Cuban Dissidents Outline A Common Agenda

Havana/The meeting held Thursday in Havana by some twenty civil society organizations and the political community has been defined as a new step in a common agenda. The initiative aims to work for democracy, fundamental freedoms, and a Rule of Law in Cuba, according to the activist Manuel Cuesta Morúa.

The gathering is the continuation of a meeting with similar aims held in Mexico between June 18 and 23 of this year, with the cooperation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which brought together various organizations from the island and the diaspora.

At the meeting it was agreed to endorse Civil Society Open Forum four points of consensus, which involved the majority of the organizations that now decided to take this additional step in the direction of creating a strictly political space for democratic action.

It was also agreed to create a Secretary position to distribute information and coordinate the coming meetings to which other organizations and actors will be invited to continue outlining the structure, rules and strategies of this new effort of plural political agreement.

The participants included, among others, representatives from the Patriotic of Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the Anti-totalitarian United Front, the Cuban Liberal Solidarity Party, the Progressive Arc, the Socialdemocratic Party, the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, the Center for the Support of the Transition, the Young Roundtable, the Successors Foundation, and Cuba Decides.

Also present were attorneys from Cubalex and the the Agromontista Current, independent journalists, artists and intellectuals, including Tania Bruguera and the recently released Angel Santiesteban, Rafael Vilches and Jorge Olivera.