It is one of the orange buses that runs through the streets of Downtown Los Angeles, the venue for the IX Summit of the Americas. In its back, for the whole world to see, a luminous advertisement welcomes the countries of the continent that attend the conclave while crossing streets and avenues of the microcosm of this gigantic city, between Salvadoran, Korean, Mexican or Philippine areas.
Attached to the ad on the same vehicle is another poster, in this case for Los Justicieros. He is not referring to the Summit, but it seems so, because that same justice, whatever it may be, is what the fighters from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua who have come to California to raise their voices are seeking, something that in their homelands can cost jail, even life.
“Civil society won here, it has not yielded to the blackmail of states like Mexico if they did not invite dictatorships. Instead, they invited civil societies, which reinforces the idea that governments owe their citizens and not the citizens to their governments, the essence of democracy. The political prisoners, the democratic transition and the end of the dictatorships have been reflected without hesitation. Here those who have spoken are not the representatives of a dictatorship, but the citizens who suffer that oppression in a context of rising authoritarianism,” Cuban activist Carolina Barrero, who is part of the brave group of Caribbean women who do not forget the 1,046 political prisoners who, according to the latest Prisoners Defenders report, languishes in EL MUNDO, firmly states. the dungeons of Castroism. In total, the three dictatorships excluded from the Summit add up to 1,463 prisoners for political reasons, when adding the 237 from Venezuela and the 180 from Nicaragua.
The Latin American Youth Network also took advantage of the most cinematographic city on the planet to remember its prisoners on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, installing more than 100 stars with their names. Several of the Cuban activists also went to the Gloria Delson Gallery on Wednesday night to present a book about the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement.
“I want to ask democratic governments not to continue participating in this macabre game,” cried Salomé García Bacallao, coordinator of the 11J Justice Platform, who during her speech at the panel “Peaceful Demonstrations in Latin America” recalled one of the records of the Castroism: since 2003 it has not allowed international organizations, such as the Red Cross, access to the country’s prisons.
“No more concessions to the dictatorship, it is time for the democracies of the Americas to unite in support of the freedom of the Cuban people!” said Rosa María Payá, founder of Cuba Decide, who managed to gather a large group of activists and dissidents to sing the libertarian anthem Patria y Vida. In the front row, Barrero, García Bacallao, Anamely Ramos and the artist Claudia Genlui, in charge of making Otero Alcántara’s work visible throughout the world.
If there is something that deeply bothers the Cuban revolution, it is the impact reached by dissidents in the world of culture, since its old stars no longer illuminate as before. Granma, the official bulletin of the Communist Party of Cuba, yesterday highlighted the meeting between Luis Almagro, secretary general of the Organization of American States, and singer Yotuel Romero, one of the artists of Patria y Vida, “in an act that shows contempt towards the true Cuban civil society”.
Venezuelan and Nicaraguan activists have also waged a good fight in Los Angeles. Socorro Corrales, of the Mothers of April, remembered her son, the student Orlando Pérez: “They assassinated me just for helping the elderly who were protesting in the streets. The Ortega-Murillos are a murderous government.”
“Nicaragua is a big prison,” stressed Victoria Cárdenas, wife of presidential candidate Sebastián Chamorro, who has already served more than a year in jail. A conclusion that for all these vigilantes also includes Cuba and Venezuela.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
