Cuba's Fight for Freedom: A Call to End Oppression and Injustice
On October 19, 2024, Michael Lima, Director of Democratic Spaces, delivered a message to the people of Cuba. It was streamed live during a press conference held by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance in Miami, Florida, and broadcast via Martí Noticias, Cubanet, ADN Cuba, Radio Republic, and shortwave radio due to the nationwide outage in Cuba.
The Cuban people are suffering a brutal and complete violation of their political, civil, economic, and social rights at the hands of a ruling elite that imposes its power by force. More than 89% of the population lives in extreme poverty, enduring inhumane blackouts, severe shortages of food and medicine, and a national health crisis. The vast majority reject the regime and the Communist Party, understanding that the root of their misery and oppression lies in the existing political system.
In the face of state terror and the violation of fundamental rights, the Cuban people have realized that raising their voices and exercising their right to peaceful, determined protest in the streets is the path to achieving the triumph of democracy in Cuba. For years now, the heart of the resistance has been beating strongly in towns across Cuba. Hundreds of protests and denunciations take place every month.
To those responsible for the blackout of freedoms that Cuba has endured for more than six decades, to those who have forced over a million Cubans into exile in recent years, to those who trample on the rights of the Cuban people and to the repressors who have ordered the mass political persecution and imprisonment of thousands of Cubans for thinking differently, and who have brought grief to thousands of families, we say: Leave!
To our people in Cuba, we say: You are not alone.
From Canada, we renew our call to the Canadian government and the international community to stop funding the Cuban dictatorship and to stand on the right side of history by actively defending the Cuban people's right to peaceful protest and their right to choose their system of government in free, fair, and multi-party elections.
As José Martí, the apostle of liberty and independence, once said, “Those who rise up today for Cuba, rise up for all time.”
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Michael Lima is a human rights activist and an expert in Cuban and Latin American history and politics. He has lectured on modern Latin American history, holds a Master’s degree and is a Ph.D. candidate in Latin American History from the University of Toronto. He is also the founder of Democratic Spaces, an NGO that builds solidarity in Canada with human rights defenders and civil society in Cuba.