Now It Is Colombia’s Turn To Help Us Win Democracy / 14ymedio, Sergio Segura

Meeting in Havana between the teams negotiating the peace in Colombia. (@ComputerPazGob) (TranslatingCuba Ed. note: … the all-male teams….)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Sergio Segura, 2 January 2017 – Cuba is no longer subordinate to the dictates of the man who imposed his will for more than half a century. The time has come to talk to the people, to recognize and give public voice to those who manifest different opinions.

The departure of an autocrat by natural death has very positive precedents in history. Changes occur peacefully, through dialogue and consensus. The most beautiful of these transformations occurred in Spain after the death of Franco. The case of Pinochet in Chile could also light the path of those who remain at the head of the Cuban Government at this time. The end of Ceausescu and his family, for refusing to hand over power to a people tired of his dictatorship, was pitiful.

It is not violence that Cubans on the island want, as they aspire to maintain several social achievements created by the Revolution in a new Republic, where the dream of José Martí – whom we Cubans of all stripes call our Apostle – is realized: With all and for the good of all.

It would do no harm to advise the opposition groups – which are many – to send a request to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos asking that, in reciprocity for the attitude of the Cuban Government as a mediator for his country to achieve a final peace, he brings to a table of dialog in Colombia, in a respectful and impartial manner, negotiators from the Cuban regime and the country’s internal dissidence to reach a constructive agreement for the election of who will be, on 24 February 2018, the next president of our Republic.