The activist of Cuban origin, Yunier Suárez, in an interview with Free Press He emphasized the importance of citizens participating in democratic processes and remaining alert to them in order to defend freedom when it is threatened.
Suárez participated as a speaker in the College Freedom Forum took place on Friday, April 5 at the Francisco Marroquín University (UFM). This is an event that is developed with the objective of bringing students from various university campuses closer to activists from different parts of the world who promote democracy and rights.
On the event page they define the activist as a defender of human rights through theater. This led him to be persecuted by the Cuban Ministry of Culture. After living 30 years in Cuba, he settled in Spain.
From your experience, what are the first effects of a government that does not respect human rights?
Taking Cuba as an example, the most basic violations of human rights during the dictatorship were seen in the limitation of freedoms when deciding how to educate your children, limitation of freedoms when expressing disagreement.
From the beginning, political persecution has been one of the primary features, persecuting people for their sexual orientation or sexual choices, where they were dissidents, they were also opponents.
With those almost 30 years that I lived within the regime with the big lie in which I grew up. Eventually it is discovered that you have been nothing more than an instrument of the system, of power to use individuals, the citizenry from birth until you unfortunately have to escape.
How can we make citizens see the importance of freedom?
We must tell new generations the price that must be paid for freedom, but also how to maintain it and how to defend it. This is especially important now that dictators have discovered that coming to power with the rules of democracy is perhaps cheaper and more effective. 40 years ago they had to mobilize armies and weapons.
Today they come to power with the vote and that is why, in my opinion, it is very important that young people throughout the region can read in depth the history of the region. It is very important that they understand that evil has been spread from Havana.
Generating empathy is essential, but generating education is also important. We need a generation educated in the values of freedom, but also in the values of memory, of the history of our people.
We tend to believe that democratic stability is eternal, and it is not, if it is not defended, if we are not attentive, someone who will try to take it away from us may come.
Speaking of specific cases in the hemisphere, Nayib Bukele recently managed to remain in power for one more period. How do you analyze this situation?
In the case of El Salvador, it has misused that power and has done everything possible to sustain itself, to stay there. It usually happens that when individuals come from there – a dictatorship – we try to go to the other side, to the perhaps more radical side and that superior morality in which we are going to organize everything and do everything, almost always hides the worst of punishments. human.
From the fight for the freedom of Cuba we can begin to build a solid democracy, from there we can begin to build a rule of law.
The regimes, the violations, are not the political color to which they belong.
In Guatemala this year the courts must be renewed, five years ago they were supposed to be renewed, the process was stalled and the judges and magistrates remained for one more period. How can citizens avoid this as it is a process that does not involve the popular will?
To the extent that the institutions are totally penetrated and they are all divided, let’s say, from the most visible, most superior power, at least the most visible, which does not necessarily mean that it is the true power, and I say this with knowledge of cause.
It is the citizens who need to do the hardest and probably the heaviest work, because citizen mobilization involves a lot of work for someone to assume the responsibility of directing it, at least guiding it. If the powers collapse into each other and if permanence in power does not obviously come as a result of what citizens decide, but rather from the political game of those in power, my answer is the same.
We have to be part of decision-making, we have to participate in political life, we have to fight against political apathy. Power does not want citizens to participate and that political apathy is the end of democracy and the end of freedom.
What is the role of the media in this fight against political apathy?
The media as such fulfill their role very well, but often from the power of lack of regularization. The media is an important catalyst, not only of what citizens think, but also of what governments, autocratic regimes, rulers, autocrats of today tell citizens.
What governments do not even have control over is social networks, independent channels, creating alternatives, creating educational materials and that is what we need, especially in the region, we need propaganda for freedom.
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