Who we are

The Unión Liberal Cubana (ULC) is a political party established in the exile, branched inside Cuba, conceived as a contribution to convey the ideas of democracy, human rights and a market economy into the Island. The term "liberal" follows the European and Latin American meaning, not that prevailing in the United States.

In any case, the ULC´s will is to grow inside Cuba; we exercise every effort to link ourselves to disidents, intelectuals, and the country´s thinking class, and we struggle to keep them updated on the unstoppable advance of the liberal ideas, ideas which are beginning to take hold on the Island, simply because this is the hour of liberalism.

The ULC is a founding member of the Cuban Democratic Platform (1990), a coalition of three parties (the Coordinadora Social Demócrata and the Partido Demócrata Cristiano de Cuba being the other two), who agree in the search of peaceful solutions to the Cuban problem. On an international level, the ULC is an active member of the Liberal International (IL) , an organisation with more than 70 liberal parties in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Carlos Alberto Montaner, the ULC´s founder and Chairman, is also a Vice President of the IL. Two other liberal parties within Cuba, the Partido Liberal Democrático de Cuba, chaired by Osvaldo Alfonso Valdés, and Solidaridad Cubana, presided over by Fernando Sánchez López, are fraternal members of the IL as "observers," although it is expected that they will be full members some time in the future.

What we think

On our planet (and Latin America is no exception) we are now living the resurgence of a time-renewed liberalism, the crass failure of the socialist experiments, and the impetus of a new liberal thought, rooted in intellectuals like I. Berlin, K. Popper, C. Rangel, or the recent Nobel Economics laureates Gary Becker, Richard Coase, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, all followers of von Misses´s work and the so-called Austrian School. Who ever said that liberalism belongs to the past? There is no other current of thought so strictly modern!

In short, this means that nowadays, after a century of failed experiments, the end has come to the Marxist utopias, and the individual has been restored the important role he or she have to play in society. From there stems a healthy wave of privatisations, the reduction of the size and the functions of the State, the reduction in public spending, and the recognition of the commanding character of private enterprise and a civil society. From there, also, stems the discredit of an economy planned by bureaucrats far removed from daily realities, and the realisation that the tools of development and growth reside in the free market.

It is not the government who must watch over the citizenry. Just the opposite. It is not the government who must steer the individual. Just the reverse. It is not the government who must assume the responsibility over humanity. On the contrary. Of course, this does not mean that it is not the State´s duty to attend to the old and handicapped, or to provide whatever means are necessary so that everyone can compete and seek a better living. Without health and education, without a flexible and porous society that fosters upward mobility, it would be senseless to talk about a competitive spirit.

As should be expected, together with the vindication of the liberal thought in economics, there is a political counterpart: the liberal democracy. Democracy in the company of its best attributes: formal freedom, a state of law without privileges or special groups, governments constantly subject to their citizens´ watch, respect for human rights, a plurality of political parties, total transparency of information, and a special devotion for tolerance, a civic virtue that makes peace and order possible.

Simply put, after the fracas of fascism (which in Latin America was mixed with militarism and populism), and the diverse forms of socialism, the wise conclusion has been reached that freedom is the best cure against poverty and injustice, and that there is no coincidence that the twenty most free countries on earth, are, precisely, the most prosperous. The greater the freedom to produce and to sell, the greater the freedom to fearlessly examine the problems of society, result in larger degrees of general wealth. And freedom includes respect for people just as they are, because liberalism disavows all of those dangerous manipulations of "social engineering" or "political genetics" that so many adversities have brought to humankind upon trying to submit it to "perfections" decided by small groups of "enlightened" who see themselves as holders of the absolute truth. Liberalism does not claim to possess any definitive truth: it does not know, nor does it believe it possible to know the path of history, and does not try to change human nature, but rather, its ulimate goal is to create an adequate and legal framework, so that the most frequent virtues of Humanking find a fertile soil, while the space is reduced for less beneficial and agreeable behaviours.

Projections and goals

After four decades of errors and persecutions based on socialism, liberalism for Cubans is a healer and a great antidote. Healer, because it is a noble way to understand society that can alleviate tensions and repair wounds after the ineviable fall of socialism; antidote because in its very basic foundation lies the vaccine against future totalitarian ventures. Actually, in 1989, a few days after the Berlin wall fall, and when it was evident that communism was about to disappear from the face of the earth, a group of Cuban liberals took on the task of creating a party with very defined short, medium, and long term goals.

On the short run, there was no doubt about that task: contribute to the end of the castroist dictatorship, albeit through peaceful means and carefully avoiding a bloody conclusion. In fact, since 1974, when the Portuguese dictatorship is dislodged, until the collapse of the Eastern European Communist tyrannies (and including the Latin American experiences in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil), all democratic transitions (with, partially, the exception of Rumania) had the same development standard: political negotiations among between the régime in power and the opposition, that ended in dictator-liquidating free elections. As it had occurred in more than a dozen countries, there was no reason why the same could not happen in Cuba. Further, we Cuban liberals believed it was highly convenient for the end of castroism to take place among negotiations and free elections, not only to spare our compatriots the pain and devastation that violence would bring to Cuba, but also to break away from a nefarious revolutionary tradition, i.e., the wrong conviction that is is fair and patriotic to replace bad governments forcefully.

In short, we liberals think that this sad historic juncture will perhaps bring a positive balance: the substitution of a violent political culture for one of persuasion, dialogue and compromise. And this wish is rooted in history: we must pay attention to the lessons it gives us.

The 1990 creation of the Cuban Democratic Platform proposes itself not only to challenge Castro on the political arena, but also to contribute to the furthering of the transit to freedom, when the changes take place, by bringing to Cuba the beneficial democratising influences of scores of friendly governments, and hundreds of akin political parties, given the fact that most Free World nations are governed by groups belonging to one of the three political streams present in the Platform..

To summarise, the ULC formulates a short term policy (end castroism without bloodshsed or violence; one over the medium term (a soft transition to another state model, with the assistance of a vast network of friendly government and parties), while setting up the foundations of the party´s long terem objectives.

Over the long term, the ULC is born with the vocation to become a great political party capable of giving the country ideas, projects, institutional stability, and to provide a ground training the best political leaders of a future Cuba. There is no democracy without strong political parties. And there are no strong political parties if, within them, there is not a consistent cosmovision that diagnoses the evils that affect society, and offers a flexible answer to solve them. Fortunately, liberalism furnishes all that. It is not an ideology, but a rational way to understand life, essentially based on the defense of freedom and individual responsibility.

Luckily, in Cuba´s political tradition, the best heads have been liberals: from Arango y Parreño to Ignacio Agramonte, from José Martí to Jorge Mañach or Carlos Márquez Sterling, the most serious and prudent statesmen belong to the liberal mainstream, although many of them did not belong to parties bearing that name.

The Unión Liberal Cubana collects that tradition and culture, links them to the liberalism of our day, gives them a new form and a new content. The ULC is the future. Very simple.