Cuban Democratic Socialists Write to Their Peers in the US

HAVANA TIMES – Here we publish the open letter.

Open letter from Cuban Democratic Socialists to US Democratic Socialists

The support for Castroism revealed in resolution 62 of the recent Convention of the Democratic Socialists of the United States, held in Atlanta, Georgia, can only be explained by two reasons: either the American Socialist Democrats do not know the Cuban reality or they are not socialist or democratic.

You are supporting a regime maintained by force of arms, murder, imprisonment, repression and compulsory exile of its opponents, which has not held free and democratic elections for more than 60 years.  It systematically and blatantly violates the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Cuban people and is sustained by repression and a monopoly of the economy, information, education and public health.

You have supported a regime that appropriated by force all the lands, industries, factories and small, medium and large companies, private or associated, and made them the property of a bureaucratic state, which exploits the Cuban workers in virtual slavery. It blocks the economic development of the country, of companies independent of the state of all sizes, whether private or cooperative, and the welfare of Cubans.

A regime with these characteristics cannot be considered democratic or socialist.

The Cuban independence apostle, José Martí, envisioned in his article the Future Slavery, the Cuban reality of today, where the all-powerful state and every decision maker would exploit the Cuban workers as if they were slaves, without rights and dependent on the gifts of a totalitarian government.

In Cuba there is a system of modern slavery, both undemocratic and Stalinist.

Is that the social justice that the democratic socialists of the United States support for that sister nation?

Whoever stands in solidarity with that regime doesn’t know it, doesn’t know what is happening in Cuba or is as imposter as Castroism.

Several Cuban democratic socialists, who have been facing the anti-popular, totalitarian and anti-socialist policies of Castroism for decades, for which some of us have suffered repression and exile, reject any kind of solidarity with the Castro regime and we do not share the defense of it carried out in that convention for supposed or poorly informed US democratic socialists.

Signed,

German Gonzalez Rodríguez. Economista. Cuba
Osmel Ramírez Alvares, Licenciado en Bilología, Cuba.
Marlene Azor Hernández, Dra., en Sociología. Mexico.
Vicente Amorin Aguado, Lic., en Historia. Cuba.
Teresa Perez Mena, Fisioterapeuta, EEUU.
Moustafa Hamze Guilart, Doctor en Ingenieria São Paulo, Brasil.
Armando Chaguaceda Noriega. Dr, en Historia. México
Pedro Campos Santos, Lic., en Historia. EEUU.
Andrés Dovale Borja. Dr, en Medicina. Cuba