Oscar Espinosa Chepe, economist and independent journalists

In Cuba, those who hold government positions and fiercely work to hinder changes that are urgently needed by the people are called Talibans. They organize groups of lunatics to persecute people who peacefully manifest their support for the release of the prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, as well as in favor of democratic changes for the island. 

The fear of these fundamentalists, usually mediocre individuals, to changes that would lead to an open and competitive society, is based on their fear of loosing their positions and the resulting privileges that they have held for years thanks to the existence of a dysfunctional system that has resulted in the current disastrous situation.

When the Cuban government accepted to hold conversations with the Catholic Church about the release of the prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, which could lead to core issues and to promote changes, they have tried to hinder and cause the failure of these negotiations. It is not a coincidence that recent "reflections" have flourished in an attempt to create an environment not conducive to contacts between the church and the representatives of the state.

The local Talibans are also extremely concerned with the visits by Cuban artists to the United States and to their statements in favor of the understanding between the two countries. They fear the statements made by well-known intellectuals and politicians who for many years kept close ties with the regime and today have wisely declared to be in favor of changes that are not necessarily identical to those claimed by the dissidents.

The Cuban extremists fear the growing loss of their favorite alibis, such as the confrontation with the Unites States and its mistaken policy of isolation. They are aware that when these excuses disappear it will be very difficult to justify the national disaster and the continued repression against the Cuban people. 

Unfortunately, these Talibans have their counterparts abroad, which have always provided them with an excuse to oppress civil society.  These are increasingly smaller groups guided by hatred and perhaps other less justifiable reasons, which for years have been indirect cohorts of the totalitarian regime. In these groups there are a high number of compatriots who have suffered much and in the past have been the target of considerable attacks and personal and family humiliations. However, they are blinded by the attacks and respond with the wrong methods, not realizing that, in doing so, they contribute to the continuation of a nightmare that has devastated our country for the past 51 years.

We do not include in these groups our compatriots who have all their right to dissent with our position and do so in a civilized and rational way, without resorting to defamations or usual attacks like some self described democrats abroad. 

With the letter that 74 social activists have signed in their personal capacity, a deluge of unfair attacks has fallen on us, qualifying us as traitors for voicing our opinions. These lies are identical to the lies that we have had to endure from the regime. This letter, which was drafted by someone as peace loving and well respected as Dagoberto Valdés, and approved by the other participants, has been the pretext to unload the hatred against those who for years have worked without rest in favor of democracy and national reconciliation in Cuba.  While making such baseless attacks, our attackers did not take into account the fact that if we added the years of the jail sentences of those of us who supported the letter, the result would be centuries long, including the jail sentences of those currently in jail or risking having to return to it. Despite this fact, we still have chosen to defend the interests of our people from inside Cuba without fear.

These extremist groups, more isolated than ever, as evidenced by the polls taken lately in the United States and the Cuban community, or as evidenced by the results of the last presidential elections in Florida, have boycotted all the initiatives in favor of friendship with our neighbor and the reconciliation of all Cubans. We must remember the boycott of the Varela Project supported by an overwhelming majority of the Cuban dissidents, as well as by those who were eventually confirmed as 12 agents of the State Police uncovered during the trials of the 75 in March 2003.  They had assumed the same attitude during the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998, creating all kinds of obstacles to prevent the visit by His Holiness.

Now they attack the Cuban Catholic Church, ignoring its efforts over several years to seek solutions to our national crisis.  With such attacks, including the purpose to divide the dissident movement, they repeat the perverse efforts to prevent the prisoners from the group of the 75 to publically announce their support for the concert offered by singer and songwriter Juanes and his friends this past September. At that time, relatives of the prisoners received calls from Miami urging them to pressure their jailed relatives to retract their support for the concert, an outrage that was overwhelmingly rejected. The message sent at the time by the 75 prisoners neutralized, at the international level, the poor image of the extremist groups who acted pathetically breaking records and insulting artists who travelled to Havana, acting at the same levels of the groups who insult us and follow us in the streets of Cuba.

Now, in response to the letter of the 74 they have launched a wave of insults and accusations to those of us who have lost our jobs, our savings and even our earned right to retire, because we have chosen poverty instead of acquiescing to the totalitarian regime. They have gone as low as to accuse independent journalists of receiving considerable payments for our work abroad, when it is well known that due to problems with the majority of publications, they do not pay for our contributions. Instead, we must survive on 15 convertible pesos (CUC) paid by Cubanet per article, in a country where a bag of powder milk costs 5.25 CUC,  a litter of kitchen oil costs 3.25 CUC  and one hour of unreliable internet access in a hotel for tourists costs 6,00 to 10,00 CUC per hour (0.80 CUC = 1.00 US$) and so on and so forth...

In the meantime, those who have dedicated themselves to insulting us live comfortably under the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, not having ever done anything for their country, except serving obediently as high officials for the totalitarian regime. Others, who work to divide the dissident movement, play along with the interests of international hotels who are concerned with the suffering of the Cuban people, but instead are intent in preventing Cuba from becoming an important competitor in the Caribbean. This is confirmed by U.S. journalists such as Lesley Clark from El Nuevo Herald, who on November 16, 2009 reported that more than 11 million U.S. dollars have been distributed among U.S. congressmen to prevent the lifting of the travel ban on U.S. citizens to Cuba, a violation of human rights, which also serves as justification to do the same by the totalitarian regime in the island. 

We again ask those groups to stop helping the totalitarian regime and to join the Cuban people, residents in the island and abroad, to build a new Cuba and to leave behind a dark past that began on March 10, 1952 with the tyrannical regime of Fulgencio Bastita and the following regime of Fidel Castro, who with his huge yearning for absolute power frustrated all the dreams that were born in 1959. 

Finally, no Talibans, here or anywhere else, will be able to stop the yearning for freedom and democracy of the Cuban people. Today, all compatriots here and there, slowly and beyond any ideological differences, will work on a common front that will take us all, without exclusions to succeed and create a democratic and reconciled Cuba where we will respect each other and where social justice and solidarity will prevail.

Havana, June 21, 2010