Pedazos de la Isla interviews Eriberto Liranza Romero, leader of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy:

Eriberto Liranza Romero: The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy on its 20th Anniversary

This 16th of July the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy celebrated their 20 year anniversary.  This organization was founded by Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, who is currently exiled in Spain.  The Havana-based pro human rights activist, Eriberto Liranza Romero, was elected president of CYMD during the last months of 2010.  Liranza, in addition to being president of this organization, is the activities coordinator for the National Orlando Zapata Tamayo Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front in the Western region of the island.

The young activist took the time to speak to us and share some words about the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, its 20th anniversary, and about the Cuban youth.

Tell us a bit about the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy.  What are its goals as an opposition organization?

The Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy (CYMD) was born on July 16th 1991 at a stadium in Baracoa during a Cuban sports event called “The Panamerican Games”.  In that stadium, the human rights activist Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina founded the Movement while he passed out copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the majority of the spectators, which were somewhere between 8 to 10 thousand.  Because of this, Nestor was savagely beaten.  The following day, the CYMD was official founded.  Throughout the group’s history, it has represented a pledge and various projects such as “University Students Without Frontiers”, “Project Rescue:  St. Thomas Villanueva Catholic Church”, and other projects directed at the youth such as the news bulletins “The New Pines”, “University Torch”, and, in sum, other publications which have reached out to the Cuban youth.

The main objective of CYMD is to teach the Cuban youth that they have rights, and that they can be part of the change towards a free and democratic society.  Unfortunately, we have not been able to fully achieve this goal because the Castro dictatorship continues attacking the free movement of the youth, squashing all the attempts of the youth to emancipate themselves, because the Cuban youth is an enslaved youth without a future.  It is also a youth which is greatly submerged in alcoholism and, for example, many young girls have become involved in prostitution.  In fact, many young female university students have had to sell themselves to foreigners in order to survive through their university career.  We have to accept that many cases such as these exist and that these girls are suffering.

What methods does CYMD implement in order to reach out to the youth of the island?

We must reach out to the Cuban youth through social, sport, and cultural projects.  And the most significant thing being done now by the Movement is the Cuban Youth Forum.  The Forum was founded in 2009 in Majagua by the CYMD together with the Eastern Democratic Alliance.  Each chapter of this Forum was practically taken throughout all the provinces of the country.  Those who can see our blog (The Cuban Youth Forum) can check out all our chapters, along with many images, although because of issues of limited resources and internet access, we have not been able to upload them all.  The Forum has been to Pinar del Rio, Matanzas, the central provinces, the eastern provinces, etc., with lessons for others about democracy and economics.  Our goal has been to educate the youth on how they, according to their resources and conditions, could contribute to constructing a more just society which would be like Jose Marti always said, “by all and for the good of all”.

We have also been incorporating the 20th Anniversary Campaign which consists of re-establishing the actions of the Youth Forum, and like I said and the most important part, bringing the Cuban youth closer to the opposition through social, cultural, and sport projects.  There are many ways of getting to the youth.  It does not matter to us if these young Cubans have had difficult experiences with the law or the police.  In order to survive in Cuba, everyone has problems with the law.  We are not interested on how the dictatorship classifies the youth, what is important is how we see the youth.  The youth is the future of Cuba, and we are working with that future.  Elder people can give us suggestions and share experiences they have gone through during their years of struggle with us, but we are the ones with the strength to confront an enemy like the Castro dictatorship.  I think we are going down the right path, and the Cuban youth is proving this.

Within CYMD we have achieved success because we function as a family.  Each one of us gets along with one another as if we were brothers.  And that is something that really brings the Cuban youth together, considering that they practically do not have family values because from a very young age the indoctrination of the Castro government has deeply lacerated the sense of family and unity.  That family love and union has been, for the most part, lost.  But we are rescuing such concepts through our various courses on values.

Read the rest of the interview HERE.