Identidades in English No 1, February 2014 | Page 53

legal forum by actual civil rights activists from Cuba.
A group from the Cuban Citizens’ Committee for Racial Integration (CIR), whose members live on the island, had presented on the socioeconomic and human
rights situation of Cuban blacks at a previously scheduled session. On this more recent occasion, a number
of leaders and activists of the pro-democracy movement in Cuba came to the forum to present testimonies
about the struggles Cuban society faces daily, and the
concomitant social trauma associated with them.
Oppositionists as prestigious as ex-political prisoner
Jorge Luis García Pérez (Antúnez), as well as attorney
Laritza Diversen (leader of CUBALEX, an organization of independent lawyers in Cuba), and various representatives of the Laura Pollán Ladies in White
movement, presented an overview of how human
rights are flagrantly violated in Cuba every day. In
particular, they discussed the increasing repression
aimed at halting the oppositionist movement’s progress and sow panic among the citizenry, in order to
keep its general discontent from becoming an open
opposition movement.
The IACHR, having been moved by the testimonies it
heard, approved preventive measures meant to legally
support, on an international basis, all the Ladies in
White, who walk the streets of towns and cities every
week sharing their message of love and strength, despite the crude repression they face by the authorities.
Nevertheless, this repression has not been able to contain the movement’s increasing growth and strength;
it has earned international recognition and awards.
During her visit to Washington, D.C., Berta Soler,
founder and leader of the Ladies in White, was received by U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, an unmistakable sign of White House support for democracy in Cuba.
During our presence at the IACHR session, we Cubans witnessed the questioning of other governments’
actions and policies, as they were subjected to international scrutiny. A reality we shared with those present was that of Cuban blacks and mestizos, who are
victims of the historical disadvantage and convulsive

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rigors of a socioeconomic crisis that has greatly increased the oppressive inequality and despair we experience.
On November 1st, 2013, Dr. Juan Antonio Alvarado
(President of the Platform for Cuban Integration and
international representative of the Citizens’ Committee for Racial Integration-CIR), as well as Leonardo
Calvo (CIR National Vice Coordinator), took part in
an international panel about racism in Latin America
and the Caribbean. They were joined by Afro-Colombian political and civic leader Luis Ernesto Olave, and
Cecilia Rojas, from the Center for Afro-Panamanian
Women. Together, these leaders and academics offered many details about the poverty, discrimination,
lack of investment in development in areas populated
largely by Afro-descendants, and the blatant acts of
racism that are so common in our countries, despite
our national differences.
Some of the serious situations exposed included the
harsh reality of Haitians and their descendants in the
Dominican Republic, as well as how the institutional
character of racism has been reaffirmed in Cuban society, and is worsening, given the economic disadvantages brought about by new economic transformations. The Cuban was of great interest to the commissioners, not just because of Cuba’s racial profiling,
a legal aberration that has sent thousands of innocent,
Afro-descendant youth to prison, with no guarantee of
due process, due to a claim based entirely on a moral
conviction. They were impressed by the fact that there
are no officially acknowledged, independent institutions or mechanisms to promote or defend the rights
of Afro-descendants in Cuba.
An update was given on the situation of civic activist
and Lady in White Sonia Garro, who was to be tried
the very same morning of the hearing in D.C. However, the Cuban authorities suspended it.
Panel members expressed their concern about the fact
the OAS’s member states were delaying in signing
and ratifying the Inter-American Convention Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Forms of
Intolerance, as well as the Inter-American Convention
against All Forms of Discrimination and Intolerance,