Cuba Group Speaks Out on Arab Rebellions

HAVANA TIMES, March 9 — The following statement was released Tuesday by the Critical Observatory of Cuba on the recent turmoil in the Arab World.

STATEMENT BY THE CRITICAL OBSERVATORY ACTIVIST NETWORK ON THE POPULAR REBELLIONS IN THE ARAB WORLD

For weeks we have been witness to popular rebellions in countries of North Africa and the Middle East as they have simultaneously demanded political freedom, social justice, economic development, popular and national sovereignty, and integral democracy.

They have exposed authoritarian caudillos (old pals of the globalized North or old anti-imperialists) and they have confronted them demanding universal rights and institutions that are open to participation – without turning to false solutions of religious fundamentalism or pacts between elites.

In Egypt and Tunisia the citizenry remain on a war footing in the face of the new military and bourgeois “transitional” governments since popular demands are not satisfied with simple changes in political regimes. Moreover, these same masses of people are tackling key social questions such as control over the means of production and life.

In Libya, massive involvement in a civil war is deconstructing the idyllic portrait of a supposedly popular government that has enjoyed the blessings of successful economic development.

In other countries, people have also demanded much more than the simple change of ministers and the exit of corrupt rulers.

These events are exploding the colonial and racist myths of “barbaric peoples” as the faces of modern, lay societies and defenders of their best traditions exhibit. These are the faces of people who have surrounded the plazas, factories and cyberspace, combining firmness and resolve with creativity.

People have taken control of their lives with astonishing and exhilarating self-organizational capacity and have returned the word “REVOLUTION” back to everyday use, whereas previously it seemed to have been banished.

While this is happening, the “great powers” threaten military intervention, with their sights set on the wealth and the privileged geopolitical position of the area. Likewise, some Latin America governments offer unjustifiable solidarity — which seeks to confuse the defense of people’s sovereignty with impunity for those who oppress them — in a clear, pathetic and perverse exhibit of “raison d’Etat.”

Because of all this, because of the vital implications of these events for humanity, and in consonance with our sustained positions of civic commitment, activists of the Critical Observatory are expressing our solidarity with the revolutionary movements in the countries of the Arab nation.

We also reject any maneuver that strengthens the interests of imperialism, the perpetuation of dictatorial oppression of those peoples or the return of domination under “emancipatory” robes.

We also demand respect for the historical demands of self-determination by the peoples of Palestine, the Western Sahara and southern Sudan, as well demands being made by working people in the USA itself, demands that should not be eclipsed by the recent Arab rebellions.

However, we do not cease to be aware that neither “self” governance (for those who still do not possess it) nor the change of a government solves the problem of human emancipation.

In any part of the world, such as in Cuba today and in “Our America,” the struggle against capitalist, bureaucratic and patriarchal domination will only culminate with the expansion of a radically free society under the principles of solidarity, self-management and autonomy.

We reject others dividing up the right to decide in the lives of people, because we believe that only collective force with clarity in making denunciations and the action of international solidary will allow peoples to carve out their paths to sovereignty, freedom and justice.

For your freedom, and for ours!

In solidarity,

The Critical Observatory Activist Network (OC) of the Cuban Revolution