Wednesday, April 4, 2012
José Martí.
Free Cubans Know Reconciliation
From : CapitolHillCubans.com
From 1959 to this very day, each generation of Cuban exiles has consistently opened their homes, schools and businesses to the most recent group of arrivals -- irrespective of their previous social status or political beliefs.
Free Cubans know and understand reconciliation.
But that didn't stop Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas, delivering remarks in Havana last Friday, from disparaging Cuban exiles as "hysterical" and lecturing that:
"There's no other road than that of reconciliation, respect, inclusion, dialogue, love and peace."
How about freedom?
Not surprisingly, Saladrigas's remarks raised eyebrows among dissidents on the island, including Ivan Garcia, who was present and later wrote:
"It caught my attention that [Saladrigas] didn't question the hundreds of arrests of dissidents during the German Pope's trip or the beating of the man that spontaneously screamed 'Down with Communism' at the Plaza Antonio Maceo of Santiago de Cuba."
Meanwhile, another dissident, Miriam Celaya, questioned why Saladrigas presupposes a "collective responsibility" among all Cubans for the crimes of the dictatorship.
None of this is new. The strategy of "reconciliation without freedom" is more than three decades old.
It was initially contrived by the Castro regime in the 1970's as a way to discredit and divide the Cuban exile community -- its most persistent source of opposition -- while providing the regime with the ultimate guise of legitimacy.
Back then, the exile proponent was also a Cuban-American businessman, Bernardo Benes.
"I think, as I've thought since 1971, that Cubans here and there should bury the hate to produce a reconciliation of the Cuban nation," Benes said.
And freedom?
What Saladrigas conveniently overlooks today -- similar to Benes 30 years ago -- is that freedom is a prerequisite for reconciliation.
Even the 20th century's greatest proponent of national reconciliation, South Africa's Nelson Mandela, stressed:
"Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts."
So it's no surprise that only self-appointed "leaders" with no constituencies would be insulting enough to propose "reconciliation without freedom." For no self-respecting free man would ever follow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Comments hereby by LaDemajagua1868.
When the massive Mariel boat lift and the 1994 summer
RépondreEffacerrafters exodus,134,000 first and over 40,000 in the later,cuban exilees
handed their assistance, help, donations and even home hospitality to relatives that arrived in both exodus.
When hurricanes, or cyclons battered over the island, Cuban Exiles tried very generously, to send to the cubans on the island hundreds of tons of food, clothing, medicines etc.Yet it was the bloody dictatorship regime which did not allow the help to get directly to the people. In fact 80 % of all the assistance was controlled and got to the regime's warehouses. Later on...these same donations ended up in the regime's stores or were sent to other regional countries for sale or as "Cuban Govmt. "donations"...