STRENGTHENING CIVIL SOCIETY (THE DUTY OF EVERY CUBAN)

By Alberto Muller. August 23, 1996.

I'm pleased to return to this topic because I have been asked by my readers to do so and also because its importance in the historical juncture of the Cuban drama cannot be doubted.

We know full well that civil society is the complex web of human relations which structure the dynamics within any nation. Within this web there exist all the legitimate non-governmental organizations, which the common citizens created to give a breath of life to the Cuban Council, the coordinate of multiple opposition groups within Cuba, could very well become an excellent example of the theme with which we are dealing.

Governments based on force (whether dictatorial or totalitarian), have always tried to restrict, marginalize, and crush the open spaces within the self determined social life of the society which they subjugate.

Castro's revolution (1959-1996) has been a true exponent of the repressive intent to annihilate the universe of diversity which extinguishes the expression of Cuban civil society. Hence the terrible, horrible, and repulsive evidence of more than a million exiles, hundreds of thousands or political prisoners, hundreds of murders through firing squads, and an entire society persecuted.

The healthy spaces of freedom which people require to act with dignity have been lost in Cuba for many decades.

For all of the above statements is why we must insist that it is the duty of all Cubans, there are no exceptions, to identify as an objective the need to strengthen the civil society within the country, it can and should be a common duty. At this point of analytical development it is important to understand that there can be no nation, or a country, without a civil society.

Cubans can and should remain grouped within different ideological groups, that is the basis of a democratic system. Also each group or party can and should remain within the framework of goals: Those in favor of an armed struggle, those who support a peaceful transition of reconciliation, or those who wish for a great movement of civic resistance, they all have the unavoidable duty of helping those groups who hold, within the island, their same views, to articulate and act upon their goals. The formula can and should be viable.

Why not believe and dream that the Cuban exodus can and should articulate a national democratic front, provisionally coordinated by Mas Canosa, Andres Vargas Gomez, Nestor Carbonell Cortina, Jose Ignacio Rasco, Carlos Alberto Montaner, Lino B. Fernandez, Jose Basulto, Orlando Gutierrez, and Ramon Sanchez, among others?, subordinate to effectively aiding those who, within Cuba, such as the Cuban Council, the Christian Movement for Liberation, the Human Rights groups, who among others, heroically struggle to free and democratize Cuba.

Cubans should interpret as a positive sign the new effort undertaken by the White House to appoint a high level commision, presided by Stuart Eizenstat (Sub-secretary for Commerce) to coordinate efforts with the European Union, the Latin American nations and private sector institutions to "strengthen the civil society in Cuba to finally move forward the democratic changes needed".

It is through this civil society emerging in the island that the final liberation will come about, through any of the strategic formulas put forward. Therefore, to help this civil society in Cuba, behind walls, can and should be the moral duty of all Cubans.