IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 8 ENGLISH | Page 77

Straits, including those who some politicians would like to leave behind: the
former political prisoners of the communist regime. There should be no doubt
that a true, undistorted record of their
encounters with the Cuban recent history
– the stories testifying to their patriotism
and personal courage, full of suffering,
but also of acts of their solidarity with all
others who shared their fate - has an
important place in the current process of
Cuban liberation, bringing into the
national debate about the Cuba’s future
the questions that should not be just
forgotten, glossed over or treated - as
some debaters seem to believe - as an
old crap belonging to the history’s garbage dump. Just the opposite is true. A
new “social contract” among Cubans
should, for sure, focus primarily on the
Cuban future. But as it has been already
convincingly demonstrated in many
cases of countries in transition, it cannot
be reached without recognition of and
justice being served to what has happened in the past.
5. Encuentro National Cubano (Cuban
National Assembly)
At the same time when the US Secretary
of State was visiting Havana to re-open
the US Embassy, there was another
Cuban event taking place in San Juan,
Puerto Rico worth of being paid attention to: the Cuban National Assembly
(Encuentro Nacional Cubano), the constitunt meeting of a new platform of
Cuban democratic opposition. The representatives of twenty three independent
entities from Cuba and more than thirty
exiled non-for-profits were in attend-

ance. The objective of the “Encuentro”
was to launch the debate on the common
course of action in the current rapidly
changing situation. For the first time the
members of non-violent democratic
opposition from the island and from the
outside of Cuba met in such large numbers and talked to each other with a
sense of common goals putting aside
their differences, mutual grievances and
recriminations. They all seemed to
understand that it is their unity and a
feasible political program for a new
Cuba in the 21st century, what should
become their most powerful weapon in
their political, i.e. non-violent struggle
against the obsolete totalitarian regime.
Thus, what could be seen at the San Juan
Cuban gathering was something really
unprecedented: a surprising harmony
between home and exile, the reconciliation of two most influential Miami
organizations – the Cuba American
National Foundation and the Freedom
Council. The support pronounced publically by Diego Suarez - one of the veterans of the liberation struggle against
“Castro-communism”, now more than
eighty years old - to Rosa Maria Paya –
twenty seven years old daughter of
Oswaldo Paya, whose Projecto Varella
had been heavily criticized in the Miami
conservative circles in the past – has
become a kind of symbolical expression
of new spirit of hope and determination
which has prevailed at the San Juan
meeting and is hopefully in action till
today. The Cuban National Assembly
elected from its ranks nine members of
its Coordinating Committee – five from

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