, Antonio, Raul Guillermo and Deborah –
prepare themselves for a fake transition of power that ignores the more
than 25,000 signatures of the Varela Project (an independent
civic-democratic movement within Cuba) that clamors for democracy.

The success of this fake transition depends on the complicity of the
democratic governments of the European Union and certain opportunistic
groups within American society, pressured by big-money interests, that
wish to obtain their share of the spoils derived from a Cuban workforce
with no rights, all while paying off and manipulating American media,
where it is proclaimed that our country is a proletarian paradise where
"Fatherland" is pronounced as "Gallows." Never has the annexationist
tradition in our island had such success as it does in the current
context; Cuba's present neither includes nor involves ordinary Cubans;
our future is molded from Strasbourg, Brussels, Washington, Moscow,
Beijing, and Caracas much worse than it was in 1898, because this time
our government is being invited as the guest of honor.

Many leaders in Cuba's civil society have been threatened, harassed,
repudiated, beaten, and even jailed without cause on the 10th of
December. On this day, independent artists are impeded from working on
their projects – in my case, for being a blogger independent of any
official institutions, a police detachment at my doorstep prevented me
from leaving without being arrested – or even receiving visits. All of
this on the 10th of December… a day that happens to also be my birthday.

This 10th of December, the rapper Angel Yunier Remon aka "El Critico,"
remains sentenced to five years for his independent and libertarian
brand of music. The novelist Angel Santiesteban suffers a similar
sentence since the beginning of last year. Various human rights
activists are not allowed to travel freely within or without the island.
Government-controlled mobs continue their aggressive harassment of
dissidents, among many other abuses that include spying on the private
lives of activists.

These are the exemplary results of "Raulpolitik", our very own brand of
Putinism – a type of reactionism that hurts no one buts its victims. We
are alone and Cubans abroad are unwilling to raise a single cent for the
cause of liberty. In fact, our exile community donates billions of
dollars each year simply so that we can be treated as worse than
traitors by our own government.

When democracy one day reaches Cuba, either tomorrow or in another 56
years – it will arrive notwithstanding the international leftist
movement. When the men and women of my country recover the life in
liberty and truth that our dictatorship reduced to a mere ideological
battleground for Socialism – when Castroism finally becomes a thing of
the past and its perpetrators are finally condemned so that they never
bring back Communism in our island (an occasion that will include not
only the enshrinement of the separation of powers, but also the banning
of anti-democratic parties) – still the 10th of December will be a sad
day of remembrance for my countrymen.

This day for generations and generations will continue to remind us of
the impunity with which our State Security treated us; an army dressed
in the color of silence that applauded and assassinated without
consequences; that was willing to combat ebola in Africa while it
nurtured the virus of violence at home; that created false and imagined
enemies for purposes of its theatrical manipulation. This day shall be
for us to never forget the hate that Castroism engendered for its fellow
countrymen and for us to never forget the historic humiliation we
suffered under the watchful eye of our very own Big Brother; a day for
us to open our hearts for the even more difficult reconciliation that
will be necessary for the reconstruction of our country.

These 10ths of December hurt. The 10th of December hurts more than the
double funeral (of the Castro brothers) that is ever-faster approaching
us ever will. The 10th of December ignores all notions of forgetfulness.
No victim will be unable to find his abuser when we one day live in
liberty. The fight of the Cuban people against Castroism is the fight of
memory against memory.
– OLPL

Originally published in Spanish in Diario de Cuba

Translated by Roberto Alba-Bustamante

Source: Requiem for the 10th of December (International Day of Human
Rights) / by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/requiem-for-the-10th-of-december-international-day-of-human-rights-by-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/