Center for a Free Cuba

🕯️ CubaBrief On the death of Mario Vargas Llosa Peruvian patriot, Nobel laureate, scholar, and democracy advocate Mario Vargas Llosa and the Padilla Affair 📝 The Center for a Free Cuba released earlier today a statement on the passing of Mario Vargas Llosa. Below is an excerpt: The death of Mario Vargas Llosa in Lima, Peru is a great loss for Cubans in the island and around the world who benefited from his tireless efforts to denounce the crimes of Cuban communism. It is also a loss for millions of people worldwide whose struggle for human rights he defended in his many books, columns, and thousands of articles. At a time when it was not fashionable to denounce tyrants in Havana, Moscow, Managua, or Caracas – and indeed in many other countries – Mario Vargas Llosa was a steadfast advocate for freedom and human dignity. He was a Peruvian writer, professor, and politician. Vargas Llosa was the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature and is considered one of the leading writers of his generation. In 1971, following the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla, Vargas Llosa, Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Susan Sontag and others wrote to Fidel Castro protesting his detention. Castro responded by calling them “bourgeois intellectuals” and barred them from Cuba. On May 21, 1971, they wrote again, stating Padilla’s confession was obtained through Stalinist methods. 📖 Read the full CubaBrief here:

CubaBrief: Cuban poet, journalist, and independence leader José Martí at 172. Remembering strategic nonviolence scholar Gene Sharp The Castro regime and their agents of influence spent the 172nd anniversary of the birth of José Martí attempting to co-opt his legacy, but in order to do so, they needed to omit much of his writings, and who this man was. In the midst of the Cuban war of independence, Martí repeatedly defended democratic norms and issued a statement on revolutions that, in light of the Castro regime, seems prophetic today. “A revolution is still necessary: the one that does not make its leader president, the revolution against revolutions, the uprising of all peaceful men, once soldiers, so that neither they nor anyone will ever be so again.” Fidel Castro in a 1986 interview spoke plainly on the matter..... Read the FULL Article:

CubaBrief: Havana houses Colombian terrorists wanted for war crimes. NYC marks 50 years since Fraunces Tavern bombing. Spain remembers public servant killed by terrorists. The reason why U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that the Biden Administration “removed Cuba from a short list of countries the United States alleges are ‘not cooperating fully’ in its fight against terrorism on May 15, 2024 has been undone. The Colombian Attorney General’s Office decided to reactivate the arrest warrants against “peace” negotiators from the National Liberation Army (ELN) after Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered the suspension of talks due to “war crimes” that the guerrilla group is committing in Catatumbo, Colombia. The deactivation of arrest warrants for these Colombian terrorists harbored by Havana was the reason given by Secretary Blinken when he testified before Congress last year.   The Biden Administration... Read the FULL Article:

CubaBrief: Elections have consequences. Personnel is policy. A reality based policy on Cuba. 1. Elections have consequences. President Donald J. Trump was sworn on January 20th as the President of the United States, and revoked a number of executive orders of the outgoing Biden Administration. Two of them related to Cuba policy.   The Presidential Memorandum of January 14, 2025 (Certification of Rescission of Cuba’s Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism).   Translation: Cuba kept on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.   The Presidential Memorandum of January 14, 2025 (Revocation of National Security Presidential Memorandum 5).   Translation: Trump’s 2017 executive order setting up a list of restricted entities due to their links to the Cuban military or intelligence apparatus has been restored. Read the FULL Article:

CubaBrief: Biden Administration announces steps that undercut the Cuban people, the democratic resistance in Nicaragua and Venezuela, and provides more resources to the Cuban military and intelligence apparatus. In a political move that ignores the terrorist nature of the Cuban dictatorship, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced on January 14th that Congress has been notified “that President Biden determined Cuba should no longer be designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Secondly, we notified Congress that the President issued a waiver for Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, otherwise known as the Libertad Act, for a period of six months. Finally, President Biden rescinded the 2017 National Security Presidential Memorandum 5 on Cuba policy to eliminate the so-called “restricted list” and by extension the additional regulations on engagement by U.S. Read the Full Article:

Dr. King’s words remind us why we must take action for Cuba. Nonviolence is the path to justice and freedom.  #MLKDay #Nonviolence #CubaLibre

💪 Join us in raising awareness on Cuba’s human rights crisis. Follow centerforafreecuba.org for updates and facts about the push for freedom and democracy. Share, and be a voice for those who have been silenced. #CubaLibre #HumanRights Stay updated and learn how you can help at CenterforaFreeCuba.org

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” - Mohandas Gandhi, An Autobiography.: Or, The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1929)