Cuba Próxima: "Our country is suffering, living its most bitter hours."

The Center for Studies on the Rule of Law, Next Cuba, published a statement this Monday in which they comment on various events that impact what they consider to be "the greatest systemic crisis in the history of the Cuban nation."

Cuba Próxima is conceived as a nation project in response to the crisis the country is facing, offering an alternative to the proposals of the Communist Party and the government.

Below we reproduce in full the text of her statement, in which they address recent events, such as the detention of Cuban women Alina Bárbara López and Jenny Pantoja on June 18th.

Statement:

In Cuba, moments of desperation, poverty, violence, and hopelessness are being experienced. Reality reveals what the warnings and proposals sought to prevent: the greatest systemic crisis in the history of the Cuban nation.

Since its foundation, Cuba Próxima has advocated for the implementation of substantial and peaceful changes necessary to overcome the current scenario.

The past three years have witnessed the largest citizen protests since 1959; prisons filled with political and conscience prisoners; the largest recorded migratory exodus; the pain of a severely impoverished society. These are the inevitable fruits of a sociopolitical regime that economically is unable to find the slightest solution to the multiplied hardships, and politically employs repression and exile to combat any manifestation of dissent.

Overcoming this, as we have already mentioned, requires the joining of forces between organizations and citizens with different socio-political views, but willing to prioritize the solution over differences, in order to advance a proactive agenda, with everyone and for everyone.

Given the increasing seriousness of the circumstances, we once again call on each and every national to prioritize the supreme good of the nation over their own interests. The well-being, progress, and order that we need in the home of all, in the country of all, will never come under a regime that does not fully recognize all the rights provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

From Cuba Próxima, we demand the Cuban government to cease the repression against the people and we condemn the cruelty towards activists, journalists, and organizations exercising their freedom peacefully.

The degrading treatment of Alina Bárbara López and Jenny Pantoja on June 18th shows the excessive State violence on the Island against two individuals willing to exercise their right to peacefully protest in the public square.

We also believe that the Cuban government should release political and conscience prisoners, not as a concession to third parties or as a negotiation with foreign states, but because it is the right thing to do. The release of all political and conscience prisoners would promote a climate of relaxation among Cubans.

The Cuban government must also ensure the full exercise of rights that have been postponed for so long, such as freedom of expression, information, and press, freedom of movement, assembly, demonstration, and association, as well as political rights, which should be extended to nationals residing in other places so they can return to their country, their families, their homes. None of this requires the involvement of third parties, nor would it imply a political concession but rather a duty.

Once again, we make a call to the international community not to see the Cuban case as an unsolvable dilemma and to promote democratic solidarity; and to the government of the United States of America to generate positive synergies, without them being a product of pressure or electoral calculation. The country that hosts more than two million Cubans on its soil must contribute to making us increasingly the sole masters of our destinies.

Let's put at the center of the political agenda that urgent solution needed in Cuba.

Board of Directors, June 24, 2024.