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Cuban Human Rights
organizations condemn the Cuban government.
Baltimore, Maryland. March 15, 2005. The Cuban Movement for a Unified
Democracy, the Mexican Cuban Civic Association and CubanosMex.com from
this city send out an urgent call to the international community, and
specially the international press to disclose the actual specific and
concrete behavior of the present Cuban dictatorship regarding Human
Rights.
The facts:
On January 26, 2005 the Mexican coastguard authorities in the area of
Port Progress, Mérida, received a call from a Mexican fishing boat
indicating that they had found two corpses tied to a small raft. The
Mexican coastguard responded to the call and gathered the corpses. One
of victims had identification on him and it was determined that they
were Cubans. As is required by law in these cases the Mexican
authorities officially informed the Cuban consular authorities and
requested that they make the necessary arrangements to gather the
corpses so that they could be given back to their relatives in Cuba.
The Cuban authorities continuing with their customary practice for over
forty-six years opted not to respond officially and their ambassador in
Mexico Jorge A. Bolaños Suárez declared that: "if they had left Cuba
looking for freedom, the government of the United States was to blame
for their deaths”.
We denounce to the world the cruel practice of the Cuban dictatorship,
which uses only its Cuban embassies and consulates around the world to
spy on, to intimidate and to impose excessive tariffs for any
documentation needed by their citizens around the world.
The Cuban government cannot nor must it continue violating the norms of
decency, Human Rights and protocol in other countries that all the
international community respects and fulfills and which the Cuban
government subscribes to but only accept the parts that are convenient
for them and try to blackmail governments so that they do not have to
comply with the others.
The Cuban government which does not fulfill nor respect the laws or
minimal rights of its citizens in the island, must at least fulfill them
in free and democratic countries where a corpse at least has the simple
right of being respectfully laid to rest with dignity by their friends
and relatives.
We officially ask all democratic governments of the world and specially
Latin America and the Caribbean to demand from Cuban embassies that they
comply with their international agreements related and well documented
in this matter or otherwise, force them to close their embassies and
leave their national territory.
The Cuban exile represented by the above mentioned organizations, by
industrialists and by recognized artists, at this moment have taken
possession of the corpses. We have notified their relatives. We have
coordinated, as it should be done, for our brothers who searched for
freedom, so that they at least in death receive worthy and respectful
treatment and can have a last good bye from some of their relatives in
exile and from the Cuban community that has come to learn to respect the
values of the life and death.
It is a formal commitment and honor of our Cuban exile that these
brothers will have their day of glory, they will receive as they deserve
funeral honors, and at least will be buried with dignity in freedom,
their ashes hoped to be scattered on a future Free Cuba where so many
brave and Cuban potential do not have to escape and die.
The press, television and radio will receive suitably and with necessary
time the place, date and time of the wake that for security reasons at
the moment is not possible to make public.
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