Center for a Free Cuba

El Nuevo Herald| 19 de Agosto del 2000

Por Frank Calzon

El Nuevo Herald acaba de informar que Ricardo Alarcón, presidente del parlamento cubano, participará en “un discreto encuentro” en Nueva York con “un selecto grupo de exiliados: hombres de negocios, dirigentes comunitarios y destacadas personalidades de la comunidad”. Pero varios empresarios cubanos ya han dicho que no irán.

El anuncio, entonces, es una estrategia de desinformación de los servicios de inteligencia de Castro. Por otro lado, Elena Freyre, directora del Comité Cubano por la Democracia, ha confirmado que asistirá a una reunión con el canciller cubano Felipe Pérez Roque.

¿Qué pretende el gobierno de Castro? ¿Cuál es la agenda? ¿Cuál es la situación en Cuba que explique la razón de tales reuniones?

Por lo pronto en la isla:

• Vladimiro Roca continúa en prisión, cumpliendo una sentencia de cinco años por “La Patria es de Todos”, documento crítico con el régimen en que se habla de un diálogo nacional que incluya al gobierno, a la Iglesia, a la disidencia y al exilio.
• Marta Beatriz Roque, coautora del mismo documento, está bajo libertad condicional después de permanecer casi dos años en la cárcel. Desde La Habana ella y sus compañeros de lucha (Félix Bonne y René Gómez Manzano) pidieron la libertad de Vladimiro y otros presos políticos. Recientemente, Roque sostuvo un fuerte debate en la radio de Miami con Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, presidente del desacreditado grupo Cambio Cubano.

• Oscar Elías Biscet sigue preso en Holguín, a 768 kms. de La Habana y de su familia, en una celda de castigo, sin agua; ha perdido más de veinte libras. Le requisaron su Biblia, y continúan presionándolo para que se vaya de Cuba.

• Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, dirigente del Movimiento Cristiano de Liberación, corriendo toda suerte de riesgos escribe en la prensa extranjera que en Cuba hay cubanos con el decoro necesario, y pleno conocimiento del acontecer diario, dispuestos a conversar con las autoridades.

La oposición ha pedido ese diálogo de todos en muchas ocasiones, y por ello, varios disidentes han ido a la cárcel. El diálogo que solicitan aspira a buscar soluciones. Esto está muy lejos de los “diálogos/ monólogos” anteriores: el de 1979, los de Menoyo y los realizados en La Habana sobre la emigración. Son tretas propagandísticas del malabarista-en-jefe.

Hace años que el régimen conversa con extranjeros y exiliados dúctiles sin conceder ningún cambio. Ni si-quiera el llamamiento hecho por Juan Pablo II ha tenido respuesta. Las supuestas reuniones en Nueva York no son sino una campaña anti-embargo orquestada por la Cámara de Comercio de Estados Unidos, en la que Castro esgrime la batuta.

Los cubanos fuera de la isla no podemos olvidar que la libertad en Cuba se define por la situación de la nación cubana y de los once millones y medio de compatriotas que ahí la integran. La legitimidad política de la oposición interna no depende del reconocimiento de Washington ni de las acciones del régimen. No deben los líderes de fuera usurpar el papel de la oposición interna, que es fundamental e insustituible.

Lamentablemente, la dictadura sabrá acariciar el ego y la vanidad de ciertas personalidades en el exterior y montará un espectáculo propagandístico, creando así otra división en las filas de la oposición. En vez de reunirse en Nueva York, los exiliados deberían divulgar los horrores del castrismo en las cancillerías del mundo entero, en la prensa y ante organizaciones internacionales.

Aun si no se lleva a cabo, la mera invitación a la reunión pone de manifiesto la perfidia del régimen, dispuesto a conversar con los de afuera y no con los que sufren en la isla. Para colmo, la oposición interna también es objeto de críticas injustas desde el exterior, donde hay quienes no imaginan la zozobra que es vivir bajo el totalitarismo.

Además ese tipo de invitación está diseñada para debilitar la posición de nuestros aliados en el Congreso de Estados Unidos.
Si el gobierno cubano quiere “tender puentes”, entonces ¿por qué no inicia una apertura? ¿Por qué no liberar a los opositores presos, desactivar las brigadas de acción rápida? ¿Por qué no reconocerles a los cuba-nos en la isla los mismos derechos que tienen los inversionistas y turistas extranjeros? ¿Por qué no tiende al menos esos puentes, ya que no está dispuesto a permitir la libertad de prensa, los sindicatos independientes, elecciones libres a lo sandinista, o un referén-dum a lo Pinochet?

Si Castro quisiera un verdadero diálogo, no enviaría emisarios a Nueva York a reuniones con cubanos residentes en el exterior. Lo que haría sería abrir las cárceles, retirar las mordazas e iniciar un diálogo con los que lo han pedido: el arzobispo de Santiago y el obispo de Pinar del Río; los disidentes Vladimiro Roca, Oscar Elías Biscet, Marta Beatriz Roque, Oswaldo Payá. Raúl Rivero, Maritza Lugo, Dagoberto Valdés, Gustavo Arcos y Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, entre otros. En esa reunión sí cabe la presencia de líderes de la oposición en el exilio.

Director ejecutivo del Centro para Cuba Libre, organización independiente dedicada a la defensa de los derechos humanos en Cuba.

CUBANET
Report provided by Amnesty International, Amnesty International Publications, 1 Easton Street, London WC1X 0DJ, United Kingdom

Despite the release of nine prisoners of conscience in Cuba since the beginning of the year, politically motivated arrests continue and have led to new cases of prisoners of conscience, said Amnesty International today in its new report entitled: ”Cuba: Prisoners of conscience: New convictions overshadow releases.”
In July, Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina, president of the unofficial Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, Movimiento de Jóvenes Cubanos por la Democracia, was sentenced to six years and two months for A disrespect, ”public disorder and damages. Eddy Alfredo Mena y González, another member of the movement, stood trial on the same charges and was sentenced to five years and one month.

Amnesty International believes that the two have been imprisoned due to the nonviolent exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association, and calls for their unconditional release as prisoners of conscience.
In its report, Amnesty International outlines the facts behind these new cases of prisoners of conscience. The report also provides details on the cases of the nine prisoners of conscience who have been released conditionally or upon completion of their prison terms since the beginning of 2000.

“We welcome the recent releases of prominent prisoners of conscience as positive steps towards greater respect for human rights in Cuba,” the organization said. ”However, the individuals concerned should never have been imprisoned in the first place, and we will continue to call on the Cuban government to immediately and unconditionally release the prisoners of conscience who remain in Cuban jails.”
“Dissidents — including journalists, political activists and human rights defenders — continue to suffer severe harassment,” the organization continued. Several hundred people, at least 21 of whom are currently identified by Amnesty International as being prisoners of conscience, remain imprisoned for political offenses.

Amnesty International rejects the Cuban government’s justifications that it restricts freedoms of expression, association and assembly in order to maintain the unity of Cuba in the face of hostility from abroad. The organization has repeatedly sought the immediate and unconditional release of all those imprisoned in Cuba for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and calls on the Cuban government to reform its legislation to bring it in line with international protection of these freedoms.

I. INTRODUCTION
Currently several hundred people, 21 of whom have been identified by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience detained for peaceful exercise of the freedom of expression, association or assembly, are imprisoned for political offenses in Cuba.1 In addition to these prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International continues to be concerned at the severe harassment to which dissidents, including journalists, members of political organizations and human rights advocates, are subjected. (For the most recent public information on specific incidents of harassment, see Amnesty International’s report ”Cuba: short term detention and harassment of dissidents” (AMR 25/04/00), of March 2000. This practice is ongoing, and Amnesty International continues to monitor it closely although such information is not included in the scope of the present report.)

Repression of dissent has a long history in Cuba. The Cuban Government has traditionally argued that it is justified in depriving dissidents of fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly in order to maintain the unity of the country against hostile forces abroad.2 In response to this argument, Amnesty International has maintained that all states, irrespective of any external threat, the political character of the government concerned or any other situation-specific factors, are under obligation to fulfill the duties laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the duty to respect fundamental freedoms. Therefore, Amnesty International protests against the human rights violations covered by its mandate in all countries where they occur.

In Cuba, repression of dissent is legitimized by the Constitution and the Penal Code. Some offenses against state security, such as ”propaganda enemiga”, ”enemy propaganda”, as well as offenses against authority, such as ”desacato”, ”disrespect”, have been widely applied to silence critics. Others, like ”peligrosidad”, ”dangerousness”, are ill-defined and open to politically-motivated misuse. At times dissidents have been convicted of criminal offenses, believed to have been fabricated in order to discredit them or their organization or in retaliation for peaceful expression of their beliefs.
Detained dissidents are at times held for long periods without trial, or are convicted after procedures that do not meet international standards for fair trial due to issues involving the independence and impartiality of the judiciary and the access of the accused to defense counsel.

II. PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE RELEASED CONDITIONALLY OR AFTER EXPIRATION OF THEIR SENTENCE
Nine prisoners of conscience have been released since the beginning of 2000. Amnesty International notes these releases and renews its call for the Cuban government to unconditionally release all remaining prisoners of conscience and to stop detaining citizens for the peaceful exercise of fundamental freedoms.

One of the releases came after the person concerned had completed his prison term. Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona, a journalist, was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in January 2000 for collecting toys which he planned to give away to children. His home was reportedly searched by State Security officers who confiscated toys paid for with money raised by Cuban exile groups in Miami as part of a Christmas appeal called Proyecto Reyes Magos del Milenio, the Millennium Three Wise Men Project. Víctor Rolando Arroyo was subsequently convicted and sentenced for ”acaparamiento”, ”hoarding” (Article 230 of the Cuban Penal Code).

Amnesty International believes that his conviction was motivated by his work for the independent press agency Unión de Periodistas y Escritores Cubanos Independientes, Union of Cuban Independent Journalists and Writers, and his links with Miami exile groups opposed to the government. Víctor Rolando Arroyo had been previously jailed for one year and nine months in 1996, for ”desacato”, ”disrespect”, reportedly after an incident involving a policeman. His arrest in January took place during a period of clampdown on dissidents, in the aftermath of the Ibero-American Summit in Havana.

Víctor Rolando Arroyo was released in July after serving the full six months of his sentence. Several other releases came before completion of the individuals’ prison sentences, and were termed ‘conditional releases’ by the authorities.3 In May prisoners of conscience Marta Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne Carcasés and René Gómez Manzano, three members of the so-called “Group of Four”, were released. The four members of the Grupo de Trabajo de la Disidencia Interna para el Análisis de la Situación Socio-Económica Cubana (The Internal Dissidents Working Group for the Analysis of the Cuban Socio-Economic Situation) who had been held in custody since July 1997, were sentenced amid much national and international protest to between three and a half and five years’ imprisonment on a charge of ”otros actos contra la seguridad del estado”, ”other acts against state security” (Article 125(c) of the Cuban Penal Code) in relation to a charge of ‘’sedición”, ‘’sedition” (Article 100 (c) of the Cuban Penal Code).

The fourth member of the group, Vladimiro Roca Antúnez, remains in prison. On the eve of the third anniversary of his detention in July the three former prisoners of conscience held a press conference at which they called for his immediate release.
Orestes Rodríguez Horruitiner was placed on conditional release on 7 April 2000. He had been sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in 1997 for ”propaganda enemiga”, ”enemy propaganda” (Article 103 of the Cuban Penal Code), reportedly after authorities confiscated some publications from his home.
Several other prisoners of conscience were released after long periods without ever having been tried. Such detention without trial contravenes the international prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of liberty laid out in article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 25 of the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, among other instruments.4
Maritza Lugo Fernández, vice-president of the illegal Partido Democrático 30 de Noviembre ”Frank País”, Frank País 30 November Democratic Party, was arrested on 23 December 1999. She planned to participate in a religious procession to celebrate Christmas but was detained along with six others, all of whom were released within a few days.

Maritza Lugo, who was detained on eleven different occasions in 1999, went on two hunger strikes to protest her arrest and continued detention without official charge. She was eventually charged with ”desórdenes públicos”, ”public disorder” (Articles 200-201 of the Cuban Penal Code), but was not tried; she was released on 1 June, over five months after her arrest. According to some sources, the charge against her still stands. Amnesty International has received reports that Maritza Lugo has been briefly re-detained and interrogated since this most recent release, and continues to monitor her situation closely.

Angel Moya Acosta and the brothers Guido and Ariel Sigler Amaya, all members of the illegal Movimiento Opción Alternativa, Alternative Option Movement, were detained on 15 December 1999 after they participated in a peaceful demonstration in Pedro Betancourt village, Matanzas province, on 10 December to celebrate the 51st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Although they were charged with ”resistencia”, ”resistance” (Article 143 of the Cuban Penal Code), ”desórdenes públicos”, ”public disorder” (Articles 200-201 of the Cuban Penal Code), and ”instigación a delinquir”, ”instigation to commit a crime”, (Article 202 of the Cuban Penal Code) no trial or sentencing ever took place. According to statements made by Angel Moya Acosta since his release, the peaceful demonstration was broken up by members of the Brigadas de Respuesta Rapida under the instruction of members of the Buró Municipal del Partido Comunista.

Guido Sigler Amaya was transferred from prison to house arrest on 10 June, and was freed on 9 July. Ariel Sigler Amaya was freed on 5 August and Angel Moya Acosta, on 7 August. In an interview after his release, Angel Moya Acosta reportedly said ”no queremos violencia, no practicamos la violencia, no queremos anarquía, pero sí somos partidarios de la desobediencia civil como método pacífico para obligar al gobierno a reconocer nuestros derechos y libertades fundamentales” (”we neither want nor practice violence, we don’t want anarchy; but we do believe in civil disobedience as a pacific method to make the government recognize our fundamental rights and freedoms.”)5

III. POLITICALLY MOTIVATED ARRESTS CONTINUE; NEW CASES OF PRISONERS OF CONSCIENCE
In July Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina, president of the unofficial Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy [for tr: Movimiento de Jóvenes Cubanos por la Democracia], was convicted in court of ”desacato”,”disrespect” (Article 144 of the Cuban Penal Code), ”desórdenes públicos”, ”public disorder” (Articles 200-201 of the Cuban Penal Code) and ”daños”, ”damages” (Article 339 of the Cuban Penal Code). Eddy Alfredo Mena y González, another member of the movement, also stood trial with him on the same charges. The prosecution had called for sentences of 4 years 3 months for Nestor Rodríguez and 10 years for Eddy Alfredo Mena; Nestor Rodríguez was sentenced to six years and two months, while Eddy Alfredo Mena was sentenced to five years and one month. Amnesty International believes that the two have been imprisoned due to the nonviolent exercise of the rights to freedom of expression and association, and calls for their unconditional release as prisoners of conscience.

Due to his opposition to the Cuban government, Nestor Rodríguez Lobaina has been arrested and imprisoned on a number of occasions. In 1996 he was arrested following peaceful attempts to organize a movement for university reform. After a summary trial in which he did not have access to defense counsel, he was sentenced to 12 months’ restricted liberty, as well as to five years’ ”banishment” to his home town, on charges of ”resisting authority” and ”disrespect”. In 1997, he was again arrested and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, on the same charges as before, after criticizing the Fourteenth Youth and Student Festival scheduled for later that year in Cuba. He was detained again in December 1998, July 1999 and was last arrested in connection to the current case against him on 2 March 2000.

There were new developments in the case of Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet González, president of the Fundación Lawton de Derechos Humanos, Lawton Foundation for Human Rights, a humanitarian organization considered illegal by the Cuban authorities, was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on 25 February 2000. He was initially arrested on 3 November 1999 and charged with ”ultraje a los símbolos de la patria”, ”insult to the symbols of the homeland” (article 203 of the Cuban Penal Code), which carries a maximum sentence of one year’s imprisonment. The charge was reportedly brought against him because he hung a Cuban flag sideways on his balcony during a press conference at his home on 28 October 1999. (See ”Eleven remain in detention following government crackdown on dissent during the Ibero-American Summit in Havana,” AMR 25/02/00, of 31 January 2000). The prosecutor’s petition against him, issued in February 2000, included two further charges: ”desórdenes públicos”, ”public disorder”, (Articles 200-201 of the Cuban Penal Code)and ”instigación a delinquir”, ”instigation to commit a crime” (Article 202 of the Cuban Penal Code). Dr Biscet, who denied all these charges, said that he hung the flag in that manner as a means of non-violent protest. He was found guilty on all three counts.

IV. RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT
Amnesty International urges the Cuban Government:
To release immediately and unconditionally all those detained or imprisoned solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly; To bring Cuban legislation into line with international human rights standards, particularly those regarding the exercise of the above-mentioned fundamental freedoms, so that the human rights of all Cubans are protected; To grant full judicial guarantees for a fair trial, in accordance with international human rights standards, including immediate access to a lawyer of their choice, to all those who remain in detention and are accused of politically-motivated offenses; To cease immediately all forms of intimidation and harassment directed towards dissidents who are seeking solely to exercise their fundamental human rights as established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

-1Amnesty International is aware that there may well be additional such prisoners of conscience in Cuba, and is in the process of verifying information with regard to several ongoing cases not mentioned in the present report.

-2 The United States of America’s embargo against Cuba has been repeatedly condemned by the United Nations General Assembly. While Amnesty International’s mandate does not permit it to take a position on this or any other type of sanction, the organization recognizes that the embargo has increased hardship within Cuba and added to the economic difficulties faced by the country, while at the same time its very existence continues to be used by the authorities as justification for continued repression of dissent. The most recent example of this is the February 1999 adoption of Law 88, the Law for the Protection of the National Independence and Economy of Cuba [for tr: “Ley de Protección de la Independencia Nacional y la Economía de Cuba”].

This law allows for penalties of up to 20 years’ imprisonment for activities viewed as supporting the embargo. These activities, as laid out in the law, include providing information to the US government; owning, distributing or reproducing material produced by the US government or any other foreign entity; and collaborating, by any means, with foreign radio, television, press or other foreign media, with the purpose of destabilizing the country and destroying the socialist state.

-3 Libertad condicional’ is provided for under article 58 of the Cuban Penal Code. According to the Code, early release can be obtained after a third of the sentence when the inmate is under 20; after one half of the sentence for older first-time offenders; after two-thirds of the sentence for older recidivists; or in extraordinary circumstances.

-4 The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has established criteria for determining when detention is arbitrary. These criteria include when there is no legal grounds for detention; when the deprivation of freedom relates to the exercise of certain freedoms or rights protected by international law; or when the right to fair trial has not been respected.

August 8, 2000 | The Miami Herald
Frank Calzon

We find bigotry directed at groups whose views are at variance with political fashion. Not every outrageous criticism is rooted in prejudice. So, please forgive me if I sound somewhat thin-skinned for reacting with a mental skin rash earlier this summer when demonstrators dumped a truckload of bananas on the steps of Miami’s City Hall. The bananas were a way of labeling Miami as a banana republic.

Cubans love bananas and whatever the political passions of the moment it is true that Cuban Americans play an important, some critics say an excessive, role in the city.

However, what would the critics say if a group of citizens, disappointed in the policies of elected officials of Atlanta or Washington, two predominantly African-American cities, expressed their frustrations with politicians and their African-American constituents by dumping watermelons on the steps of their city halls? Legitimate criticism, it would be said, was turning into bigotry and stereotyping.

Today bigotry is illegal, and America compared to a couple of generations ago has become an inclusive and tolerant place.
However, we find bigotry directed at groups whose views are at variance with political fashion. For some, Miami qualifies as a banana republic, not simply due to the sleaziness of local politics but because of the Cuban-American presence. Yet people who subscribe to bigotry would rather call it something else.
This is neither to deny the problems of Miami nor to attempt to silence its critics. But let us look at the facts: At the Republican National Convention last week, press reports indicate thousands of protesters battled police officers, “chaining themselves together to block intersections, jumping on cars and throwing debris into the street.” Three policemen were treated when an unknown substance was splashed in their eyes, and a fourth was hospitalized with head injuries after being hit with a bicycle.

Twenty police cars were damaged and several hundred people arrested. Despite the difference in magnitude, in comparison to the recent disturbances in Miami no one has called Philadelphia a banana republic, and no one dumped produce on the steps of Independence Hall.

Chicago during the reign of the first Richard Daley was considered successful but corrupt. Would anyone have dared dump potatoes on the steps of city hall to protest the grip on municipal offices of Irish politicians?
In the sovereign state of Louisiana, former Gov. Edwin Edwards was convicted this May on 17 counts of racketeering, extortion, money laundering, fraud and conspiracy. No one has called Louisiana a “catfish republic.”

In Arkansas, former Gov. Jim Guy Tucker pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to avoid taxes and promised to cooperate with federal prosecutors. No one has charged the president’s home state with being a “razorback republic.”

A common denominator in these cases is that there were prosecutions. Corruption in the United States is viewed as aberrant and illegal, and there are the means of addressing it. By contrast, the corruption of Fidel Castro’s regime, about which we hear precious little, is endemic. It is built into his system.
You can’t explain how Cuba functions today except by reference to this pervasive pathology.

The fact that few want to speak of the corruption in Cuba and yet are willing to assume the worse when dealing with the Magic City suggests that there has been a transference of sorts. It is not Castro’s regime that is to blame but rather those who object to it.
Whatever one might think about Miami and its people, the recent squawking, while perhaps understandable, served to obscure the vitality of Miami, its great promise and the civility of most of its people, which, despite considerable provocation, makes possible the miracle that is Miami today.

July 6, 2000 | the Miami Herald
by Frank Calzon

Marquis de Lafayette was not the only foreigner who fought for American freedom.

Washington — Anyone who feels tempted to join the current mood of immigrant-bashing could do worse than to take a stroll around Lafayette Park, directly across from the White House.

The beautifully landscaped park honors the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the earliest immigrants to the United States. The Thirteen Colonies, of course, were populated by settlers — immigrants by any other name — but Lafayette, a French nobleman of decidedly republican sympathies, was one of the first foreigners to come to the United States, as it had been formally (and democratically) constituted. An aide-de-camp to George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Lafayette made a signal contribution in the fight for American independence.
If you walk around the park, you are reminded that Lafayette was not the only foreigner who fought for American freedom.

There is a statue of Baron Frederick William Augustus von Steuben, erected by Congress in grateful recognition of his service to the American people in their struggle for liberty. He, according to the inscription, after serving under Frederick the Great of Prussia, 11 offered his sword to the American colonies” and “gave military training and discipline to the citizen soldiers who achieved the independence of the United States.” He died in New York in 1794, at just about the time Lafayette, who returned to France to participate in his country’s democratic revolution, was risking his head by defying the extremists who believed — with a logic Cubans are painfully familiar with — that you could make a revolution by means of terror and tyranny.
Walk beyond Steuben, and you come to a statue of Thaddeus Kosciusko, the military engineer who fortified Saratoga and West Point. And not far from this son of Poland we come to Count de Rochambeau, yet another Frenchman, whom Washington described as a “fellow labourer in the cause of liberty.”

Washington had good reason to appreciate Rochambeau. He knew an army ultimately required supplies as well as great generals and elan. In 1781, things were grim. With a campaign shaping up near Yorktown, the British commander Gen. Charles Cornwallis, expected to crush the Americans.

According to historian Stephen Bonsai, Rochambeau wrote at the time:”The Continental troops (are] almost without clothes. The greater number [are] without socks or shoes. These people are at the very end of their resources.”

Historian Charles Lee Lewis’s book, Admiral De Grasse and the American Independence, said Rochambeau sent the young admiral to seek funds in the West Indies: “I must not conceal from you, monsieur, that the Americans are at the end of their resources,” Rochambeau wrote him.

But according to Jean-Jacques Antier in Admiral de Grasse: Hero of L’Independence Americaine, when Francois De Grasse got to Havana the warships had just left, taking the treasury’s funds to Spain. The colonial government could not help, but public opinion in Havana was pro-American. Private contributions flowed in. “Ladies even offering their diamonds. The sum of 1,200,000 livres was delivered on board.” De Grasse sailed back toward Philadelphia with enough money to fund the coming campaign.
The usually reserved Washington fell into De Grasse’s arms when he saw him. The campaign in the fall of 1781 -and the war — ended with Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown. As Bonsai noted, “The million that was supplied by the ladies of Havana may be regarded as the ‘bottom dollars’ upon which the edifice of American independence was erected.”

The contribution Cuban Americans make today to the preservation of American freedom is perhaps less spectacular. They pay taxes day by day, serve in the army, obey the law — the actions of people in a free society who appreciate freedom. Cuban Americans, too, are keenly aware that America is a nation made overwhelmingly of people, or the children of people, who chose to be Americans who chose freedom and choose to pay for its defense daily with their lives and fortunes and, as the men of Washington’s day used to say, their sacred honor.

El Nuevo Herald| 4 de Julio del 2000

Por Frank Calzón

Antes de unirse a la campaña contra los inmigrantes, tan popular en ciertos círculos, sus promotores deberían dar una vuelta por el Parque de Lafayette, cercano a la Casa Blanca. Estos magníficos jardines honran al marqués de Lafayette. Como se sabe, los colonos (que es otra forma de llamar a los inmigrantes) habían poblado las trece colonias. Años después, muchos jóvenes extranjeros como Lafayette, un noble francés de ideas republicanas, comenzaron a llegar a los recién y democráticamente constituidos Estados Unidos de América. Lafayette sirvió como asesor militar de Jorge Washington (ya en aquel entonces comandante en jefe de las tropas continentales), contribuyendo así de forma substancial a la lucha por la independencia.

Si uno sigue caminando por el parque se dará cuenta de que Lafayette no fue el único extranjero que luchó por la libertad del pueblo americano. Pronto el paseante encontrará una estatua “erigida por el Congreso de Estados Unidos en reconocimiento y agradecimiento por los servicios prestados al pueblo americano en su lucha por la libertad” a Henry Frederick, barón de Von Steuben, el cual, tras servir a las órdenes de su majestad Federico el Grande de Prusia, ofreció su espada a las colonias americanas, instruyendo militarmente a los patriotas americanos que lograrían la independencia. Este noble prusiano murió en New York en 1794, mientras Lafayete regresaba a su país para participar en la revolución francesa y retar, arriesgando la cabeza, a los extremistas franceses que creían (algo dolorosamente familiar para los cubanos) poder hacer la revolución basándola en la tiranía y el terror.

Un poco más allá nos encontramos con Thaddeus Koscuszko, el ingeniero militar que fortificó Saratoga y West Point; y, muy cerca, otro francés, Rochambeau, al que Washington presentaba como “compañero de trabajo en la lucha por la libertad”. Washington tenía muchas razones para apreciarle, ya que sabía que todo ejército necesita de la intendencia tanto como de los buenos estrategas y los grandes soldados. En 1781 la situación del ejército continental se presentaba complicada; en la campaña, que se avecinaba en las proximidades de Yorktown, el comandante en jefe británico, el general Cornwalis, contaba con derrotar definitivamente a los americanos. El historiador Stephen Bonsal dice que Rochambeau escribió en esos momentos: “Las tropas continentales están casi sin ropa ni calzado. Están al límite de sus fuerzas”. Rochambeau no dudó en enviar al joven almirante De Grasse a conseguir ayuda de las islas del Caribe, como nos cuenta Charles Lee Lewis, otro historiador, en su libro, El almirante De Grasse y la independencia americana. “No puedo ocultarle que los americanos no tienen casi recursos”, escribió Rochambeau.

Según Jean-Jacques Antier en su libro El almirante De Grasse. Héroes de la independencia americana, cuando De Grasse llegó a La Habana la flota española ya había partido para España y el gobierno colonial de la isla no contaba con suficientes recursos para ayudar a los americanos. No obstante, la opinión pública de la ciudad era partidaria de la causa norteamericana y rápidamente comenzaron a llegar las contribuciones. “Las damas de La Habana entregaron hasta sus diamantes y se consiguió recaudar la cantidad de 1,200,000 libras”. De Grasse navegó hasta Philadephia con el dinero suficiente para hacer frente a la campaña que se avecinaba, y esta vez Washington, tradicionalmente muy reservado, no pudo contener la emoción y abrazó a De Grasse. La campaña del otoño de 1781, así como la guerra, terminaron como todo el mundo sabe, con la derrota de Cornwalis en Yorktown y como dijo Bonsal: “Los millones donados por las damas de La Habana pueden considerarse como parte de los cimientos sobre los que se erigió la nación americana”.

Hoy, la contribución de los cubanoamericanos en el mantenimiento de la libertad es sin duda menos importante: pagar impuestos, servir en el ejército, respetar las leyes, como cualquier persona dentro de una sociedad democrática que aprecie la libertad. Este 4 de julio los cubanoamericanos sabemos que Estados Unidos es una nación que se formó, y se forma, con hombres y mujeres de todas partes, con sus hijos y sus nietos; hombres y mujeres que escogieron la libertad, y que contribuyeron a su defensa con sus vidas, su fortuna y con lo que Jorge Washington llamaba el honor sagrado.

Frank Calzón es el director ejecutivo del Centro para Cuba Libre, una organización independiente dedicada a la defensa de los derechos humanos en Cuba.