In the letter below, Mariela Castro Espín, director of CENESEX (Cuban National Center for Sexual Education) responds to a Canadian colleague who wrote to her with alarm about press reports claiming Cuba prevented a gay parade that was to have taken place on 25 June 2008. World media falsely stated that Cuba arrested, beat and detained parade organizers. The parade was a ruse orchestrated entirely from Miami by right-wing anti-Cuba organizations funded by Washington DC. No gays were hurt, let alone arrested, as you will learn. The letter is addressed to Dr Pierre Assalian, a leading sexologist, as is Dr Castro Espín. The source of this letter is Lapolillacuban and was published on 3 July 2008.
		Mariela Castro Espín: Cuba and sexual diversity, some comments and clarifications
		Dear Pierre, It is a shame your outrageous and dull irony. It would be a good idea to be properly informed before giving an opinion on certain information. We all know the big amount of money devoted to discredit any achievement in Cuban society, it would be very naïve not to realize on that. We all know that campaigns against Cuba are financed and organized by the U.S. government, using terrorist groups and last minute organizations to justify the use of that money. In fact, much of that money is kept in the organizer's pockets… haven't you heard about those scandals? A very common mechanism is to create information and to sell it to different news agencies, pretending to demonstrate the "correct" use of those finances. Cuban scholar and sexologist Mariela Castro Espín is director of CENESEX and a champion of LGBT equality. Perhaps you don't know that the Cuban revolution, particularly the last year's CENESEX work, have gained lots of sympathy worldwide. Many of the foreign reporters in Cuba have told me that they have received the instruction from their superiors to avoid publishing any more news about the successful LGBT rights advocacy developed by CENESEX and other institutions, due to U.S. diplomat's pressures. Maybe that is why you are not aware on all the work we are doing to promote sexual rights at LGBT community, about the successful program that we developed all over the country last May 17th and our efforts at legislative level. However, you become alarmed by this false and politically manipulated information, addressed to discredit the work that we are doing. I have received letters from gay, lesbians and transgendered activists living in Cuba and abroad who are angered with this information. First of all, because those organizations in Miami are deeply homophobic and they have never been worried about gay rights, neither for Cubans or Cuban-American community. Secondly, because they will never allow any foreign organization to decide on their behalf. Thirdly, because it was a fake: there were no parade because no one support them, no one confronted them or repressed them, there were no police officers around and there were no detainees. Foreign reporters told us that there were only 6 persons at that park and none of them were part of LGBT community. They even failed to explain LGBT situation in Cuba, when they were interviewed by the media. The journalists were disappointed when they discover that it was an ordinary and ridiculous show, that is why they were practically ignored. Read about a real gay celebration that happened in Havana on 14 June 2008. Click here. We regret that aggressions against our work are becoming more distressing. We understand that they are going to be more frequent, as there are enough power and finances to do it. We will continue to develop our work, with the full support of LGBT community in Cuba and many friends all over the world. I assume that WAS is not a political organization and it has the professional responsibility to avoid playing the game of media campaigns. It would discredit it as a world scientific organization. Anyhow, I remember this is not the first time some people take part of such a provocation. It will be my pleasure to meet you again in Ecuador an Sweden, as good colleagues who fight for the same cause, to chat about LBGT news in Canada, where you live. We all have lots of useful work to do in our respective countries, to promote sexual rights. I am sure we all are doing our best efforts for it. Best regards, Mariela Castro Espín Directora del Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual (CENESEX) Return to LGBT CUBA site at GayCuba.ca
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