In Cuba Many Cubans are Demanding Another Cuba

Every time I go checking on the news coming out of cuba in the sense that there is news coming out alone, both positive and more important negative.  I say this in context of as little as a decade ago. I am very hopeful about the signs coming out of the island for change. The article below was posted on the  Havana Times.
adamfoxie*


As Cubans, legitimate children of this land and an essential part of our nation, we feel a deep sorrow at the prolonged crisis that we are experiencing and the demonstrated inability of the current government to make fundamental changes. This obliges us, from civil society, to seek and demand our own solutions.

The miserable incomes, shortages of food and shelter, the massive emigration due to lack of opportunities, the discrimination against those who think differently, the absence of spaces for public debate, the arbitrary arrests and lack of citizen rights, the corruption and the tenure and inability to remove the ruling elite, are some of the symptoms of the difficult reality facing us.

We want to debate publicly the dual currency, immigration restrictions, rights of workers to a living wage, the right of all Cubans, wherever they live, to promote economic initiatives in their own country, the demographic crisis, free access to the Internet and new technologies. We want to discuss the exercise of democracy.

The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba establishes:

In its Article 3: In the Republic of Cuba sovereignty resides in the people from whom all the power of the state originates.

And in its Article 63: Every citizen has the right to direct complaints and petitions to the authorities and to receive the appropriate attention or responses in a timely manner, according to law.

We Demand the Cuban Government:
Immediately implement the essential legal guarantees and policies conceived in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ratify the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, signed by the Government of Cuba on February 28, 2008 in New York City. This would ensure full respect 
for citizens regardless of their ideas or their political-social actions and restore the rights of everyone who, in their opinions, disagrees with the government. We consider these rights essential to the formation of a modern, free and plural Cuba that will receive us all equally and place our sovereignty in a dynamic and increasingly global world.

We are committed to democratic transformation where everyone can contribute their views and contribute to its realization. We invite all Cubans inside and outside the Island who identify with these demands, to join this just and necessary claim. Our expectation of being heard by the government is almost exhausted, yet we have decided to bring the authorities this demand as an urgent recourse to achieve effective understanding. We are determined not to accept institutional silence in response to this demand for the ratification of the agreements mentioned.