International Appeal to free Cuba's Political Prisoners

From Gazeta:

Leading Cuban dissidents, Hector Palacios and Gisela Delgado have no doubt that for Cuba, the time of change and freedom has come. Their lives are like a live recording of their country's recent history: from the heroic triumph of the 1959 revolution, when the young freedom fighter Hector Palacios was marching into Havana, through the enthusiasm of the early years of freedom when he worked as a public servant, to eventual disillusionment and his ultimate parting in 1980 with a regime that had betrayed and trampled on Cuba's democratic revolution and freedom. And then to reprisals and years of solitary confinement that the dictatorship had subjected him to.

Mr Palacios's wife, Gisela Delgado, founded Cuba's first independent libraries in private apartments in 1998. And in 2003, when her husband and seventy four other dissidents were jailed with heavy sentences, she founded the Ladies in White movement that two years ago won the European Parliament's Andrei Sakharov prize for freedom of thought.

Both were guests yesterday of Professor Leszek Balcerowicz's Civil Society Development Foundation, the Lech Wałęsa Institute, and Gazeta Wyborcza,

'The only and final obstacle to changes in Cuba is Fidel Castro', Mr Palacios said in Warsaw yesterday. 'But he's almost gone too. He's very sick, nearing the end of his physical and intellectual capabilities. He remains in power thanks only to violence, And the opposition is ready to take over, there are Christian democratic parties, liberal, social democratic ones, parties with detailed agendas', he said. And he added, 'We'll find people to fill in all the posts, like you did in 1989. You're a great inspiration for us. Your pope told us in 1998: "Do not fear!". It as the first time in forty years that the Cubans could go out on the street and shout: "We want freedom!"', Mr Palacios said.

'I hoped I'd see snow. As an analogy to the clothes of us, the Ladies in White, whose husbands and sons are in jail. It's a symbol of purity', Ms Delgado said. 'There's no snow. But we still thank those Poles who have been supporting us, visiting us, expressing interest in the welfare of our island, plunged into such great poverty by our government'.

'There are plenty of misconceptions about Castro's Cuba in Poland, and even more in the West. All those Castro films and Che Guevara T-shirts', Leszek Balcerowicz said. 'We must oppose these misconceptions because behind them lurks a cruel dictatorship, one of the last ones in the world. The more people sign our appeal for the release of political prisoners, the more effective it will be. Let's do it! We have the duty to do it because we were supported too when we fought against communism. Let's do more for the Cuban heroes who are opposing an inhuman regime!'.

'We are ready to talk to the regime, talk about change. We want to avoid violence. But first the last prisoner of conscience has to be released and the laws that are sending them to prison have to be revoked', Mr Palacios concluded.

The high-school students from Wrocław who had been invited to the conference announced a major campaign in schools across Poland - the Cuba Libre Campaign (www.wolnakuba.pl).

Five hundred schools across Poland will receive a CD with a video about the Cuban regime and an appeal for change for the students and teachers to sign.

Lech Wałęsa's and Leszek Balcerowicz's appeal to the Cuban government for the release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

You can sign the appeal here.

Posted by Ziva at January 22, 2008 08:58 AM

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Posted by: Melek at January 22, 2008 09:47 AM

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