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CubaBrief: Cubans Are Using Gandhi’s Playbook Against a 67-Year Dictatorship—and the Regime Is Jailing Them for It
Today, October 2nd, is the International Day of Nonviolence that marks the 157th anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi’s birth. The 1999 documentary series “A Force More Powerful” explores the power of nonviolent resistance around the world over a sixty year time span. The first chapter embedded below begins in India with Gandhi’s movement for independence from British rule.
This CubaBrief seeks to demonstrate how this is related to the ongoing freedom struggle in Cuba.

A False Duality

There is a false duality in the argument about bringing change to Cuba: either you prefer a violent bloody war that precipitates swift political change or you favor a slow and incremental transition launched by the dictatorship. It is a false dichotomy because, since 1976, Cubans on the island have opted for a third option: nonviolent resistance from the bottom up through civil disobedience movements using the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as a shared reference point.

The decision to embrace the UDHR is not a haphazard decision but one rooted deep in Cuba’s democratic history. It was Cuban diplomats in the 1940s who led the successful effort to draft and ratify this document at the United Nations.

This is a long and painful struggle, and that should not be overlooked, nor should the fact that these courageous individuals refuse to be passive in the face of injustice, but instead actively confront it.

Protests underway in Cuba

The Anna Bensi affair

Anna Bensi

Gene Sharp’s framework in The Politics of Nonviolent Action groups 198 methods into protest and persuasion (largely symbolic communication of dissent), noncooperation (withdrawal of social, economic, or political compliance), and nonviolent intervention (direct disruption of normal activity). Gandhian satyagraha adds a principled layer: refusal to inflict harm (ahimsa), insistence on a publicly stated truth, and readiness to accept the costs of the action oneself rather than impose them on others.
Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente (Anna Bensi), a 21-year-old Baptist content creator, and her mother, Caridad Silvente, went on trial on October 1, 2026 at the Municipal Popular Court of Havana del Este in Cojímar. They were charged under Article 393 of the Cuban Penal Code with “acts against personal and family privacy” for recording and posting a March 2026 video of a plainclothes Ministry of the Interior officer who came to their Alamar home to deliver a State Security summons. The court convicted both and imposed two years of restriction of liberty (a non-custodial sentence that includes limits on movement, a ban on leaving the country, and obligations to appear when summoned). 
In the hours and days immediately before the hearing, and outside the courthouse that morning, the visible action was organized accompaniment and public religious solidarity rather than a street blockade or cacerolazo. Catholic nun Sor Nadieska Almeida issued a statement (circulated by Father Alberto Reyes) calling the proceeding unjust and urging Christians to offer a “real presence”—to be there, support, and accompany the two women so that unity would be visible.

Priest Lester Rafael Zayas Díaz reached the vicinity of the court with her. Roughly 30 representatives of Cuban religious communities gathered outside, sang, and voiced support with phrases such as “estamos contigo.” Baptist pastor Arturo Leal (of the Renacer church in Alamar, to which the women belong) and Bárbaro Marrero of the Western Baptist Convention board were permitted to enter with them. Before going in, Bensi told reporters the trial would not be fair, that “none of us are criminals,” that they were expressing disagreement with the political system “through a screen—using a phone, not a weapon,” and that the solution was “for Cuba to be free.”
Formal statements in the preceding days came from registered Protestant bodies, including the Western Baptist Convention (“We cannot, we do not want to, and we will not leave them alone”), the Assemblies of God, the Methodist Church, and the Evangelical League. They asked for due process, respect for dignity, freedom of expression, and religious freedom, and rejected treating the women as criminals.
Several people trying to join the accompaniment were detained, among them evangelical pastor Rolando Pérez Lora (“Pregonero de Cristo”), who was thrown to the ground and handcuffed while asking the reason for his arrest, along with his wife and Baptist leader David Espinosa and his wife. Independent journalists also reported movement restrictions.
In Gene Sharp’s classification this sits mainly in nonviolent protest and persuasion: public declarations by organizations, group presence, symbolic religious song, and pressure through visible moral witness (methods clustered under formal statements, group representations, and public assemblies).
The attempt to walk with the defendants and the outdoor gathering add a limited element of nonviolent accompaniment. It tracks Gandhian nonviolence in the explicit refusal of harm, the appeal to a stated truth (the recording was a phone, not a weapon; the process was unjust), the willingness of supporters to risk detention, and the constructive framing of solidarity across denominations rather than retaliation. Coverage from outlets including CubaNet, CiberCuba, Infobae, the Miami Herald, and EFE documents both the gathering and the detentions of some who tried to attend.
Street protests

On the morning of September 29, 2026 at the intersection of Concepción and Avenida Porvenir in Lawton, Diez de Octubre, Havana, a group that included several women blocked the street with empty buckets and containers after five days without piped water (normally alternating days). Independent reporting, including images shared by journalist Mag Jorge Castro, described the occupation; a neighbor said a water truck and restored flow appeared only after the blockage. Street obstruction falls under nonviolent intervention (Sharp’s cluster of methods that physically impede routine movement or operations, such as nonviolent obstruction). The Gandhian element is the use of the very objects of deprivation—empty buckets—as the means of protest, a public demonstration of the unmet need without reported violence against officials or bystanders, and an acceptance that the action could draw security forces.

The night of 24 September in the Mariana de la Torre neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba, residents banged pots in darkness after repeated outages, including stretches near 48 hours linked to a failed high-capacity transformer cable the utility said it could not immediately replace. Video circulated by independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada captured the metallic sound; neighbors summarized the mood as “se calentó.” This is classic protest and persuasion (Sharp’s methods of symbolic sound and public assembly that make grievance audible without withdrawing labor or occupying institutions). It aligns with Gandhian practice in its open, non-injurious character and its appeal to a shared fact—the lights are out—while participants accepted the risk of police attention that has followed similar nighttime actions elsewhere on the island.
A third, closely preceding case that independent outlets continued to cite into the following days was the 22 September blockade on Estrada Palma street in El Condado, Santa Clara. Dozens of residents (starting around 20 and growing past 50) occupied the roadway and built barricades of trash and other materials after nearly 36 hours without power caused by a previously reported transformer fault that left their blocks dark even when the wider circuit was briefly restored. Crews repaired the transformer after the protest. This again maps to nonviolent intervention through physical occupation of public space. Burning debris introduces a minor edge relative to strict ahimsa, yet the action remained directed at restoring a service rather than harming people, and participants remained in place under the visible risk of patrols—consistent with the Gandhian willingness to bear the consequence of truth-telling in public.

Prisoners of conscience

Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez

Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez, father of four and former phone technician, was arrested and badly beaten on July 12, 2021 after participating in the 11J protests in Nueva Paz, Mayabeque. He carried a poster that read “Down with the dictatorship” on one side, and “The hunger was so much that we ate the fear.”  Juan Enrique was sentenced to eight years in prison on December 15, 2021. He suffers from asthma and a herniated disc. Reports emerged over social media that he sowed his mouth shut with a wire, in protest of his unjust imprisonment.

Five years later, he remains imprisoned on dodgy claims by the Cuban dictatorship. Human Rights Watch in their  July 10, 2026 report analyzing the 11J protests on  their fifth anniversary mentioned Juan Enrique.

Juan Enrique Pérez Sánchez joined the 2021 protests and is serving eight years for “contempt, public disorder, and sabotage.” Cuban prosecutors accused him of throwing rocks, based on “odor traces” allegedly found on the rocks. Forensic experts from the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims told Human Rights Watch that such traces “should not be considered as scientifically based evidence.”

The decision to nonviolently resist these evils was not an easy or quick one for Cubans.

Cuba’s democratic opposition learned through much suffering that violence, even when successful in defeating the immediate adversary, did not automatically translate to democratic change. The 1953 Moncada Barracks Assault, and the promises of the Castros did not result in a democratic renaissance, but a more terrible, violent, and totalitarian dictatorship that ended a corrupt authoritarian dictatorship in power for less than seven years, replacing it with one that for nine times longer, and counting, continues to repress and murder Cubans after 64 years.

For decades, grassroots groups in Cuba have struggled for liberty, organizing Cubans to defend their human rights and freedoms. The nationwide protests on July 11th across Cuba were historic, but they did not arise out of nowhere.

Ricardo Bofill led the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, the first dissident movement to fight the dictatorship nonviolently, which began in 1976.This movement resulted in the formation of numerous Cuban dissident groups in the 1980s, one of which is still active today: the Christian Liberation Movement, created in 1988.

Saylí Navarro Álvarez

The Ladies in White emerged following a significant nationwide crackdown on the dissident movement in the Spring of 2003. Twenty three years later one Lady in White is currently serving long and unjust prison sentence for defending human rights. Her name is Saylí Navarro, and her father Felix Navarro, is also a human rights defender. Both are serving unjust prison sentences and are prisoners of conscience.

The decision to adopt this strategy is not unique to Cuba, but rather part of a global trend of rising nonviolent resistance to injustice. Nor are the efforts of tyrants to lure their enemies to embrace violence unique to the Castro regime.

What are the odds?

University academics and nonviolent theoreticians Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict” compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006.

The two authors found that major nonviolent campaigns achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

Even the 26% figure needs to be looked at within the Cuban context. The above-cited Stephan, Chenoweth study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”

The events surrounding the Cuban opposition initiative, the Varela Project, as depicted in the National Democratic Institute 2002 documentary “Dissident: Oswaldo Payá and the Varela Project,” which is available to watch below, demonstrate the power of nonviolence to challenge even the most entrenched dictatorship.

Oswaldo Payá spoke truth to power on July 20, 2012, referencing Martin Luther King Jr. denouncing the fraudulent change of the dictatorship and offering a vision of real change in Cuba.

“The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) and the opposition do not kill, sabotage or exclude, everyone knows that. Our motto is Liberty and Life. We do not want power for ourselves; we want peace and civil rights for all, because where there are no rights there is no justice. We seek only the power of the people, popular sovereignty, as Martin Luther King did, remember? Power to the people!… We denounce institutionalized corruption. Those who have power declare us enemies and do not compete with the opposition but rather sentence it, stigmatize it and annihilate it.” … “The peaceful, logical and fair solution that can lead to change and genuine dialogue is to recognize these rights. Enough of reactionary justifications that say that the people are not ready, that they do not want change. Do you think that fifty-four years without freedom and without rights are not enough? Others say that the people do not want rights, what an insult! Others may say that many Cubans want this government. I do not believe it, but in any case no Cuban can decide what they want in this environment. With these laws and with this system, Cubans cannot choose who they want to govern them, what system to have. We demand rights for all, without hatred or offense, with justice. Everyone knows that not even the National People’s Assembly can decide freely, it also receives orders. This will change only when they are elected by the people, only then will they obey the people. That is our demand. We continue to call on all Cubans, no matter how they think or where they come from, to be part of the solution and the changes. Only the people can do that. Why say no to our rights? Why elitism? Philosophies and theologies? What oppresses us is fear, intolerance and the determination of a group to maintain absolute power. Let us abandon pretense! Let us take the path of the people, which is the path of democracy.”

Two days later, on July 22, 2012, agents of the Cuban dictatorship assassinated Oswaldo Payá and the Christian Liberation Movement’s youth leader, Harold Cepero. On May 19, 2022, CubaDecide released an 11 minute 27 second video on the facts about the murder of the two nonviolent human rights defenders.

Defeating the culture of death

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter posted a substack earlier today with a conclusion that fits here for this CubaBrief.

On this International Day of Nonviolence, the measure of Gandhi is not the empire he helped end but the method he refused to abandon. Satyagraha—the force born of truth and love—does not promise the quick victory that violence advertises and rarely delivers. It demands something harder: the refusal to answer cruelty with cruelty, the insistence that the oppressor be met with a claim he cannot easily kill.

The heirs of class struggle and concentrated state violence have left a trail of prisons, famines, and unmarked graves. The heirs of Gandhi have left something less spectacular and more durable—the knowledge that a people can withdraw consent, speak plain truth, and deny a regime the moral alibi it needs to endure.

In Cuba that knowledge is still costly. Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero were murdered for it; others continue to risk the same. Yet the dictatorship that killed them has not escaped the argument they made. Violence can silence a man. It cannot silence the fact that another way was shown, and that Cubans, like so many before them, have chosen it.

The culture of death can hold a country for a time. It cannot forever outrun a force that multiplies every time it is met with courage instead of fear.

NBC6, October 2, 2026

Who is Anna Bensi? The young Cuban creator whose case has sparked outrage in Cuba

At just 21, the Cuban content creator went from posting videos on social media to facing legal proceedings after sharing images of an officer from the Cuban regime.

At 21, Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente, known on social media as Anna Bensi, went from posting humorous and music videos to becoming one of the most visible young critical voices inside Cuba.

This Thursday, she and her mother, Caridad Silvente, were found guilty of sharing images of an officer from Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior. Both received a two-year sentence of restricted liberty.

Their attorney, Roberto Ortega, explained that from the moment they were notified, the clock starts on the deadline to file a possible appeal.

The day was marked by a heavy police presence around Bensi’s home and the courthouse, according to the young woman herself and independent organizations. Dozens of people showed up to support the mother and daughter. Among those who tried to accompany them were representatives of religious communities.

Bensi also reported the detention of one of the Christian activists who intended to attend the trial. Her sister, Elmis Rivero Silvente, later said that only one of the three defense witnesses scheduled was allowed into the courtroom. She also denounced a disparity between the witnesses accepted for the defense and those presented by the prosecution. The trial was held behind closed doors.

Before entering court this Thursday, Bensi summed up her stance with a phrase that quickly began circulating on social media: “The trial won’t be fair, but I have a fair God.” She then asked for the truth to prevail and called for a free Cuba.

From comedy videos to calling out the government

Anna Bensi is 21 years old and lives in Alamar, a neighborhood in Cuba’s capital. Before becoming a digital activist, she mainly used her social media to post content related to music, humor, and entertainment.

But in 2025 she posted a video about the difficulties she was facing in getting her credential as a Higher Technician in Dental Prosthetics, and the content had an unexpected impact.

From then on, she began using her platforms to talk about Cubans’ everyday problems: blackouts, low wages, workplace hardships, shortages, and restrictions that, she says, are part of the reality people live with.

In an interview with CubaNet, Bensi explained that she decided to use her social media presence to speak to other young people. Her formula is simple: she writes the scripts, records, performs, and edits her own videos.

Her growing visibility also came with consequences. The young woman has reported internet and phone disruptions, surveillance near her home, and pressure that ultimately affected her job. According to her account, her former boss received a call from a State Security official asking about her, after which she decided to leave the job. Her message became increasingly direct—and so did the authorities’ attention.

She has said that her decision to keep posting comes from a personal and religious conviction. In interviews, she has shared that she is Christian and that her faith plays a central role in her life. Her social media presence grew precisely as the pressure she denounced increased.

In July, for example, she spent nearly 12 hours at a police station during an interrogation. According to her, the questions included her posts, U.S. sanctions, and her criticism of the Cuban government. And despite the criminal case, she has not stopped her activity.

The charges against her

The incident that triggered the court case took place on March 10, 2026. That day, two men arrived at the building where Anna and her mother live. One of them was a noncommissioned officer from the Ministry of the Interior, later identified as Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos. Dressed in civilian clothes, he came to deliver Caridad Silvente a summons linked to State Security.

The scene was recorded by Anna and her mother, who later decided to publish the images on social media. They say they did so as a protective measure in response to what they considered an irregular visit and because they wanted a record of what had happened.

The officer filed a complaint claiming that distributing the material violated his privacy and exposed his identity, which became the central issue in the case. The charges were not based on the recording itself, but on its subsequent dissemination.

The Ministry of the Interior defended that interpretation during the trial: in a message broadcast by state media, it argued that recording in itself does not constitute a crime, while sharing images without consent can be punished when it affects privacy.

Bensi’s defense argues otherwise. Her attorneys and independent organizations such as Cubalex maintain that documenting a public official’s actions during an official procedure should not be treated as a crime against privacy.

Why were they convicted?

The case relied on Article 393 of Cuba’s Penal Code, which covers acts against personal and family privacy, including one’s image, voice, and identity.

The law provides penalties for certain situations involving the disclosure of content without consent, especially when social media is used.

In this case, the court held Anna Bensi and her mother responsible for publishing the officer’s video. Both were sentenced to two years of restricted liberty.

Before the trial, mother and daughter were already under precautionary measures, including a ban on leaving the country.

The case also followed an unusual path. The Prosecutor’s Office initially shelved the matter in April. Later, the officer filed a complaint through the courts, and the case began moving forward again.

The debate goes beyond Anna Bensi

Bensi’s case raises a question that could have consequences for other citizens who use cellphones to document actions by regime officials: where does a person’s right to privacy end, and where does the public’s right to record and share an official act begin?

The Cuban government insists the case should not be interpreted as a trial for recording a police officer. Critics argue that applying privacy rules in this context ends up punishing a form of expression and public oversight. They are two competing interpretations of the same proceeding.

Another factor that has put the case in the spotlight is the name of the judge who presided: Zamira Marrero Morgado, president of the People’s Municipal Court of Havana del Este.

The controversy around Marrero did not begin with the Bensi case. Her name had already appeared in investigations by independent organizations related to court proceedings stemming from the July 11, 2021 protests against the regime, known as 11J.

It has also been reported that the judge previously rejected a defense request to dismiss the case. The defense argued that the facts described in the complaint did not constitute a crime.

The conviction of Bensi and her mother has sparked reactions inside and outside Cuba. Human rights and free-expression organizations believe the case could set a precedent for those who use social media to document officials’ actions in Cuba. The discussion, therefore, does not end with Thursday’s verdict.

This story was translated from Spanish with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool. An NBC 6 editor reviewed the translation.

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/cuba/who-is-anna-bensi-the-young-cuban-creator-whose-case-has-sparked-outrage-in-cuba/3867484/

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, October 2, 2026

International Day of Nonviolence: Mohandas Gandhi born 157 years ago today on October 2, 1869

“Civil disobedience is the assertion of a right which law should give but which it denies.” – Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869, 157 years ago today, and his legacy continues to be passionately debated in India.

The Economic Times, based in India, yesterday published an opinion piece titled, “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi & ahimsa’s realpolitik value”, that looks at the practical application of nonviolence.

Ahimsa, as conceptualized by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, shifts power dynamics from violence toward legitimacy. Nonviolent resistance makes it harder for ruling entities to maintain social order while preserving their perceived respectability. Although Gandhi’s methods produced mixed results, they expanded the strategies available to political movements. The effectiveness of ahimsa extends beyond philosophy to practical applications in modern governance.

The same publication in 2021 published an editorial titled the “Continuing relevance of Mohandas Gandhi“ that highlights the challenges to Gandhian nonviolence today in his home country.

“Gandhi is remembered for Ahimsa, non-violence. However, Gandhi’s Ahimsa was not passive acceptance of violence, but its active resistance by the force of moral purpose and mobilization of public opinion. Today, we have elected representatives who venerate Gandhi’s assassin, but few supporters who follow his example of opposing violence.”

This debate is not limited to India. The September 29, 2019 story in NPR “Gandhi Is ‘An Object Of Intense Debate’: A Biographer Reflects On The Indian Leader“ contrasts the debate around Gandhi with how the Chinese don’t debate Mao Zedong, or the Vietnamese don’t debate Ho Chi Minh or the Pakistanis don’t debate Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Perhaps part of the reason for the lack of debate is that China and Vietnam are totalitarian dictatorships where such debate is forbidden, and Pakistan has been divided between periods of democratic and military rule in questioning the founder could prove unhealthy. India on the other hand has been a democracy through out its period of independence.

Gandhi liberated an entire subcontinent from imperial rule without firing a shot. The United Nations, beginning in 2007, has designated his birthday, October 2nd, as the International Day of Nonviolence. Nevertheless, he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized by the Nobel Committee as the “Missing Laureate.”

[ Full article ]

https://notesfromthecubanexilequarter.substack.com/p/international-day-of-nonviolence-3c4

 

CiberCuba, September 30. 2026

Sister Nadieska supports Anna Bensi and her mom during the trial

The Cuban nun Sor Nadieska Almeida expressed her support this Wednesday for Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente, known as Anna Bensi, and her mother, Caridad Silvente, ahead of the trial scheduled for this Thursday, and urged Christians to accompany them with prayer and physical presence.

The message, titled “Christians in communion,” was shared by a Cuban priest . In the text, Almeida described the process as a “unjust trial” and urged that the support for mother and daughter be made visible.

It is all about BEING, SUPPORTING, ACCOMPANYING, making our unity and all the support visible for those who have placed their complete trust in that good God who has the final word at all times,” she wrote.

The religious woman also affirmed that, as a Catholic and consecrated individual, she raises her voice in solidarity with both.

“I assure you of my prayers and publicly express my deep admiration for your nobility and integrity,” she stated.

The statement comes just hours before Anna Bensi and her mother appear before a court on October 1, after a hearing originally scheduled for September 17 was postponed.

Mother and daughter remain under house arrest and are prohibited from leaving the country.

Both are accused of “acts against personal and family privacy” after recording and posting on social media the visit of agents from the Ministry of the Interior who came to their home to deliver a summons from State Security.

The process began in March. Then, Cubalex legally challenged the charges and argued that recording public officials in the performance of their duties constitutes a citizen’s right.

The organization also stated that the alleged crime required a direct complaint from the person who was considered to be affected.

The case was initially filed away following that defense argument, led by attorney Roberto Ortega Ortiz, but it was reopened in July when MININT subordinate Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos personally filed a complaint.

According to Bensi, the agent claims to have felt offended by the comments posted after the video was released and demands that mother and daughter record a public apology.

The young woman also stated that the complainant’s lawyer is requesting two years of restricted freedom for each of them.

At the brink of the trial, Anna Bensi reiterated that she does not intend to stop her publications. “I am not going to be silent”, she stated this Monday, and affirmed that she would record and publish the video that started the proceedings again.

The support from Sor Nadieska Almeida joins the statement made by religious organizations. The Western Cuba Baptist Convention publicly expressed its solidarity with both and demanded respect for due process, freedom of expression, religious freedom, and their dignity.

https://en.cibercuba.com/noticias/2026-10-01-u1-e135253-s27061-nid341589-sor-nadieska-apoya-anna-bensi-mama-juicio

Miami Herald, August 1, 2024

Reflections on nonviolent resistance in Venezuela | Opinion

By Regis Iglesias Ramírez And John Suárez

The Venezuelan people and democratic leaders now have a duty to defend popular sovereignty as demonstrated civically through their vote for freedom, and they appear to be doing so. Some may argue that they should not have gone to the elections with a National Electoral Council that is an extension of the chavista regime, among other adversities and evidence that fraud, as in previous occasions, would be the regime’s way of maintaining power, delaying the inevitable day of freedom.

The process should have been contested when chavismo violated the Barbados accords and María Corina Machado was barred from participating as a candidate. It should have been flagged the moment international observers were denied entry after it was decided they’d participate in the elections, and the irregularities that occurred during the day, which exemplified the gangster-like chavista regime’s intentions, should have been more forcefully denounced. Despite the regime’s perverted and criminal nature, which is true of communist governments, the Venezuelans chose to accept the challenge. They opted to vote for Edmundo González , and the vast majority supported change.

This happened in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albania, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Chile, and South Africa. People under repressive regimes, as Venezuelans are now doing, follow agreements between the parties to promote and ensure the legitimacy of those processes. They overcame tyranny by their ballots because their leaders were steadfast, and the international community was supportive. Those who ignore this and try to diminish the civic struggle that people have chosen to achieve their freedom or who undervalue nonviolence as a path to free and prosperous societies have every right to believe otherwise.

Still, violence is not a guarantee of success. In their 2008 study “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” university academics Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth compared the outcomes of 323 violent and nonviolent resistance actions from 1900 to 2006. They found that major nonviolent initiatives were successful 53% of the time, compared to 26% of violent resistance actions.

The investigation additionally demonstrates “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely to succeed than violent campaigns in the face of brutal repression.” Those who believe in and offer extreme remedies, which are not radical because radical means getting to the root of the problem, and the central issue in totalitarian systems is a lack of popular sovereignty, should amass troops and war resources to achieve their objective.

However, this would be a mistake because violence rarely results in freedom or healthy nations. In 1981, Narcotics Anonymous published “the basic text,” which stated that “insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” The same is true for both addicts and people who resort to violence. What will happen in Venezuela now is up to democratic leaders and their voters. Let us hope Venezuelans do not grow weary but continue in their civic demand through their mobilization for the nation’s freedom.

What will the international community do? The Biden administration said Thursday it is getting ready to officially recognize González as the country’s president-elect. This is also a subject free nations must address. The supportive position is to refuse to recognize the dictator and establish an independent commission to review all voting records and thus declare the civic opposition’s victory, as all evidence indicates is the will of the Venezuelan people. If those who have taken over Venezuela over the past 25 years do not accept it, then impose an international boycott, as was done in Apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.

We have requested the same sanctions for Communist Cuba, as well as for Maduro’s dictatorship. Venezuelans are ultimately the protagonists. They will determine whether they will overcome tyranny this time or whether they will have to wait over 65 years to obtain their freedom, as we Cubans still do.

Regis Iglesias Ramírez is the spokesperson for the Christian Liberation Movement. John J. Suárez is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/article290673149.html

Miami Herald, July 27, 2023

In the 1950s, Cubans soon learned the Moncada attack was nothing to celebrate | Opinion

By John Suarez

On July 26, at 5:00 a.m., Raúl Castro, age 92, Ramiro Valdés, 91, and Guillermo García Frías, 95, presided over the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. It was a violent act that led to the formation of the July 26th Movement and helped establish a dictatorship with Fidel Castro as its leader.

By contrast, 75 years ago, a delegation representing the Cuban Republic helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations. That republic provided an eight-hour work day; the right to strike; and university autonomy. The island enjoyed a large number of newspapers and radio stations with diverse political and ideological viewpoints. This year, Cuba is observing the Declaration’s 75th anniversary with a new draconian penal code and more beatings and arrests of dissidents.

After Fulgencio Batista’s coup ended Cuban democracy on March 10, 1952, Cubans fell for Fidel Castro, a charismatic young lawyer who promised to return constitutional order. Following the July 26 Moncada attack in 1953, the July 26th Movement’s urban terrorism killed Cubans throughout the rest of the decade. Raúl Castro plotted numerous aircraft hijackings. On Nov. 1, 1958, one such skyjacking killed 17 civilians when the plane crashed.

The United States slapped an arms embargo on the Batista dictatorship in March 1958, thanks to Castro’s July 26th Movement’s lobbying, and in December 1958, the U.S. ambassador in Havana pressed Batista to leave.

On Jan. 1, 1959, Fidel Castro rose to power and was quickly recognized by the United States. Raúl Castro remains there today.

What happened to the Cubans who, in good faith, used violence to effect democratic change?

Mario Chanes de Armas, for example, who survived the Moncada attack, served prison time with Fidel and, like Castro, received amnesty, went to Mexico to train and returned to Cuba on the Granma yacht to unseat Batista. Chanes could have taken any position in the new regime, but he chose to return to his brewery work. After watching Castro betray their movement, Chanes spoke out against communist influence. In 1961, Chanes was prosecuted as a counterrevolutionary and imprisoned for 30 years. He died of Alzheimer’s in 2007 in Miami, after being released in 1991 and going into exile in 1993.

He was not the only one to follow this trajectory; others took up arms again.

The men and women who battled Batista’s dictatorship, many of them in Castro’s July 26th Movement, hoped for the restoration of Cuba’s 1940 Constitution and its republic. This is what Fidel promised in his “History will Absolve Me” speech at his trial for the Moncada assault. They got a totalitarian dictatorship, instead. They then fought Castro for six years in a civil war with substantially higher casualties on both sides than during the struggle against Batista. About 400 Soviet advisers assisted Castro in crushing the resistance. The opposition ended up in exile, imprisoned or executed.

It was within the prison cells that Cuba’s human-rights movement was forged.

This movement understood the potential of nonviolent resistance, demonstrated by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The resistance practiced it in Castro’s prisons and saw it as a means of mobilizing Cubans. It became a national civic movement to challenge Castro’s monopoly, educate citizens, rebuild democratic culture, reclaim human rights, refuse to accept injustice and oppose repression. Members reveal the dictatorship’s own contradictions by insisting that it adhere to the democratic provisions in its own constitution.

The communist dictatorship refused to follow Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, believing that glasnost and perestroika would bring an end to its rule. They understood that nonviolent leaders would provide an alternative to their regime and had them murdered.

One high-profile case was the July 22, 2012 assassination of pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. Payá and his Christian Liberation Movement amassed over 30,000 signatures for the Varela Project petition calling for human rights reforms, organizing tens of thousands of Cubans and attracting international attention. Payá was a Sakharov Laureate, twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Fidel Castro became sick in 2006 and handed down power to his younger brother. The elder Castro died on Nov. 25, 2016. Raúl Castro and his son Alejandro continue to rule Cuba today through their hand-picked president Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Cuba’s prisons remain full of political prisoners — and the freedom struggle continues.

John Suarez is executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba.

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article277714198.html

 

Miami Herald, November 30, 2021

Nonviolent resistance has a history of success in combating repression in Cuba | Opinion

By Regis Iglesias Ramírez and John Suarez

Grassroots movements in Cuba have fought for liberty for decades, mobilizing Cubans to defend human rights and freedom. The July 11 nationwide protests marked a historic moment, but they did not arise from nowhere.

In November 2020, hundreds of artists mobilized outside of the Ministry of Culture in a 15-day effort to free political prisoner Denis Solís González. They demanded both his release and greater artistic freedoms.

The San Isidro Movement (MSI), an artists collective formed in 2018 to nonviolently defend artistic freedom, challenged regime officials to free their unjustly jailed compatriot. Solís González was charged with contempt for protesting an illegal search of his home by a policeman, whom he had called a coward.

Rather than accede to MSI’s demands, officials repeatedly and violently escalated repression over 15 days, but they were met with nonviolent responses that inspired hundreds of artists and intellectuals to gather outside the Ministry of Culture, bringing officials to the negotiating table for dialogue.

The San Isidro Movement’s exercise in nonviolent power led to the formation of a new movement, 27N, and increased civic resistance. The pattern continued through 2021, reaching millions of Cubans across the island with the movement’s art and music — in particular the song, “Patria y Vida.” The rapper Maykel Castillo Perez (Osorbo), co-author of the song and also a member of MSI, is currently in prison and severely ill.

This is not the first time nonviolent tactics have been carried out successfully in Cuba. The Cuban Committee for Human Rights, founded in 1976, systematically documented human-rights violations, information smuggled out of Cuba to international human rights organizations, which led to the installation of a special rapporteur focused on Cuba’s human-rights situation and the Castro regime’s condemnation over a 15-year period beginning in 1991. Havana’s record was carefully scrutinized, and it was held accountable annually until 2006.

The Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), founded in 1988 to work for Cuba’s democratization, is best known for the Varela Project, a petition signed by 11,020 Cubans in May 2002 calling on the regime to guarantee international human-rights norms in law. Fidel Castro changed his constitution to prevent it from being amended that same year.

The regime responded with violence, not so much because of the number of signatures presented to the National Assembly, but because more than 120 Citizens’ Committees had been created throughout the country in the process and imprisoned most of their leaders. Despite this repression, MCL turned in an additional 14,384 signatures in October 2003.

Castro expected the March 2003 crackdown, dubbed the “Black Cuban Spring,” to be the end of the opposition. Instead, it sparked the emergence of a new movement, the Ladies in White, led by the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of the men jailed. For eight years, these women lobbied, protested and marched for their loved ones’ freedom. They were successful, and the last of the men were released from prison in 2011, a nonviolent victory over the dictatorship. The Ladies in White continue to the present day, demanding human rights be respected in Cuba.

The price of nonviolent defiance has been high: long prison terms, exile, deportations and extrajudicial killings. Tempted by the understanding that Cubans are exerting power through nonviolent action, some voices have emerged advocating a turn to violence in the belief that it would expedite a democratic transition.

Strategic studies have demonstrated that the more brutal the regime, the less effective and successful violent movements are. Counterintuitively, nonviolent movements have been more successful in overthrowing brutal dictators and transitioning to lasting democracies.

The Castro dictatorship, with decades of experience in terrorism, torture and genocide around the world, is an expert in war, as demonstrated in the 1960s when it efficiently and ruthlessly crushed a violent opposition in Cuba with the aid of Soviet advisors to consolidate power.

Nonviolent resistance is better able to mobilize citizens to demand change and obtain global solidarity and sanctions, creating the political, diplomatic and economic isolation of the regime and punishing the individuals and entities that violate Cubans’ rights.

Regis Iglesias Ramírez is spokesperson for the Movimiento Cristiano Liberación.

John Suarez is executive director of Centro por una Cuba Libre.

https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article256225232.html