“We will establish, in the face of imperialism’s aggression campaigns, a revolutionary collective surveillance system, and let everyone know who lives on the block and what they do…” Those words were spoken the night of September 28, 1960 by Fidel Castro Ruz, during the launching of the Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (Revolution Defense Committees, CDR) outside the old Palacio Presidencial (Presidential Palace).
From their beginning, the CDR have had as their mission mobilizing their members to protect the interests of the ruling elite, with the excuse of “defending the Revolution and socialism’s alleged achievements” from a foreign enemy. This organization is a structure controlled by the dictatorship whose aim is to surveil, snitch on and control both public and private life of all people within its sphere of action (block by block), through direct work with the families in the community. This divided families, since the regime has managed to sow hatred and distrust within them.
Some CDR members are involved in the so-called “actos de repudio” (“repudiation acts”) against groups of persons who defend human rights, exercising abuse and intimidation on them, and on occasions they even resort to physical aggression against those who are seen as “counterrevolutionaries” or “enemies of the Revolution.”
Because of the regime’s complete failure, many CDR members are trapped in this snitching and surveillance plot because they fear to withdraw and be targeted for threats, blackmail and even lose their jobs. This is the situation of Cubans who do not feel identified with the “committees” because they do not respond to the people’s interests but are yet another instrument of repression of the dominant class which insists on remaining in power through force, seeking justification with the flag of an archaic and failed ideology.
By Roberto Blanco Gil, President of the Cuba Independiente y Democrática (CID) Committee Against Abuse in Cuba and Defensor del Pueblo (People’s Defender).
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