Subject: Beaten, imprisoned, and barred from using computers: how cuban dissidents launched the Cuban Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian Movement Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:28 am
As is customary in Cuba, when dictator Raúl Castro visits a city on the island-nation, security forces purge the streets of any opposition–just like when his brother Fidel was in power. Which is why, two weeks ago, when the younger Castro arrived in the eastern province of Camagüey, opposition members were forbidden to go out in public, and those who had gathered together were arrested, threatened, humiliated and mistreated.
The rattlesnake represents the libertarian principle of non-aggression: “don’t tread on me”, do not attack without being attacked, attack only in self-defense. (PanAm Post) The next day, when I approached the state entities to find out about the detainees’ well-being, I was also arrested myself, and suffered as much as they did.
We are now, weeks later, finally able to send the audiovisual content of the repression. The delay is due to the precarious conditions that exist on the island in terms of technology, particularly for members of the opposition–the regime forbids us from exercising our professions, and as such limits access to any means of financing better communication.
Outside of Havana, this phenomenon is particularly precarious: access to technology is almost nil, the price unpayable, and residential Internet access, nonexistent. But above all, we had to recover our freedom first. That is, leave the jail cell and then wait a prudent amount of time to share what happened to us with the press.
As you know, in Cuba only one party is allowed, the Communist Party, and there is only one written media outlet, Granma.
That is why they persecute us, and why we do not have the means to spread the word.
You are probably aware that when socialism increases in a nation, so does the repression towards those who are dissatisfied with that system; as can be seen in Venezuela. Instead of allowing people to produce and exchange voluntarily and peacefully, they condemn the population to state dependence and servitude. Such slavery is reliant on what their government can give them, after taking it away from another, and sometimes even themselves.
No matter which country you are in, the equation for failure is the same: more state intervention in the economy implies greater poverty, and more state intervention means less citizen participation.
Therefore, in accordance with our values, we have decided to form an organization that represents a philosophy inverse to the dominant one on the island: the Cuban Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian Movement.
There is a long way to go. And we have not decided to launch our movement in Camagüey by chance. As the digital platform, Cubanet said, “The General President is afraid of Camagüey.” It was in this eastern province that Commander Huber Matos denounced the “communist penetration” among the revolutionary ranks.
Back then, when the Castro and his henchmen overthrew Batista, they were not openly communist. Similar to what happened with Chavez in Venezuela–it was not until he was in power that he revealed the red flag of his revolution, the same flag that has impoverished, blinded, starved and even killed more than 100 million people around the world.
As in 1959, when the Camagüey revolutionaries refused to be accomplices to the attack demanded by the regime against Camilo Cienfuegos–another revolutionary commander who denounced, like Matos, the rise of communism among the revolutionary ranks–we refuse today to be complicit in an alleged revolution that condemns its citizens to perpetual dependence to a dictatorial regime.
I invite the reader to be on alert in their own nation, because socialism expands like the plague it is. In Cuba we have been subjected to it for more than half a century, but the struggle for freedom persists.
Adrián Quesada Flores, Dixan Gainsa Moré, Marisol Peña Coba, Onésimo Rosabal Sotomayor and I, remain firm before the tyrant.
In the following video you can get to know our story and the details of our arbitrary detention, as well as an the start of our activities as a new movement:
According to the Nolan Chart, developed by a political scientist who placed self-government in opposition with collective enforcement, through a Cartesian coordinate system, the political scale is divided not only into left and right but also into collectivist/communitarian and (classical liberal)/individualist.
According to The Individual Differences Research Center, IDR, it can be graphed in a simpler form. To identify your political coordinates, you can take the test here.
As you can see, the collectivist/communitarian ideas of the Castro regime appear in the upper left box, while anarcho-capitalism–a free market without a state–corresponds not only to the opposite box but also to the lower right corner.
It names the lower right quadrant as “right-wing libertarianism”, or “libertarianism.” It states that “individuals in this quadrant try to defend freedom as a primary political good in all senses.” This applies both to personal and economic freedom given that the greater autonomy an individual achieves, the less dependent he is on the State.
As individualists, this means skepticism about collective plans and goals. Instead, we promote the spontaneous order that occurs through interactions in the market, through the principle of voluntary association and the ability of the individual to make their own decisions, instead of a government entity doing so.
In contrast to the individuals of the other three quadrants, the libertarian seeks to maximize the influence of the individual and minimize that of the State. In the case of anarcho-capitalists, also libertarians, the idea is to empower the individual to the maximum, and to for the State to disappear completely.
Note: Mamela Fiallo Flor contributed to the compilation of this note.
Nelson Rodríguez Chartrand Nelson Rodríguez Chartrand is a Cuban lecturer, co-founder of the Libertarian Library Benjamin Franklin, and a lawyer graduated but not allowed to practice by the regime in Cuba.
Subject: Beaten, imprisoned, and barred from using computers: how cuban dissidents launched the Cuban Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarian Movement 
Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:28 am
