By Brian Carnell

Sunday, September 7, 2003

I'm only human and sometimes I screw up, such as when I wrote about Cuba's April crackdown on dissidents and wrote,

Now before the war, a group of Left wing academics circulated a letter suggesting that Israel might use the world's distraction with Iraq to try to expel the Palestinians. This, of course, did not happen. Neither did many Leftists seem overly concerned by Cuba's timing of its crackdown.

Of course some Leftists did do something to express their concern. In May, more than 160 people signed a declaration of support for Cuba against the imperialist Yankees.

The two paragraph "To The Conscience of the World" reads,

The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life an [sic] devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.

We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignty, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.

This, of course, mirrored perfectly Fidel Castro's own rhetoric regarding the crackdown on dissidents -- that criticism of the Cuban state would simply provide a pretext to invade Cuba. Those who possess moral authority, of course, should never use it to speak out against human rights violations if doing so might be provocative.

The usual suspects, including Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Michael Albert and others all signed on. Here's a complete list of the initial 160 signers (currently more than 5,000 people have signed the declaration).

Adoum, Jorge Enrique
Aharonian, Coriun
Albert, Michael
Alday Torre, Francisco
Alegría, Claribel
Ali, Tareq
Alifano Benítez, Mercedes
Alleg, Henri
Allen, Chude
Amezcua Dromundo, Cuauhtemoc
Aquino, María Pilar
Argumedo, Arcira
Ariza, Raúl
Aslam Khan, Uzman
Auer, Eduardo
Aznárez, Carlos
Aínsa, Fernando
Baires, Miguel
Balmes, José
Barbieri, Patricia
Barbosa, Marilia
Barkham, David
Barros Valero, Cristina
Bastos, Roa
Bauer, Tristan
Baxandall, Rosalyn
Bañuelos, Juan
Belchaus, Günther
Belgrano Rawson, Eduardo
Bellafonte, Harry
Benedetti, Mario
Benedicto, René
Berg, Edgardo
Berntsson, Dag
Bertacani, Rina
Blum, William
Bonasso, Miguel
Borón, Atilio
Brisky, Norman
Brizuela, Leopoldo
Brodsky, Patricio A.
Brown, Roy
Buarque de Holanda, Chico
Buenrrostro, Marco
Butazzoni, Fernando
Cabezas, Omar
Cabieses Donoso, Manuel
Calderón Sánchez de Roja, Francisco
Callau, Manuel
Calloni, Stella
Camba, Alejandra Beatriz
Campione, Daniel
Carabeli, Julio
Carboni, Florence
Carcas, Sergio
Cardenal, Ernesto
Carvajal, Carlos
Carvalho, Beth
Casartelli, Mario
Castellanos Guerrero, Alicia
Castillo, Abelardo
Ceceña, Ana Esther
Celano, Héctor
Chomsky, Noam
Clark, Ramsey
Cohen, Néstor
Correa, Angela
Couffon, Claude
Curie, Roberto
D. Cockcroft, James
Declercq, Stefaan
Dietrich Steffan, Heinz
Dorfman, Ariel
Du Boff, Richard B.
Dunbar Ortiz, Roxana
Díaz Sarvide, Rodolfo
Eibenschutz, Caty
Ellis, Keith
Escudero Baltasar, Anna
Espinosa, Gervasio
Estrade, Paul
Etcheverry, Gerardo D.
Falbo, Bia
Feinmann, José Pablo
Ferreira Lobo, Elza
Figueredo, Mauricio
Flores Olea, Víctor
Franklin, Jane
Fridman, Cecilia
Gades, Antonio
Galeano, Eduardo
Gambina, Julio C.
García Castrillo, Pedro
García Márquez, Gabriel
García Márquez, Gabriel
García, Fernando
García, Santiago
Gasser, Michael
Gazzera, Carlos
Gebrim, Ricardo
Giardinelli, Mempo
Girardi, Giulio
Glover, Danny
Gnisci, Armando
González Casanova, Pablo
González, Horacio
Gordimer, Nadine
Gordimer, Nadine
Harnecker, Marta
Henestrosa, Andrés
Heredia, Víctor
Herman, Edward S.
Hermina, Rodolfo
Herrera Franyutti, Alfonso
Herrero, Liliana
Hingey, Austin
Hoag Hope, Leslie
Hormigón, Juan Antonio
Huerta, Marcos
Iddia, Beitia
Ipaguirre, Sylvia
Izaguirre, Inés
Jinkings, Ivana
Jitrik, Noé
Jrapko, Alicia
Kajt, Beatriz
Kissinger, C. Clark
Korol, Claudia
Labastida, Horacio
Labastida, Jaime
Lajland, Beatriz
Landau, Saul
Lebowitz, Michael
Lekensdor, Carlos
Lekensdorf, Gudrun
Livingstong, Rodolfo
Lowy, Michael
López Ewchagüe, Hernán
López y Rivas, Gilberto
Maestri, Mario
Mamani, Mamani
Mancieri, José Luis
Mangiameli, Julio
Marcano, Pablo
Mariaca Iturri, Guillermo
Menchú, Rigoberta
Menchú, Rigoberta
Mercado, Tununa
Miná, Gianni
Miró, Antonio
Mogollón, María Esther
Monteleone, Jorge
Morales Ramírez, Josefina
Muñoz, Diego
Navarrete González, Pancho
Niemeyer, Oscar
Núñez Montoto, Norma
Orozco, Efrén
Ortiz, Simón J.
Osorio, Nelson
Oussi, Dolly
Palacios, Beatriz
Pavlovsky, Eduardo
Pelliza, Alicia
Petras, James
Pinero, Mayté
Pixley, Jorge
Poerner, Arthur
Poumier, María
Prada Oropeza, Renato
Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo
Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo
Pérez, Hildebrando
Quilodrán, Fernando
Rajchenberg, Enrique
Randall, Margaret
Randazo, Daniel
Ranis, Peter
Ribeiro, Rosa
Riccio, Alessandra
Rice, Nancy
Rivera, Andrés
Rivera, Daniel
Robles, Rosa María
Rodrígues Filho, Nelson
Rodríguez, Claufe
Roig, Arturo Andrés
Rojo, María
Ronconi, José L.
Rosenblum, Graciela
Rosset, Peter
Ruiz, Alberto Pablo
Russo, Miguel
Ryan, Tony
Saccomano, Guillermo
Sacerio-Garí, Enrique
Sader, Emir
Salazar, Pedro
Sanjinés, Jorge
Santana, Adalberto
Sastre, Alfonso
Saxe-Fernández, John
Sbriller, Carlos
Scaglione, Matías
Segal, Louis
Sepúlveda, Luis
Solanas, Pino
Stantic, Lita
Stedile, Joao Pedro
Stuart, Alejandro
Szmukler, Beinusz
Sánchez Vázquez, Adolfo
Tarantino, Sandro
Teitelboim, Volodia
Urbano, Miguel
Valenzuela, Luisa
Vayo, Miguel
Vicente, Rosa
Vieira, Constanza
Viglietti, Daniel
Villar, Evaristo
Vivarelli, Piero
Vázquez, Inés
Willson, Brian
Zack, María José
Zamora, Daysi
Zamorano, Carlos
Zúñiga, Rosa Elvira
da Silva, Deonisio
de Abreu Figuereido, Vera
de Alentar, Francisco
de Bonafini, Hebe
de Mario, Ana
de Mauro, Martín
de Melo, Thiago
de la Peña, María Dolores
dos Santos, Theotonio
d´Alessio De Velarde, Rosa María
�lvarez, Federico

Sources:

Intellectuals launch campaign to defend Cuba. Marc Frank, Reuters, May 1, 2003.

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