Via Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter:

November 23: International Day to End Impunity

"The greatest incitement to guilt is the hope of sinning with impunity."- Cicero

Cuba is a country in which the culture of impunity has ruled over an entire people for over 53 years. Nonviolent human rights defenders such as Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Laura Pollan, Wilman Villar Mendoza, Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero were all threatened at various times over their human rights and pro-democracy activism and all died under suspicious circumstances in which the dictatorship was clearly implicated.

Large scale massacres such as the July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre in which 37 men, women, and children were killed by agents of the Cuban government when the tug they were on was surrounded, attacked and sunk as they tried to flee Havana. None of the individuals responsible for this crime have ever been held accountable for their actions.

Four members of the humanitarian organization, Brothers to the Rescue, were shot down by Cuban MiGs while flying in two civilian airplanes while performing search and rescue for Cuban rafters on February 24, 1996 in international airspace. Justice has still been denied the victim's families.

One way to combat impunity is to remember the victims while gathering as much truthful information as possible in order to learn the truth and continue to seek justice.

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