Castro opposition's Manifesto

Given:

• That the island is paralyzed, hopeless, and drifting towards a bloody civil war or revolution.
• That thousands of Cubans have died escaping on rafts or victims of torture and execution.
• That the crisis is caused primarily by internal factors inherent in Castro's Stalinist system and not by the US economic embargo.
• That as long as Fidel clings to one-man rule, overruling all attempts at political reform, the situation will only worsen.

Therefore:

• An immediate halt to the repressive functions of the government's political police.
• An immediate dismantling of the fascist Rapid Action Brigades used to intimidate the opposition.
• The immediate liberation of all political prisoners and of the closure of all concentration camps and political detention and interrogation centers.
• An immediate end to press and media censorship,e legalization of all political parties.
• The legalization of all civic, political, religious and cultural organizations.
• The legalization of independent workers' unions and the workers' right to strike.
• The legalization of independent students' unions and youth movements.
• Full rights for all citizen freely congregate, speak and associate.
• Equality under the law for all citizens regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, political opinions, sexual orientation, gender, age or socio-economic status.
• Equal access by all citizens to proper health care, education and housing.
• Nation-wide dialogue on the national crisis, without government censorship, to determine the fate of the country and to facilitate the painful process of national reconciliation.
• Agricultural reform, returning collectivized lands to the peasantry.
• Legalization of small and medium businesses to facilitate economic recovery and national reconstruction.
• Permission for the one and a half million Cuban exiles abroad to return home.
• Dismantling of Communist Party units in the nation's factories and schools, and elimination of all special powers, possessions and privileges of the Cuban Communist Party and its branch organizations.convoking of a Constituent Assembly to draft a demo cratic Constitution.
• Internally monitored free and democratic elections for local, municipal and national government bodies, including the National Assembly and President.
• Radical demilitarization of Cuban society by sharply reducing the Armed Forces and militias, ending forced military conscription and full-scale diversion of the multi-billion dollar military budget to peaceful natioWestern hemisphere. The Cuban peopl e urgently appeal for the support of progressive peoples everywhere. We believe that this extreme crisis requires both international solidarity with the Cuban democracy movement and the free mobilization of all Cubans' physical, intellectual, economic, id eological and spiritual resources.