Why we protest

"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." -  Elie Wiesel

 The Obama Administration's embrace of the Castro regime is nothing new nor are the negative consequences. The Clinton Administration in the 1990s opened cash and carry trade with the dictatorship and joint military exercises with the Cuban military that coincided with a new Cuban exodus, heightened repression, massacres, the murder of U.S. citizens while engaged in search and rescue of Cuban rafters over international airspace.

Ten years ago on July 12, 2006 the Free Cuba Foundation held a panel discussion hosted by Neri Martinez with Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue and Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement reviewing two acts of state terrorism perpetrated by the Castro regime in the 1990s.

This is why on December 29, 2014 we declared our rejection of the Obama Administration's new Cuba policy understanding that it was a retread of the failed policies of the past beginning with the Carter Administration and continuing during the Clinton Administration.

Over the past 20 years we have nonviolently and silently protested the crimes of the Castro regime and refuse to be complicit therefore we now protest a U.S. policy that we view at best as counterproductive.

This is also why on July 31, 2015 we protested against Hillary Clinton at Florida International University because she has reaffirmed this failed Cuba policy and promises to continue it under her administration should she be elected president.

This is also why on July 13, 2016 at 12 noon we will gather in silent protest at the main fountain at Florida International University and demand justice for the victims of the "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre that claimed 37 lives on July 13, 1994 and for new victims of the regime Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante killed on July 22, 2012.