CUBA: Petition Drive to Declare Socialism ‘Untouchable’

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jun 14 2002 (IPS) - Cuban President Fidel Castro has called on Cubans to sign a petition requesting a constitutional amendment that would declare this Caribbean island nation’s socialist system “untouchable.”

The idea is “to offer every citizen of voting age and in the full exercise of that right the possibility to sign, and thus make this historic project their own,” the 75-year-old president said late Thursday in a televised message that was broadcast live.

The petition drive was presented as an initiative that was organised by popular organisations, and that was not spearheaded by the government. However, Castro has not concealed his active participation.

More than 129,500 petition stations will be set up from Saturday to Tuesday to collect the signatures and identity card numbers of anyone who wishes to back the proposal to reform the constitution to reaffirm Cuba’s “economic, political and social regime.”

“No Cuban citizen will be denied the opportunity” to sign the petition, said Castro.

But activists with the Committees for Defence of the Revolution, neighbourhood organisations affiliated with the ruling Communist Party that have representatives on every city block, did not wait until the weekend, and launched a door-to-door petition drive in Old Havana Friday.

The call for popular support for the proposed constitutional amendment, which will be submitted to the single-chamber National Assembly, was described as a response to recent statements by United States President George W. Bush.

On May 20, Bush said the four-decade embargo against Cuba would only be eased or lifted if international observers declare Cuba’s 2003 parliamentary elections “free and clean,” and if the government embraces democratic reforms and a free market economy.

But the U.S. president should not have posed “political challenges” to Cuba’s leaders, because “he is not in any position to respond to the political challenges that Cuba could pose to him,” Castro said last Saturday.

However, opposition activists in Cuba believe the constitutional reform proposal backed by Castro is a reaction to the Varela Project, an initiative organised by opposition activists seeking a referendum on political and economic reforms in Cuba, unprecedented since Castro seized power in 1959.

Dissident groups submitted more than 11,000 signatures to the National Assembly last month, calling for a referendum in which citizens could vote in favour of freedom of association, expression and the press, free enterprise, an amnesty for political prisoners and electoral reforms.

The petition invoked article 88 of the constitution, which stipulates that at least 10,000 signatures are needed to ask parliament to organise a referendum.

Authorities hope to collect millions of signatures in support of socialism, which would make the Varela Project pale in comparison.

“This important step is being taken in order for no one to have the least doubt about what the Cuban people feel and think,” said Castro.

The Cuban regime “is totalitarian because it has the support of the totality of the population,” joked the president, in allusion to the accusations from the White House.

The president of the dissident Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), Elizardo Sánchez, said meanwhile that “the forces of internal resistance are awaiting a formal written request from the Cuban government.”

There has been a “political reaction by the regime” to the Varela Project, but “no legal and constitutional response to the petition that peaceful internal opposition groups submitted to the National Assembly,” said the prominent dissident.

Castro’s address came after 957 pro-government marches and 14,700 demonstrations brought the country to a standstill Wednesday, with the participation of 9,664,685 people, or 86 percent of the population, according to official estimates.

Castro said the estimate of the number of participants was actually conservative, and that according to the initial official reports, over 10 million people – 91 percent of the population – took to the streets Wednesday.

“We preferred to keep our estimates conservative, rather than lose credibility,” he stated.

Totalitarian governments like Fidel Castro’s specialise in this kind of mega-demonstration, commented U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker, who dismissed the significance of Wednesday’s demonstrations, saying “we’ve seen this before.”

Sánchez said mobilisations like Wednesday’s are “characteristic of a dying model, which is seeking a new lease on life when it is already too late.”