Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died?

The Toronto, Canada based punk rock band I Had A Dream, I.H.A.D. formed in 2010 asks tourists in their song titled Orlando Zapata: "Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died?"  Below is a live performance of the song first posted at Babalu blog.

Full lyrics reproduced below:

Orlando Zapata 

Children of the revolution can you answer this question:
Where were you the day Orlando Zapata died?

Same ask for the tourist crowd who don't listen to what screams out loud.
Did you enjoy your drinks? are you self satisfied?

I get the resistance stuff but why does that repressive regime get a free ride?

Oh, do you know how Orlando Zapata died?

Do you believe in evolution or systemic dysfunction? They sent him to prison for wanting human rights.
Charged with disobedience for political expedience that callous clique ignored this poor man's hunger strike.

I get the resistance stuff but why does that repressive regime get a free ride?

Oh, do you know how Orlando Zapata died?

Oh Orlando Zapata Tamayo couldn't let your spirit hide sorry friend for our privileged pride.

I get the resistance stuff but why does that repressive regime get a free ride?

Oh, do you know how Orlando Zapata died?

Copyright © 2010 I.H.A.D.

A Call to Take Actions for Wilman Villar Mendoza, Orlando Zapata & Brothers to the Rescue Martyrs

Two important dates are approaching: Thursday, February 23 and Friday, February 24

Sixteen years ago on February 24, 1996 at 3:21pm and at 3:27pm two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down with air to air missiles in international airspace extra-judicially executing Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr in an act of state terrorism.



Two years ago on February 23, 2010 at 3:00pm Cuban prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo died (or was extra-judicially executed) after 83 days on a water-only hunger strike.  During the strike prison officials denied him water contributing to his death which constitute both torture and murder.

One month ago on January 19, 2012  Wilman Villar Mendoza was unjustly imprisoned and then allowed to die by the Castro regime because he was not known internationally. Wilman was 31 years old and a member of the human rights group UNPACU (Union Patriotica de Cuba). He began a hunger strike in Aguadores Prison on November 25, 2011 to protest his unjust incarceration and to demand his freedom. Amnesty International had declared him a prisoner of conscience and holds the Cuban regime responsible for his death.

The Free Cuba Foundation calls on people of good will to join us in fasting and prayer for Wilman Villar Mendoza, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. on February 23 and to then organize vigils and moments of silence between the times when both Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down at  3:21pm and 3:28pm on February 24.



Now we are announcing activities taking place in Miami, Florida and invite you to send us news about actions that you are carrying out around the world. Please come back to this page. We will be adding photos and images that you can use for your own event(s).

February 23

3:00pm 24 Hour Fast for Wilman Villar Mendoza and Orlando Zapata Tamayo
             Location: Francisco Human Rights Park
             9445 SW 24 Street (Brothers to the Rescue Martyrs Blvd)
             Miami, FL



Raúl Arencibia Fajardo ex-preso de conciencia anuncia un ayuno de 24 horas para recordar a Orlando Zapata Tamayo el pasado 23 de febrero comenzando a las 3:00 de la tarde.



Free Cuba Foundation coordinator Neri Martinez announced a worldwide 24 hour vigil last year for Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2011. Orlando Zapata Tamayo died two years ago on February 23, 2010 at 3:00pm after 83 days on hunger strike during which prison officials denied him water and contributed to his death. We shall be doing it again this year and tragically adding the name of  Wilman Villar Mendoza.

February 24

3:00pm Silent Vigil for Justice
Location: Main Fountain Florida International University
11200 South West 8th Street, Miami, FL



Vigil will be at the main fountain at Florida International University between 3:21pm and 3:28pm the times that two Brothers to the Rescue planes were destroyed by air-to-air missiles fired by Cuban MiGs as they flew through international airspace searching for rafters. Family members and friends of  Wilman Villar Mendoza, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. will be there in spirit. This event is for FIU students and members of the FIU Community and has been held annually since 1996.



Families of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña and Armando Alejandre Jr. will be holding a special Mass on Friday, February 24th at 7:30pm on 16th anniversary of the shoot down. Below is the statement that they have released.

You are cordially invited to a

Eucharistic celebration

In memory of

 

Carlos, Armando, Mario & Pablo

 

Friday, February 24, 2012, at 7:30 p.m.

 

St. Brendan Catholic Church

8725 SW 32nd Street

Miami, Florida  33165

 

Celebrant:  Rev. Fernando Heria

 

Armando, Carlos, Mario & Pablo were volunteers flying a humanitarian search and rescue mission for rafters fleeing Cuba.  On Feb. 24, 1996 they were shot down by Cuban war planes over international waters in the Florida Straits.

HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER DIES AFTER BEING SUBJECTED TO CRUEL AND DEGRADING TREATMENT WHILE ON A HUNGER STRIKE IN PRISON

Peaceful Resistance Movement urgently requests world solidarity for the memory of Wilman Villar Mendoza

January 20, 2012

 

Cuban human rights defender, Wilman Villar Mendoza, who had been admitted in critical state to the Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital in Santiago de Cuba on January 14 following a 50 day hunger strike (begun November 25, 2012), died on the evening of Thursday, January 18, 2012 of a multiple organ failure and a generalized sepsis.

Wilman Villar Mendoza, who was 31 years old and a member of the human rights group UMPACU (Union Patriotica de Cuba) began a hunger strike in the Prison of Aguadores on November 25, 2011 to protest the false accusations that led to his unjust incarceration and to demand his unconditional freedom. Wilmar was beaten and arrested following a public peaceful protest in the eastern town of Contramaestre on November 14, 2011, and sentenced in a trial he called a “judicial farce” to four years in prison. He was charged with “refusing to obey an official” (desacato), “resistance” (resistencia), and “assault” (atentado).

As most members of the peaceful resistance movement in the island, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, leader of UMPACU, holds the Cuban government directly responsible for the demise of this peaceful human rights defender.  Numerous activists across Cuba declared themselves in mourning and said this sad event unites them even more to continue defending the cause of human rights in Cuba.

The death of Wilman Villar Mendoza did not come about fortuitously nor is it an isolated case. The same terror tactics of mental and physical torture to subdue a political prisoner that have been systematically applied in Cuban prisons and which were applied to Orlando Zapata Tamayo, (who died on February 23, 2010 following a prolonged hunger strike) were also practiced on Wilman:

·         Accused of being a common criminal
·         Isolated in a humid punishment cell
·         Confined naked
·         Deprived of water and medical assistance
·         Transferred to a medical facility once he is in a critical state of health

Wilmar’s widow, Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales, who is a “Lady in White”, is presently being denied access to her husband’s body and the Cuban government has unleashed a wave of repression throughout Cuba as members of the peaceful resistance movement are trying to pay their last respects to their compatriot. The Juan Bruno Zayas Hospital is surrounded by military guards. Liudmila Rodriguez Palomo reported that State Security agents in patrol cars, carrying sticks and stones, violently arrested activists in the Eastern city of Palma Soriano. The house of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez and his wife, Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera in the Central city of Placetas is surrounded by State Security agents.

For months, the Coalition of Cuban-American Women has been alerting the international community that the lives of those human rights defenders who are publicly struggling on behalf of fundamental freedoms in Cuba are in danger. We urgently call on religious, civic, political and cultural entities and its leaders, as well as the media and the non-governmental human rights organizations worldwide, to recognize and display their solidarity on behalf of these men and women who are sacrificing their lives for the cause of human rights in Cuba.

Coalition of Cuban-American Women / Joseito76@aol.com / Laida A.Carro
FURTHER INFORMATION IN CUBA:  Berta Soler  +5352906820 / José Daniel Ferrer – + 53 53631267 / Maritza Pelegrino Cabrales  + 5353842338  /  Iris T. Perez Aguilera +5352417749  / Jose Luis Garcia Perez “Antunez” +5352731656

We failed Wilmar Villar Mendoza

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." - Elie Wiesel
 

We failed Wilmar Villar Mendoza. We didn't speak out in time and now we can only join the chorus denouncing his death. Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel once observed:  "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." 

Wilmar Villar Mendoza was unjustly imprisoned and then allowed to die by the Castro regime on January 19, 2012 because he was not known internationally. Like Orlando Zapata Tamayo who died after beatings, torture and unjust imprisonment drove him to a hunger strike and further mistreatment that led to his death on February 23, 2010 international media and diplomatic channels ignored his plight.

Dissidents march peacefully and protest in public spaces in Cuba and are beaten down and detained by State Security often times only social media (bloggers and twitterers) cover their plight. As part of a new generation of activists we have to do better and remain engaged with the men and women risking everything in Cuba for the Cuban people.

Our prayers and condolences for Wilmar Villar Mendoza, his wife Maritza and their two daughters ages 5 and 6. Furthermore out deepest apologies for not having denounced this when he was still alive.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: The Latin American Despots and Tyrants Tour

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." - Edmund Burke

 Ahmadinejad and Raul Castro

Iranian despot, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to visit Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador in a Latin America tour in the second week of January 2012. It should be titled the despots and tyrants tour. Cuba has the oldest dictatorship in the hemisphere. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua just blatantly and violently stole the elections in that Central American country. Venezuela is headed down the path to a Cuban-style dictatorship and Ecuador is not far behind.

Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez

Add to this reports that Cuban, Venezuelan and Iranians have been plotting cyber-attacks on the United States and their is even more reason for concern. The Washington Times reported that:

U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.

Background on Univision report

The details arose in an investigative report filed by the hispanic network Univsion and according to them:

A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico told Univision that he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy. In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several selected students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats.

In Solidarity: Miami Dade College Students pay tribute to Laura Pollán

Miami Dade College students demonstrate their solidarity with the Ladies in White while honoring their founder Laura Pollán, who died on October 14, 2011. When will Florida International University and University of Miami students do the same?

Originally Published by Pedazos de la Isla:

Dressed in white and carrying signs and flowers, dozens of students from Miami Dade College paid a moving tribute to the fallen leader of the Ladies in White, Laura Pollán, this Wednesday November 16th.  The heart-felt notes of a tune by Amaury Guttierez dedicated to Pollan were heard as the participants congregated in a public plaza of  the College’s Kendall campus.  When the song concluded, various College professors and staff of diverse ethnic backgrounds shared words of admiration for all the work which Laura Pollán carried out and for the bravery which the Ladies in White still display as they march every Sunday in the island.



The demonstrators then carried out a silent march around the campus all the way to a monument erected in honor to ‘world peace’, where they deposited flowers in memory of Laura.

The activity was carried out by a student organization, founded at MDC,  by the name of “If Not Now, When?“. According to the counselor of the group, Teresita Pedrazo Moreno, who is also a professor of sociology and political science, the recently created group aspires to “promote human rights all around the world and has taken its name from an essay written by Primo Levi, a holocaust survivor who denounced to the world the horrors he and so many others faced during that time“.



Moreno adds that the group is completely “made up of students, and they were the ones who chose to pay tribute to Laura Pollán for our first ever public event“.

The activist also adds that “this is an honor and something we owe to the brave women, and it is very important that this message spreads to the younger generations“, which successfully occurred that night, seeing as the majority of the students present did not surpass the age of 25.

How to Start a Successful Revolution: See this Documentary and Read Gene Sharp

A group of Free Cuba Foundation members went to see the documentary on the life of Gene Sharp, How to Start a Revolution, last night at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival at the Cinema Paradiso. The theater was packed for the South Florida premiere of this powerful documentary that takes a look at Gene Sharp and at the nonviolent resistance strategies and tactics he has documented. The film is divided into sections inspired by Sharp's strategy and writings while visiting different places (Burma, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Egypt, Sudan, Syria, and Iran) at different times around the world that have been influenced by his strategic nonviolent vision.

Trailer for the Documentary 

If you want to learn how to carry out a successful revolution against a dictator then this is the film to introduce you to Gene Sharp and his work. At the same time many of his writings are available online at the Albert Einstein Institution.