http://www.democracyforcuba.org/web/

Democracy for Cuba Program

In 2005, the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe renewed its Democracy for Cuba Program with a set of multifaceted activities — including delegations, exchanges, democracy publications, and the establishment of an Eastern European Advisory Council for Democracy in Cuba, among others. Their aim is to involve Central and East Europeans in concrete efforts to help break through the Castro regime's information blockade and to support the Cuban democracy movement in its struggle for a peaceful transition from communism to democracy. Through these ongoing activities, Central and East Europeans will share their experiences about their countries’ transitions from communism and offer assistance to Cuban democrats struggling against a similar system.

For nearly 50 years, Cuba’s communist regime has suppressed the human rights of the island’s 10 million people and driven a whole generation from its shores into exile — more than 1 million people. Cuba’s regime adopted the entire repressive ideology and apparatus of the Soviet Union and its satellite neighbors. A small Cuban dissident movement, like its counterparts in other communist countries, has labored bravely to document the massive violations of human rights of the regime and to bring this information to the light of world opinion — despite terrible sacrifice. In doing so, the human rights movement kept the flicker of hope alive.

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989–91 offered Cuban dissidents increased hopes for democratic change. Slowly civil society began to stir in the form of free trade unions, agricultural cooperatives, lay groups, independent libraries, civic associations, human rights organizations, and community groups and activists. In 1995, at the request of Cuban opposition leaders, IDEE began the first program to organize Eastern European support for the Cuban democracy movement. Over the next four years, IDEE organized trips of more than thirty opposition and dissident veterans from Eastern Europe to share their experiences with independent civic, trade union, cooperative, media, human rights, religious, and other communities. From 1996 to 2002, IDEE published a series of thirty pamphlets that provided Cuban activists with information and essays on East European opposition movements, the fall of communism, transitions to democracy in the region, and essays on democracy (Cuba Democracy Pamphlets). IDEE also worked with other organizations to establish a foundation of support among Eastern European public figures for promoting democratic change in Cuba.

IDEE’s renewed Democracy for Cuba program will continue some earlier initiatives, organizing additional trips of Eastern Europeans as well as publishing a new series of pamphlets that will focus on concrete areas of transition, like constitutional reform, human and minority rights, the rule of law, free market reforms and the role of trade unions, and other areas. IDEE’s new program will also support an informational bulletin (see Cuba Chronicle of  Events) for distribution in Eastern Europe concerning the democracy movement’s activities in Cuba and efforts of the regime to repress them.

All informational publications and democracy publications are being presented in Spanish, English, and Russian on a special web site, http://www.democracyforcuba.org/web/, which also includes articles, documents, links, and an online forum.