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Committees for the Defense of the Revolution

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"Long Live Socialism" CDR billboard in countryside on the way from Havana to Pinar del Río.

Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Template:Lang-es), or CDR, is a network of neighborhood committees across Cuba. The organizations, described as the "eyes and ears of the Revolution", exist to promote social welfare and report on "counter-revolutionary" activity.[1] As of 2010, 8.4 million Cubans of the national population of 11.2 million, were registered as CDR members.[1]

The CDR system was formed by Fidel Castro on September 28, 1960, following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.[1] The slogan of the CDR is, "¡En cada barrio, Revolución!" ("In every neighborhood, Revolution!") Fidel Castro proclaimed it "a collective system of revolutionary vigilance." Established, "So that everybody knows who lives on every block, what they do, what relations they have with the tyranny, in what activities are they involved and with whom do they meet."[2]

Activities

CDR-Sign in Pinar del Río

The CDR officials have the duty to monitor the activities of every person on their respective blocks. There is an individual file kept on each block resident, some of which reveal the internal dynamics of each household.

Its defenders note that CDR have other important responsibilities beyond their function to monitor the individual's political and moral background; these include arranging festivals, administrating voluntary community projects, and organizing attendance to mass rallies. Proponents also emphasize that CDR helped to put medical, educational, or other campaigns into national effect and that, being organized on a geographical basis, they also act as centers for many who do not work in farms or factories and hence include a large proportion of female membership.[3] The CDR's also take a role an active role in vaccination campaigns, blood banks, recycling, practicing evacuations for hurricanes, and backing up the government in its fight against corruption.[1]

However, a 2006 Amnesty International report noted CDR involvement in repeated human rights violations that included verbal as well as physical violence.[4] Critics also contend that the CDR's are a repressive tool, giving the government a heads-up about dissident activities on the micro-local level, by tattling on the non-compliant.[1] They identify CDR's as "one of the lead entities responsible for the wave of repression sweeping through Cuba," most recently, the brutal beatings and detention of 75 members of the Ladies in White in Havana in 2011 and 2012.[5][6]

Elizardo Sanchez, a Cuban dissident, described the CDR as "a tool for the systematic and mass violation of human rights, for ideological and repressive discrimination. They assist the police and the secret service."[1] Whereas Lazaro Sanchez, a CDR supporter, says of the CDR that, "The (U.S.) Enemy as well as Cuban sellouts take advantage of confusion to sow doubts. If we have to act, we are going to act. Our streets cannot belong to criminals, or to counterrevolutionaries. The U.S. Empire has the FBI; the Revolution has its CDRs."[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Cuba's Neighborhood Watches: 50 Years of Eyes, Ears by Isabel Sanchez, Associated Press, September 27, 2010
  2. ^ CNN World
  3. ^ Hugh Thomas : Cuba, the pursuit of freedom p.996
  4. ^ Amnesty International 2006 Report
  5. ^ WBEZ 91.5 Archy Obejas
  6. ^ [1]
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