Vicente Morin Aguado

HAVANA TIMES — Financial aid to promote the full exercise of human rights in Cuba is a subject that we need to resolve ourselves, it would be a conclusive sign of support for an inescapable purpose. Both on and outside the island, there are sources to make this objective a reality. Therefore, we should not mortgage our country’s future depending on the upcoming or future decisions of another government.

The above doesn’t mean rejecting foreign aid in compliance with the solidarity of other governments if it is about exercising democracy, extending it, making it a reality in terms of freedoms such as the freedom of speech and association. There are actions that correspond to governments by nature and others that correspond to the peoples.

Dismissing the idea of foreign meddling in our domestic affairs once and for all is of the utmost urgency in order to give shape to an authentic opposition movement in Cuba. I’m talking about the self-sacrificing efforts of its members both in and outside Cuba, and taking into account what each and every one of them is able to provide in financial terms, depending on their individual will.

People’s rights are sacred, people exercise them themselves, they can’t be entrusted to neighbors no matter how supportive they are or seem. This is the only way that freedom fighters get the respect they deserve as those who are fighting to make count their condition as citizens of their birth country, origins and culture, without political distinctions, which are unacceptable because they are inherently discriminatory.

Cuba is a nation with a widespread diaspora, which is almost completely based in highly developed countries, where the majority are located in the United States. However, to date, it hasn’t been able to create an appropriate relationship between the exile community and national dissidence, capable of ensuring the premise of a necessary independence to a whole patriotic movement which is tackling a skillfully structured repressive machine.

Cubans who fight for the inalienable rights denied them, will only receive the due respect from their still apathetic compatriots and from international solidarity groups, including governments, when they are able to show their self-financing in the first place, which is relative to the quota of necessary sacrifice to their legitimate purpose.

By continuing to depend on the greater or lesser support from government bodies in other countries, especially in the United States, they are displaying an unacceptable dependence when it comes to politics, while this also means the reproachable position of waiting for others to resolve our problems.

When dealing with our powerful neighbor to the North, the dilemma will inevitably lead to a train of thought that is close to becoming two centuries old, always thriving among ourselves when it comes to independence: annexationism.

Mr. Donald Trump, with good or God knows what intentions, doesn’t govern Cuba, and our civility is on the line here. Paraphrasing a frequently cited statement from independence leader Antonio Maceo, you don’t beg for rights, you exercise them. There’s no time for waiting around for other people’s decisions when we’re dealing with such a sacred subject.