A Cuban revolutionary writes to Joanne Landy

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(Eloquent response by a revolutionary Cuban who knows, from his very own 
personal experience what "democracy" Washington offers to Cubans.

(Particularly pointed for those people on the political left who also 
oppose the Cuban Revolution and advocate the overthrow of the government 
of Cuba, by "the workers", of course.)

============================

July 15, 2003

Dear Ms. Joanne Landy:

Being a Cuban revolutionary all of my life, having fought in Angola 
against the South African invasion and being, at the present time, 
incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison for protecting the Cuban people 
from the terrorist actions supported, encouraged and silenced by the 
United States government, I hope that - if being progressive is still to 
fight for a better world - I might be entitled to the benefit of being 
considered a progressive person.

So, when I opened a magazine called precisely, The Progressive, and read 
an ad by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy requesting signatures in 
order to condemn Cuba for its alleged "repression on dissidents," I was, 
at best, in disbelief.

I can't imagine that somebody can consider himself a progressive person 
and then take at its word the endemic slandering and lies of the U.S. 
media in regards to Cuba. It would only take a little bit of 
intellectual honesty and some research to discover that the money to pay 
"dissidents" is appropriated, overtly and openly, by the U.S. 
authorities to be distributed through entities like NED and USAID among 
whomever, on the island, decides to make a living as a dissident.

Who gives any moral authority to the American government to create a 
paid opposition in Cuba? What international principle of law applies to 
this behavior? Since when it is a role of a U.S. diplomat to tour the 
island organizing the "opposition" and giving out money?

Whoever, in his country, receives money from a foreign power to 
undermine his government, is considered a traitor, be it in Cuba or in 
any other nation of the world, including the United States.

These so-called "dissidents" have - contrary to what appears in the ad - 
all the right to express their opinions in Cuba. All they have to do is 
to stand up at a nomination meeting and explain to their neighbors that 
they want to take the country back to 1959, return the Cuban land to the 
United Fruit Company, recall the terrorists that now live in Miami to 
the island and give them their properties back, sell the country to the 
transnationals and become themselves the political class who will take 
care of all those people's petty interests. If their neighbors agree 
with them they will be nominated would happen to them for looking stupid 
while expressing their political platform in front of the electorate.

But if they run into a revolutionary constituency - and their neighbors 
are committed to their country and support the government of the people, 
for the people and by the people; and having fought and died for their 
society, don't want to betray the memory of the patriots who have given 
their lives for the sovereignty and independence of Cuba - no 
"dissident" will be nominated nor will he obtain any vote.

And if they don't deserve the confidence of their people, they don't 
have the right to go to the American embassy - the last place I would 
think of as a haven for democracy - to find a source of sovereignty that 
only lies in the Cubans.

Cuba, for more than 40 years, has faced a state of hostility and war 
that has caused more than 3,000 deaths and more than 2,000 jured on 
account of terrorist and armed actions carried out by traitors paid, 
trained and supplied for by the U.S. government. Those mercenaries were 
dealt with through the legal system. They weren't arbitrarily declared 
"enemy" or "illegal" combatants, or disposed of through a drone-launched 
rocket so that Fidel could pose to the cameras declaring them "no longer 
a problem," or subjected to secret military tribunals, nor were their 
families' homes demolished by the Cuban military.

They were given sentences according to their involvement in their 
terrorist activities instead of the irrational punishment accorded here 
to the Puerto Rican patriots, just for their affiliation to a given 
organization, or the vindictive treatment given to me and my 
co-defendants for protecting Cuba from those mercenaries who now, with 
their money and connections to the U.S. administration, sponsor schemes 
like the one of the "dissidents" or the encouragement to illegal 
immigration from Cuba in order to justify the aggressive policy against 
Cuba.

The Cuban people has had no other option than to take their losses and 
to keep building the socialist society that too many have fought for, 
leaving it to history to make us justice and relying on extreme patience 
and enormous courage.

I don't know how many real progressive people are adhering to this 
campaign against Cuba, being things here so relative that somebody can 
be labeled as liberal just for eating a hamburger with the left hand and 
having grown used to see some, on TV, advertised as leftist just because 
they are a little to the left of George Wallace.

But I assume there must be some genuine progressive people among them; 
people who really care about human rights and who honestly believe in 
justice, misguided by a perverse media which leaves them without any 
other reference when it comes to know what happens around the world. To 
this people I want to say this:

Consider for a moment the awesome power accumulated by the U.S. 
imperialist government. Consider the enormous sense of impunity that 
right now can be felt by this people who just accomplished a war of 
aggression defying the whole world, lying in front of everybody like 
nobody did before to justify it, creating a criminal and illegal 
doctrine of preemptive war, breaking any principle of international 
relations in the process and getting away with all of it. Compare this 
overwhelming power with the little island of Cuba and it won't be hard 
to see how much damage this fascist establishment can inflict to my 
country with so little.

I've always had the best of respect for the honest Americans who, 
overcoming the immense power of the most sophisticated machinery of 
deception ever designed, have been able to look beyond all of that to 
have a view of world events that pays homage to this country. It takes a 
lot of intelligence, curiosity, courage and, above all, a lot of 
sensitivity.

I want to appeal to that sensitivity and, with all my respect, invite 
you to think of this: One thing was to be a Roman citizen, with all 
privileges accorded to full citizenship, discussing democracy and 
liberty on the senate or on the streets of Rome; and another thing, 
completely different, was to be fighting for that democracy and that 
liberty, in the field, against all odds, under the siege of Pompeii 
legions, defending your very life together with Spartacus.

Very truly yours,

Rene González Sehwerert
Federal Correctional Institution
Edgefield, South Carolina

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