Dear friends, brothers of the Centrist Democrat International: I write from Cuba, from a street in Havana to send you all a brotherly hug. Our message will be brief.

It is during these times that the importance of the centrist democrat ideology rises to the surface. Crises, uncertainty, violence, abandonment for many. There is also the threat of organized terror, sometimes in the form of the State; all these things tell us that our ideas give hope to the people, to human beings.

That is our challenge: to renew ourselves, change. Changing what we have done wrong or doesn’t fit the needs of our times. I think this is what is most important: our ideas based on Christian humanism, which tells us that human beings, families, individuals, people, are the most important thing and all of us, with humility, all of you in Beirut these days and those of us who stay in our countries, but all of us brought together by this obligation we feel towards human beings, with their dignity and their progress, their rights and their freedom.

That is why this is a moment for hope and challenge, and with our brother and companion in the Centrist Democrat International, Pier Ferdinando Casini, and other leaders and militants the world over, I believe we can be ready, as we are in Cuba, at a time when the people are being held captive, we can be ready for a change for the better for our people, for each human being, for all humanity.

Nowadays many forces conspire with the military regime to turn this change into a fraud, or to defraud the people and the World through change. This deception, this swindling of the people of Cuba, this change without rights can only lead to further tension and frustration. But there is a way, that we call the Way of the People. It is way through which we demand our rights, a conciliatory path that leads to unequivocal political change.

Now our Movement is demanding the right to be a recognized political party. The Communists say NO, the totalitarian regime says NO: a single party to keep the same group in power for decades on end. A true dynasty that crushes the people while safeguarding its own caste interests. It takes control of people’s belongings and also takes over their lives. On the other side there is a true majority, a true crowd of poor people who are not even allowed to say “we are poor”.

Now our movement, the Christian Liberation Movement, reaffirms its determination, our determination to seek peacefully but intensively, with love and perseverance, the changes that represent rights, democracy, free elections and freedom of expression.

This is what we state before you, we say the CDI must also be known for solidarity between its members.
I’ll finish by saying that this solidarity towards us and the people of Cuba must focus on our right and vital need for change towards Democracy.

Freedom Now!
A hug for all of your from Cuba.

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, Christian Liberation Movement Coordinator, Honorary Vice President of the Centrist Democrat International.