The U.S. military intervention in Iraq, which led to the ouster of Saddam Hussein, began exactly eight years ago, on March 20, 2003.

Taking advantage of the international community’s absolute focus on this major news event, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro undertook one of the most repressive crackdowns on dissent in modern history.

Between March 18-20, 2003, Castro arrested nearly 100 of the island’s most renowned independent journalists and pro-democracy leaders, and sentenced 75 of them to a total of 1,454 years in prison.

This became known as the Cuban “Black Spring.”

While most of the 75 have been released (and forcibly exiled) within the last nine months, repression in Cuba is on the rise (as Amnesty International documented last week).

Last month alone, there were more than 390 political arrests. And a new internationally-recognized prisoner of conscience, Nestor Rodriguez Lobaina, head of the Youth for Democracy Movement, is awaiting trial and sentencing.

Today, eight years later, the world is similarly focused on military action in Libya and the natural disasters in Japan.

Thus we urge awareness and caution towards the well-being of Cuba’s dissidents, new political prisoners and the fate of American development worker Alan Gross.

Unfortunately, the Castro regime has a long history of using major news events as “cover” for its increased repression and mischief.

Source: Capitol Hill Cubans