Remember the Ghosts of June 4th and demand justice
What happened?
Thirty two years ago today the Communistleadership of China opened fire on the Chinese people. The Pro-Democracy Movement that had taken to the streets
in April of 1989 was violently crushed by the Chinese communist
dictatorship beginning on the evening of June 3, 1989.
How many were killed?
By dawn on June
4, 1989 scores of demonstrators had been shot and killed
or run over and crushed by tanks of the so-called People's Liberation
Army. and the blood of students and workers splattered and flowed in the
streets of Beijing.
The Chinese Red Cross had initially counted 2,600 dead when they were pressured to stop by Chinese officials and silenced
on this matter. Following the massacre an additional 1,000 were
sentenced to death and executed. Scores of Chinese who participated in
the Tiananmen protests would spend years and decades in prison.
A 2017 declassified British diplomatic cable revealed that
"at least 10,000 people were killed in the Chinese army's crackdown on
pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in June 1989."
How Henry Kissinger's downplayed the Beijing Massacre in the United States Former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger persuaded the Bush Administration in
the immediate aftermath to downplay the human rights considerations
surrounding the Beijing Massacre and to focus on the economic and
strategic relationship. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) published a October 1, 1989 article
revealing Kissinger's direct business ties to Communist China and his
defense of the regime and justification of the massacre. FAIR reported
how on August 1, 1989 this business consultant who also heads "China
Ventures" [that engages China's state bank in joint ventures]wrote a column that appeared in a Washington Post/L.A. Times ("The Caricature of Deng as a Tyrant Is Unfair", 8/1/89). In it Kissinger argued against sanctions:
"China remains too important for
America's national security to risk the relationship on the emotions of
the moment." He asserted: "No government in the world would have
tolerated having the main square of its capital occupied for eight weeks
by tens of thousands of demonstrators."
Kissinger's reputation according to Umair Khan who reviewed his 2011 book, On China, describes him as a
man whose "reputation is based on his career as a diplomat turned
business consultant." This business relationship was not mentioned back
in 1989 by those publishing the former Secretary of State's case against
sanctions on China.
Kissinger proved wrong by events in Eastern Europe
Incidentally over the course of six weeks
in 1989 beginning on November 17, the one-party government of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia although engaging in acts of
repression did not commit a huge massacre against tens of thousands of
demonstrators in the main square of its capital. The demonstrations grew
to Tiananmen Square levels of 200,000 and 500,000 demonstrators in
Prague. The end result was the Velvet Revolution and 25 years of peace
and prosperity. Kissinger's argument did not hold up under the light of
events. Consequences of looking the other way
Unfortunately, the downplaying of the human rights situation in China
has had consequences over the long term. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dictum
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" has special
resonance.In 2011 Muammar Gaddafi believed that he could get away with mass murder
because the world looked the other way in June of 1989 in Beijing and
said it plainly:
"The unity of China was more important than those
people on Tiananmen Square."
Its not the first time impunity in one
bloody deed has encouraged another. Between 1915 and 1917 the Ottoman
Turks murdered more than 1.5 million Armenians and like the Chinese
communists in 1989 got away with it. This inspired Adolph Hitler to carry out his own holocaust stating in 1939:
"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel has denounced indifference and silence before injustice stating that: "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
For
the next 24 hours will be sharing information over social media
provided by Chinese pro-democracy activists on the events that took
place 32 years ago in Beijing.
The Free Cuba Foundation since its founding recognized that being
"victims of totalitarianism we share a bond with other captive peoples
past and present who are our brothers and sisters in this struggle for
freedom."
Please share videos of documentaries on the Tiananmen Square
protests, the crackdown and massacre, and the aftermath. For example, Tiananmen Mothers, a group of family members of those killed during the violent crackdown on the 1989 Democracy Movement produced a short documentary:
"Portraits of Loss and the Quest for Justice"in which the stories of
six victims are told by their family members, and two survivors provide
their own testimony. It can be viewed online here. We also ask all people of good will to light a candle tonight at 8pm and share the stories of the unforgotten.
Message from Human Rights in China requesting solidarity:
In mainland China, the Chinese
authorities have never allowed public commemorations of the victims of
the June Fourth crackdown of the 1989 Democracy Movement. Up until 2020,
the people of Hong Kong had been able to hold annual candlelight
vigils—for large-scale public remembrance and to press for official
accountability. In 2021, for the 2nd year in a row, the Hong Kong
authorities are banning the vigil. HRIC urges the international
community to stand up against enforced amnesia of June Fourth: by
lighting a candle at 8 p.m. on June 4 wherever you are, reading the
stories of the UNFORGOTTEN
(https://truth30.hrichina.org/unforgotten.html), and sending solidarity
messages to the Tiananmen Mothers
(https://truth30.hrichina.org/what_you_can_do.html).
Over the past couple of months there has been a debate over Senator Bernie Sanders statements on "achievements" of the Castro regime in Cuba in education and healthcare. The Sanders campaign, and their apologists, responded to criticisms by pointing out that President Obama had repeated many of the same claims.
Both Senator Sanders and President Obama were repeating Cuban communist propaganda that does not accord with reality. Sanders also doubled down citing how China had lifted more people out of poverty than any other country. This is Chinese communist propaganda, and ignores the tens of millions killed and starved by the regime.
However, they are not the only ones who have fallen for communist propaganda. Adam Serwer, of The Atlantic wrote in the article, "China’s Coronavirus Disinformation Ensnared Its Chief Target" of how President Trump believed the Chinese communist propaganda and disinformation relayed by China’s President Xi Jingping, ignoring US intelligence's assessment that they were covering up the true scale of the outbreak.
Administration officials directly warned Trump of the danger posed by
the virus, but “Trump’s insistence on the contrary seemed to rest in his
relationship with China’s President Xi Jingping, whom Trump believed
was providing him with reliable information about how the virus was
spreading in China,” The Washington Post reported, “despite reports from intelligence agencies that Chinese officials were not being candid about the true scale of the crisis.”
Taiwan and South Korea, both who never fell for the Chinese communist lies, responded quickly in late December 2019 and were able to effectively contain the spread of the Wuhan virus, and avoided to have to lock down their societies. Europe and the United States restricted flights from China later than the two Asian countries, and now face both a humanitarian and economic disaster. Taiwan and South Korea performed more extensive screening and testing of persons arriving setting up an effective quarantine. The United States had not done that.
However, there is another area of great concern and that is travel from Cuba to the United States is not being screened. Cuba has repeatedly covered up epidemics (dengue, cholera, and zika) endangering many, but continues to get a free pass in the press as a "medical super power" with positive press. At the same time the media ignores that while the Wuhan Virus spread across Cuba, the Castro regime was claiming, as recently as last week, that the virus was killed by sun and tropical temperatures advertising in European social media in countries that were being impacted.
How many tourists took the Castro regime up on its tourism invitation? What does that mean for Cubans" What does it mean for the tourists who are sick in a country without enough soap and toiletries for Cuban nationals, much less respirators? (Another bit of communist propaganda is that the embargo is the reason for food and medicine shortages, but the US does not restrict agricultural or medical products). Below is a partial list of eligible items form the Treasury Department.
Eligible items. For all destinations, eligible items are food (including vitamins); medicines, medical supplies and devices (including hospital supplies and equipment and equipment for the handicapped); receive-only radio equipment for reception of commercial/civil AM/FM and short wave publicly available frequency bands, and batteries for such equipment; clothing; personal hygiene items; seeds; veterinary medicines and supplies; fishing equipment and supplies; soap-making equipment;
The
really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits
'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it
claims to control the past as well as the future. - George Orwell "As I
Please," Tribune (4 February 1944)
Twenty NGOs are planning a human chain rally around
the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. on Sep 29th, to protest against
the 70 years of the #CHINAZI regime, and also to support a
#FreeHongKong. This is one of a series of Global Anti-Totalitarianism Rallies being held around the world on September 29, 2019 at 2:30pm.
Human Chain Rally at the Chinese Embassy When: Sunday, September 29, 2019 Rally: 2:00pm - 4:00pm Location: The Chinese Embassy 3505 International Place NW Washington, DC 20008
The
communist regime in China wants to celebrate 70 years in power on
October 1, 1949. However on September 29, 2019 around the world free
Chinese and friends of a free China will gather to protest this brutal
regime that costs tens of millions of lives in Mainland China and today
poses a threat to the free world.
Like their Soviet comrades the Chinese communists have attempted to rewrite their shameful role in World War II in the fight against Imperial Japan that was led and won by the Nationalists. People of goodwill will not forget that 30 years ago on June 4, 1989 this regime murdered thousands of Chinese who wanted to be free.
We will also not forget the other horrors carried out by Mao Ze Dong in the first decades of the communist revolution in China. We are in solidarity with a #FreeChina and join the #929GlobalAntiTotalitarianism effort. The Free Cuba Foundation announces its support for a #FreeHongKong and the upcoming Global Anti-Totalitarianism Rallies, and encourage all people of good will to attend and show their solidarity.
The International Campaign for Tibet has the following statement surrounding the event that places it into context:
Since the launch of the Anti-Extradition Legislation Protests in Hong
Kong on June 9, the people of Hong Kong have waged a three-month
struggle for freedom, democracy and the rule of law. Their courage,
endurance and wisdom have earned the world’s admiration. However, the
struggle is still ongoing.
#HongKongProtests have created #Chinnazi, a wordplay hashtag of
“China” and “Nazism,” which is trending on Twitter across the globe.
The protesters have also displayed a flag, which they designed by
re-arranging the red stars in the CCP’s national flag to form Nazi
swastika, naming it the “Red Nazi (Chinazi) Flag,” symbolizing that the
totalitarian state under the CCP is the “Nazism of the 21st century” and
“fascism with Chinese characteristics.” On October 1, 2019, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold an
unprecedented grand military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 70th
anniversary of the party state, and to show off its military muscle to
the world. This CCP National Day is also a critical time for Hong Kong’s
protesters, because they could face unprecedented suppression. Human
rights organizations in Washington DC plan to jointly hold a human chain
rally to encircle the Chinese Embassy to protest against 70 years of
#Chinazi rule in China and support a free Hong Kong. We will display
and stamp on the #Chinazi red flag during the rally. We call for all
ethnic and religious groups, human rights activists and any other people
who oppose the CCP’s Red Nazi Empire, support Hong Kong’s freedom, and
support the Chinese people by ending the one-party dictatorship and
achieving constitutional democracy, to join us in this rally, with your
own homemade #Chinazi flags, banners and placards. We also urge our friends who love freedom and democracy from all over
the world, especially those who live in cities that have Chinese
embassies and consulates, to hold similar human chain rallies to protest
against #Chinazi’s 70 year rule in China, and support free Hong Kong
during #Chinazi’s national day. Let us roar for justice!
— Initiatives for China (@CitizenPowerIFC) March 10, 2019
Both
Cubans and Tibetans looked to 1959 as an opportunity for democratic
restoration and liberation. Instead tyranny entrenched itself. The Cuban
nightmare began amidst the hope on January 1, 1959 that the departure
of Fulgencio Batista into exile would mean a democratic restoration and
an end to authoritarian tyranny instead it was the beginning of a new
totalitarian communist tyranny headed by Fidel Castro.
Free Tibet!
Tibetan's hoped that a national
uprising that erupted in Lhasa on March 10, 1959 would drive the Chinese
occupiers out of their homeland. Instead His Holiness the Dalai Lama
had to flee to India to avoid imprisonment or assassination as the
Chinese communists crushed the uprising.
Six decades later we share something in common with the year 1959: a year of dashed hopes. A terrible year, when communism came to our countries, and even worse for Tibet - it is the year Communist China's occupation was consolidated and His Holiness the Dalai Lama went into exile.
We Free Cubans remain in solidarity with Tibetans and the cause of a Free Tibet. We will stand with you. For China to get out of Tibet and for human rights and liberty to return to Tibet.
Update December 12, 2016: Google signed an internet deal with the Castro regime placing the company's technology in the hands of the dictatorship's telecommunications monopoly ETECSA. This is the latest bit of bad news coming out of Cuba and was detailed in a statement issued by Google:
“This deal allows Etecsa to use our technology to reduce latency by caching some of our most popular high bandwidth content like YouTube videos at a local level."
However an anonymous tech reported off the record that "This may improve reception of cached materials, but not for example email which depends on local bandwidth." This will also not assist more Cubans getting on line. However it does present some opportunities for the dictatorship in Cuba ranging from public relations to technology theft. The fruits of the Obama Administration's Cuba policy as we approach the two year mark of the December 17, 2014 announcement are proving rotten with a worsening human rights situation on the island and the European Union de-linking human rights considerations from normalizing relations with the Castro dictatorship. As of November 30, 2016 there have been 9,484 political arrests over the course of this year in Cuba, a ten year record and violence escalating against nonviolent dissenters.
Within this context the role of Google is troubling. First Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt went to Cuba in June of 2014 and returned singing the usual cliches in praise of the dictatorship:
The two most successful parts of the Revolution, as they call it, is the universal health care free for all citizens with very good doctors, and the clear majority of women in the executive and managerial ranks in the country. Almost all the leaders we met with were female, and one joked with us that the Revolution promised equality, the macho men didn’t like it but “they got used to it”, with a broad smile.
Google has played an active role in giving a positive image to President Obama's failed Cuba policy with a temporary demonstration project in Havana that reveals more than it intended. Capitol Hill Cubans on April 7, 2016 reported the following on the presence of Google in Cuba:
Reports from Cuba have noted that the center has been given priority use by Ministry of the Interior ('MININT') officials and trainees. The MININT is home to Castro's intelligence services. Thus, the Google + Kcho Mor center has become a playground for Cuba's spies and future cyber-warriors. Furthermore, after passing various security checks, when regular Cubans finally get to enter the center, they are treated to censored online access. Web pages like Cubaencuentro, Revolico and 14ymedio remain blocked. Thus, Google has now officially become an extension of Cuba's censors.
Now in the waning days of the Obama Administration the push is on fast track deals with the Castro regime with the aim of locking in his legacy on Cuba and Google is going along. "Google is choosing to stand with the oppressor rather than with the oppressed, in clear violation of their "Don't Be Evil" code of conduct, partnering with an octogenarian Socialist Dictatorship instead of in favor of millions of Cuban youth; is not only wrong but a terrible business decision," denounced Augusto Monge of the Free Cuba Foundation.
Going beyond how this effects the interests of free Cubans, but American corporations doing business with totalitarian regimes have negatively impacted U.S. national interests as well that are often ignored in favor of narrow, short term economic considerations. Unfortunately, corporate money has had a disproportionate impact on think tanks in Washington DC and these concerns go unaddressed.
I spent time with a number of foreign businessmen arrested during 2011 and 2012 from a variety of countries, although representatives from Brazil, Venezuela and China were conspicuous in the absence. Very few of my fellow sufferers have been reported in the press and there are many more in the system than is widely known. As they are all still either waiting for charges, trial or sentencing they will certainly not be talking to the press. Whilst a few of them are being charged with corruption many are not and the accusations range from sabotage, damage to the economy, tax avoidance and illegal economic activity. It is absolutely clear that the war against corruption may be a convenient political banner to hide behind and one that foreign governments and press will support.
An incoming Administration that wants to make America First, look out for U.S. national interests and save taxpayers some money should not only be looking at not going down the same rabbit hole in Cuba as others have done, but to get out of the mess that negatively impacts America in China.
During the time we spent with him during his visit to South Florida what we saw was a man of great humility who spoke in concrete and first hand terms about the human rights in China but at the same time had a wonderful sense of humor.
Harry was widely known as the time to be one the most prominent political prisoners of Communist
China, who had been imprisoned for 19 years, having also made headlines with his
courageous act of filming the conditions of Chinese prisons after his
release, earning him another 15 year prison sentence in the gulags, but
thanks to international pressure was deported to the United States.
He was also the founder of the Laogai Museum in Washington DC, the first
museum of its kind, highlighting the history of Chinese human rights
atrocities. This was the first time that Harry Wu came to Miami, to
address members of the Cuban exile community and it was not without
controversy.
Unbeknownst to us, the university was in the midst of talks with the
Chinese government on the construction of a new hospitality suite in
mainland China. The FIU bureaucracy did everything it could to shutdown the event, but through the enormous effort of FCF members and members of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights the event went on as planned. Needless to say, this was not one of Havana's or Beijing’s happiest days in Miami.
Harry Wu
announced his support for the Cuban embargo while denouncing the lack of such a
policy toward China. According to Wu, the majority of the profits have
been funneled directly to "dying Communist institutions," thus
prolonging their lives, he said. Harry then signed a petition for the indictment of Fidel and Raul Castro for their roles in the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Harry Wu was considered a troublemaker to those who only cared about doing business with communist China and were indifferent to the human rights of the Chinese people. On International Human Rights Day 2002 at Florida International University he also became viewed as a troublemaker to those who only care about doing business with communist Cuba and are not interested in the human rights or freedom of the Cuban people.
We mourn the passing of Harry Wu and offer prayers for him and his family along with our continued solidarity with the Chinese people and their struggle for freedom and human rights. We will also carry on being troublemakers for human rights and freedom.
"To forgive is not to forget. The merit lies in loving in spite of the vivid knowledge that the one that must be loved is not a friend. There is no merit in loving an enemy when you forget him for a friend." - Mohandas Gandhi
Cuban American businessmen invited to Embassy while Cuban barred from delivering letter
On December 20, 2015 The Miami Herald published an open letter by ten prominent Cuban-American businessmen as a full page advertisement. We read the letter with great concern. We are young enough to be their children and grandchildren. Some of us were born in Cuba while others in the diaspora. We do not question their good intentions or believe that they have a hidden agenda and like them we would like to see the reunification of our larger Cuban family. We also agree that we and the world have changed.
The Cuban diaspora has matured and a debate that decades ago would have ended in acrimony and threats, although still passionate today, can be conducted within the norms of democratic discourse. Although this is a change that bodes well for Cuba's future, the world has also changed in ways that are not for the better.
Human rights and democracy have been in retreat for the better part of a decade emboldening dictators and terrorists to challenge the international order turning it into something cruel and indifferent to human aspirations for freedom and dignity. We are witnessing today in Venezuela the attempt by the Maduro regime to undermine the results of a democratic election while at the same time rejecting calls for an amnesty to free Venezuelan prisoners of conscience. This change poses a challenge for a democratic Cuba in the future.
Some of the men who signed this open letter took part in this process in China. We are not, however here to criticize them but to provide context to what they wish to do in Cuba and the reasons why they continue down this path with the belief that they are operating in good faith.
We are joining this public conversation because we believe that we can provide a constructive contribution to the discussion. This necessitates recalling the wise words of the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), who observed: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."
The authors of "An Open Letter to our fellow Cuban-Americans" assert that they visited Cuba "to confront the myths that can only persist in the absence of first-hand knowledge" and challenge "those who continue to hear news about Cuba second-hand, we do not believe that you are being well served without seeing the changing Cuban reality on the island with your own eyes, as we have with ours."
Unfortunately, visiting a totalitarian dictatorship to obtain "first-hand knowledge" has historically been a fool’s errand. Before they had set foot aboard the plane for Havana they should have first read, Paul Hollander's Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society. This sociology text analyzes how totalitarian regimes, such as the one in Cuba, are able to disguise the horrors taking place in their systems presenting it in a positive light to visitors:
The techniques of hospitality comprise an entire range of measures designed to influence the perception and judgement of the guests; it is a form of attempted persuasion by "evidence," the evidence of the senses. As such, these techniques represent a concentrated effort to maximize control over the experiences of the visitors. Naturally the more centralized and powerful the host governments and the greater their control over the resources of their countries and their citizens, the more successful they are in controlling the experiences of the visitor. Insofar as each one of the four countries [ USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam] at the times of the visits could be regarded as totalitarian, the possibilities for shaping the visitor's impressions and experiences were greatly enhanced. [ pg. 347 - 348 Hollander Political Pilgrims]
This practice is not limited to left wing totalitarians but was also effectively carried out by the Nazi Third Reich in presenting a false impression to a visiting International Red Cross delegation. As reported by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
"Succumbing to pressure following the deportation of Danish Jews to Theresienstadt, the Germans permitted representatives from the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross to visit in June 1944. It was all an elaborate hoax. The Germans intensified deportations from the ghetto shortly before the visit, and the ghetto itself was "beautified." Gardens were planted, houses painted, and barracks renovated. The Nazis staged social and cultural events for the visiting dignitaries. Once the visit was over, the Germans resumed deportations from Theresienstadt, which did not end until October 1944."
The call for tourism to obtain first-hand knowledge in a totalitarian regime also fails to address the real dangers of traveling to Cuba, including the brutal murder of a 39-year-old Tampa attorney in January of 2015 in Havana.
It is also important to remember that the Castro regime (it is not a proper government but a dictatorship) rolled out the red carpet for these 10 Cuban-American businessmen some of whom were invited to the opening of the Cuban embassy in Washington, DC on July 20, 2015. That same embassy, within 24 hours of inviting them in, refused to allow Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo to enter to deliver a letter from her family requesting the autopsy report for her father Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, who was killed on July 22, 2012 along with Harold Cepero under circumstances that point to an extrajudicial execution. The family is entitled to this report by Cuban law but three years later have yet to receive it.
As advocates for a free and democratic Cuba, in good conscience, we cannot say that progress has been made on both sides of the Florida Straits. On the contrary the past 12 months have seen new lows reached on both sides that had not been seen in decades. In Cuba there have been rising levels of violence against activists and 8,616 politically motivated arbitrary detentions in 2015. The Obama State Department snubbed Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo in stark contrast to the treatment given to her father in 2002 who had a face to face meeting with then Secretary of State Colin Powell. In Cuba the US embassy did not invite dissidents to the flag raising ceremony. Now there is a new policy which has placed accreditation, previously handled in the U.S. Interests Section, in the hands of the Castro regime's Ministry of Foreign Relations which in practice means that independent journalists are no longer covering events at the U.S. embassy in Havana and dissidents have had their access dramatically restricted.
The December 17, 2014 announcement by the President broke new ground in only one area releasing Gerardo Hernandez, a Cuban spy and terrorist, convicted of murder conspiracy of three U.S. citizens and a resident. Not only did President Obama commute the sentence but a few days later tried to rewrite history calling an act of international terrorism, the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, a tragedy.
Unfortunately, following this new relationship between the United States and Cuba the pattern of violence against activists was escalated by the Castro regime. Cuban human rights defender, Sirley Ávila León, a 56 year old mother of two and a one-time delegate of the People’s Assembly of Majibacoa worked through official channels to represent her community but when they ignored her requests to keep a school open she went to the international media and was later removed from office. She then joined the democratic opposition which led to escalating acts of repression by state security against her culminating in a machete attack in Cuba on May 24, 2015 by Osmany Carrión who had been sent by state security agents. While raising her hand to block a machete blow to the head, she suffered deep cuts to her neck and knees, lost her left hand and the machete cut through the bone of her right humerus leaving her arm dangling. She is still in danger while her assailant is free to walk the streets of Cuba.
These realities demonstrate that courage demands that we maintain both our dignity and an open mind in resisting and rejecting this approach which twice before (in 1977-1980 and 1993-2000) has proved disastrous to both Cubans and Americans. We cannot ignore that Cubans on the island recognize that this policy will prolong the life of the dictatorship and more than 70,000 have fled to freedom and many more would like to leave because they do not have confidence in the Castro regime and the claims that progress has been made. Their daily reality in Cuba says otherwise and no amount of propaganda and manipulation is going to change that. We need to face this hard future with courage and dignity prioritizing the person over ideologies and remembering the words of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas four months prior to his untimely death:
"Our Movement denounces the regime's attempt to impose a fraudulent change, i.e. change without rights and the inclusion of many interests in this change that sidesteps democracy and the sovereignty of the people of Cuba. The attempt to link the Diaspora in this fraudulent change is to make victims participate in their own oppression. The Diaspora does not have to 'assume attitudes and policies in entering the social activity of the island.' The Diaspora is a Diaspora because they are Cuban exiles to which the regime denied rights as it denies them to all Cubans. It is not in that part of oppression, without rights, and transparency that the Diaspora has to be inserted, that would be part of a fraudulent change. [...] The gradual approach only makes sense if there are transparent prospects of freedom and rights. We Cubans have a right to our rights. Why not rights? It is time. That is the peaceful change that we promote and claim: Changes that signify freedom, reconciliation, political pluralism and free elections. Then the Diaspora will cease being a Diaspora, because all Cubans will have rights in their own free and sovereign country. That is why we fight."
Vigil on February 24, 2015 demanding justice for four Brothers to the Rescue members killed in 1996
Signed by,
Juan Carlos Sanchez
Cesar Vasquez
Harold Silva
John Suarez
Augusto Monge
Yosvani Oliva
Pedro Ross
Stephanie Rudat
Colena Corley Pamela Adan Lourdes Palomo
(E-mail frcbfndtn@gmail.com if you are a student or University alumnus and would like to have your name added)
"Since I am a Tibetan, I have always been sincere and devoted to the
interests and well-being of Tibetan people. That is the real reason why
the Chinese do not like me and framed me. That is why they are going to
take my precious life even though I am innocent."
Tenzin's cousin Geshe Nyima in a statement following news of his death placed his passing in context and called for the monk's body to be released to his family:
"Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was
an innocent monk who suffered over 13 years of unjust imprisonment,
torture and abuse in a Chinese prison for simply advocating for the
rights and well-being of his people and for expressing his devotion to
His Holiness the Dalai Lama. ... "The Chinese government must immediately release his body so that our
family and community may perform the last Buddhist religious rites".
1. Demand a public inquiry into the circumstances
of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's death. He was a political prisoner at the
top of the priority listing for a number of countries and his passing
must be officially acknowledged and the causes investigated.
2.
Appeal to your Chinese counterparts that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's body is
returned to his family so that they can carry out final Tibetan
Buddhist religious rites.
3. Express strong condemnation at the passing of
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche; and convey to China its concern that he was
sentenced in secrecy for a crime he did not commit, and China's failure
to respond to the application for medical parole.
Take action here and petition your government to demand that the Chinese dictatorship do the right thing then share this link with others. The international community must speak out or risk being morally complicit by its silence.
The Free Cuba Foundation adds its voice to the demand that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche's remains be returned to his family and that a public inquiry be made into the circumstances surrounding the Tibetan Lama's untimely death.
