Cuba Solidarity Day School, Saturday 22 May

Unfortunately, few Cubans will actually know that this meeting is taking place...

 http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR250032004

The small country of Cuba has to survive in the teeth of economic, political, biological and military attacks by the most powerful imperialist nation every to exist. This makes it difficult for it to present its case to the World, and easy for well-funded CIA backed groups (I am not refering to Amnesty) to propogate lies about the revolution. The US congress recently voted another $100 million dedicated to overthrowing the Cuban government.

There are good reasons why the Cuban Revolution is looked to as a source of inspiration by oppressed peoples around the world, and especially Latin America and Africa.

On the issue of the Internet, have a look at:
 http://www.cubanlibrariessolidaritygroup.org.uk/releases/1_20_04.html
On general misreporting, see:
The truth about Reporters Sans Frontières
 http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/cubasi_article.asp?ArticleID=29

If Resolution 180/2003 was passed in the UK you would be jumping up and down shouting about oppression.

 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61866,00.html?tw=wn_polihead_6

Cuba is blantantly a repressive state that clamps down hard on dissent, as does it's larger neighbour and constant foe, the US.

Cuba has demonstrated that services can be provided to an excellant standard by the State which pisses off the neoliberal Washington Consensus types. This doesn't justify their human rights abuses. Simple.

Apologists for Cuban repression discredit the left. We rightfully condemn the US and British government's attempts to manipulate the terrorist threat and use it as a blunt tool against legitimate dissenters. We criticise the Patriot Act, the Civil Contingency Bill etc and rightfully so. Yet when Castro manipulates the US threat to Cuba, and uses it as an excuse for domestic repression, people accept it! Yes, the US have long sought to overthrow Castro, but the widespread denial of basic human rights is blatantly not targeted solely at genuine threats, rather anyone questioning Castro's authority. I don't for a second believe the US are interested in human rights, but I do listen to credible human rights observers that criticise both allied dictatorships, and official enemies.

"Cuba is a one-party state that restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent. The government severely curtails basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, movement, and to a fair trial. While it has long sought to silence its critics by using short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, threats, surveillance, criminal prosecutions, politically motivated dismissals from employment, and other forms of harassment, the government's intolerance of dissenting voices intensified considerably in 2003. In March, on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, police detained scores of political dissidents and others viewed as "counter-revolutionary" in their thinking. By early April, the defendants—who included such prominent figures as Raúl Rivero, the poet and journalist, and Héctor Palacios, a leader in the pro-democracy movement—had been sentenced to long stays in prison."

- Human Rights Watch
 http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/31/cuba7002.htm

Get real.If you want to really defend human rights have alook 80 mlies north of this remarkable third world island.Where 5 cubans have been detained in solitary confinement with no visits for simply infiltrating terrorists and saving Cuba from more terrorist attacks.This terrible little island whose largest export is doctors for free to other third world countries. Go and seek rights for the 40% of U.S.citizens who have no medical care whatsoever. Go and seek human rights for the the 40% non white prison population in U.S.jails even though they represent only 4% of the total population. you talk of Cuba being a one party state. So the U.S., where barely 40% of the population vote for one of two parties indistinguishable from eachother other than needing billions of dollars to enter into politics in the first place is democratic. This means the winners need a mere 21% of the vote to win. Unless your brother runs one of the states that is. In Cuba well over 90% of the electorate freely vote members of their local principalities into the Peoples Assembly, and they dont need to be stinking rich, only receive more than 50% of the votes.
Cubans has achieved remarkable things since being the slaves of U.S. puppet dictators and U.S. mafia. Please dont ever forget this for the sake of a few U.S. lackey's imprisoned for trying to take Cuba back into the dark ages.
Human Rights Watch you are a fuckin disgrace.

Unlike you ernesto, Human Rights Watch don't pick and choose which human rights violations they care about, and subsequently they HAVE been outspoken critics of the illegal detentions in Guantanemo Bay. Simply tossing a few utterly irrelevent facts about the US into the argument is ludicrous. How exactly does racial inequality in the US somehow justify Castro's crimes? It doesn't of course, you're merely changing the subject. If someone applied such logic as defence in a courtroom, they'd be laughed out of court. "My client may be guilty of rape, but I know of at least two murderers down the road who have yet to be caught, so can my client walk free?"
You sicken me. If you think Cuba is truly democratic you're delusional and I somehow suspect that if your government denied you basic human rights, you'd be somewhat less gleeful over their health service no matter how fantastic it was.

Sometimes people who talk about human rights get so wound up in their liberal theory that they have a tenuous grasp on reality. How do you weigh the human rights to high quality health and education, to culture and mass participative democracy - all of which Cuba has - against the right to vote for as many identical parties as you like and have your discussions swamped by the overwhelming power of big business media - as in the US and UK?

Let us look at those who were locked up in Cuba last year, after open trials. They were paid large sums of money by the US government, they had accepted short wave radios by the US top representative in Cuba, they had been invited to meet (and had met) in the US interests section. They were paid agents of a foreign power - spies and traitors - who were caught red handed taking blood money to overthrow the democratically elected Cuban government. Remember in Cuba the Communist Party is not allowed to stand candidates - the candidates come from proposals by those who live in their own streets or from the trade unions, womens, peasents or youth organisations.

Cuba is not perfect, but bear this in mind: when you are under constant and serious threat of attack and subversion by the most powerful state the world has ever known, then sometimes certain rights may be limited to defend the vast majority of other rights and gains. We do not live in a perfect world, but given it's appalling predicament Cuba is doing a damn good job. Its economy collapsed in 1993 when it lost 80% of it's trade, the US allows any illegal immigrants from Cuba to enter the (much richer) US, hundreds of milions of dollars are spent to subvert it in every way. Despite this, the highly trained doctors, teachers and athletes choose to stay and defend their revolution rather than make big bucks in the states.

It is those liberal human rights advocates who refuse to take sides in the struggle, who see themselves as aloof from it all, and condemn all sides that discredit the left. Cuba is not perfect, but it is high time we stood us for those who are on our side, believe that another world is possible, and are out there fighting for it. Cuba is one such ally.

as anyone who has actually spent any substantial time in cuba can attest, in every neighbourhood there can be found ordinary dissidents who disagree with the government, whether they be reformists, capitalist restorationists, or whatever. these people listen to radio marti (the propaganda radio station broadcast by the US from guantanamo bay) for their news, hang out together, and aside from being ostracised by many of the general population, do not face any extraordinary difficulties. everyone in the community normally knows who they are, and they are not put away in prison for 'disobedience' or for disagreeing with the government.

the so-called 'dissidents' who were arrested last year were arrested not for being like these ordinary dissidents, but for openly violating a law (passed in 98 or 99) that states that it is illegal to conspire with, or obtain funds or material aid from an enemy power--i.e. the united states. in that case, those arrested had received money, fax machines, computers, etc, and had been regularly meeting for lunch with the new head of the US special interests section in havana since january of 2003. they were infiltrated by cuban intelligence, who were able to gather intelligence about the whole operation. the trials were broadcast live on cuban tv, they were not closed trials, only foreign journalists were not allowed to directly attend, but the whole country saw the trials live.

as for the 10 who have been sentenced this week, i haven't found the details of it on any cuban news sites, although this is not unusual as usually things like this get covered in much more detail on cuban tv news, and therefore while cubans know about them, they don't necessarily put them on cuban news web sites which are by no means exhaustive news sources.

groups like amnesty international and human rights watch do NOT have observers inside cuba; they simply publish whatever reports they receive from so-called cuban 'dissidents'. these reports are completely unverified, and neither these groups nor media organisations like BBC bother to even ask for a statement from the authorities. local 'human rights groups' in cuba, run by these 'dissidents', are on the payroll of the NED, the US organisation that funds the overthrow of governments not liked by the US. if you want to give them ultimate credibility, that's your prerogative, but just keep in mind who you are dealing with.

and if you do spend any time actually living in cuba, which is to say talking to anyone other than the cubans tourists normally come in contact with--i.e. the hustlers on the street who approach you and tell you castro oppresses them just to get you to give them a dollar--then you will see that the vast majority of the cuban population, while not communists (as they associate communism with atheism, and most are christians) are basically in support of the system, and while the younger ones may feel fidel maybe should step down, the fact is it is a democratic system.