(Updated on September 8th, 2021)

On July 11th, 12th and 13th, thousands of Cubans took to the streets across the whole country to peacefully demand freedom. The Cuban dictatorship answered in the same way they have done to any claim of rights and freedom for over 60 years. They brutally repressed the peaceful demonstrations, arrested hundreds of people and is judging and convicting them in summary trials lacking due process guarantees.

The Liberation Christian Movement (Movimiento Cristiano Liberación – MCL) believes the international community should condemn, in the strongest terms, the ruthless repression unleashed by the dictatorship led by General Raúl Castro and the Cuban Communist Party, currently headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel, against citizens who have only exercised their legitimate right to protest.

But we also believe that these much needed condemnation statements are not enough to let the ruling military junta know that the international community would not tolerate the dictatorship’s impunity. Concrete international isolation measures, like those national laws and international sanctions imposed upon the segregationist South African apartheid regime, are also needed.

For the MCL, there is no difference, regarding their repressive nature, between the South African apartheid regime ruling only for white folks while repressing and segregating the black people, and the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship ruling only for communists while repressing and segregating the rest of the population who do not think like them or who do not support the oppressive system imposed on them for over 60 years. The Cuban Communist Party is as exclusionary and segregationist as the National Party in times of South Africa’s apartheid; the Cuban totalitarian communist regime is as segregationist, violent and exclusionary as the South African apartheid regime.

This is why after last month’s violent repression against peaceful demonstrations by Cuban dictatorship, the Liberation Christian Movement has begun a campaign for solidarity with the freedom of Cubans until the following two goals are reached:

  • all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are unconditionally released, and
  • free and fair elections are held.

As part of this campaign, we have proposed 11 concrete actions that can be taken by the international community to diplomatically, commercially and financially isolate the Cuban totalitarian and segregationist regime.

  1. To recognize and declare the Cuba’s Communist Party and the Young Communist League, its youth organization, as repressive and segregationist organizations since they imposed to Cuban society and enforce through repression, the self-proclaimed, totalitarian and supremacist concept stating that the Cuba’s Communist Party is the ruling force in society, and the segregationist mandate stating that it is the only political party that could legally exist in Cuba.
  2. To investigate and condemn the Cuban regime for its human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the U.N. Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and other international institutions.
  3. To suspend all political, economic, finantial and military cooperation agreements with the Cuban dictatorship, like the European Union – Cuba Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement.
  4. Not to grant lines of credit to the Cuban regime.
  5. To discourage foreign investments and tourism to Cuba and to ban travelers coming from Cuba from importing merchandise and souvenirs, like cigars, rums or others, bought to companies owned by Cuban dictatorship
  6. To boycott all services and products exported from Cuba, either directly by regime-owned companies or through foreign companies associated with Cuban tyranny.
  7. To impose an international arms and repression equipment embargo on Cuba.
  8. To exclude the Cuban regime from participating in any international forum, summit, and political, sporting, cultural and academic event.
  9. Not to grant or to revoke visas to political-military junta officials and relatives, and to members of the Cuba’s Communist Party and of other regime’s organizations and institutions who take part in repressive actions or publicly support the repression against the Cuban people.
  10. To facilitate channels to send humanitarian aid as part of this campaign to isolate the communist nomenklatura and in solidarity with the Cuban people.
  11. To create an international commission to support democracy in Cuba. It should promote the execution of these and other measures, and should watch over its implementation.

We Cubans need the world’s solidarity and support, and we need them right now. We call on the international community to side with the Cuban people, not with the political-military junta oppressing them.

The Liberation Christian Movement invites governments and parliaments of all freedom loving countries, all international institutions and all people of goodwill, to join this campaign for solidarity with the freedom of Cubans.

Freedom and Life!

All Cubans, all brothers, and now, freedom!

On behalf of the Liberation Christian Movement,

Eduardo Cardet
National Coordinator

Antonio Diaz
General Secretary

Regis Iglesias
Spokesman

July 27th, 2021
(Updated on September 8th, 2021)