April 28 update: Employees at the hotel where the event was supposed to take place told me they knew nothing of it. Cuba’s ambassador to Panama called it a “clandestine event.”
April 19 update: I haven’t seen any confirmation that the summit took place. Some of the material on the {think} Cuba website is password protected and organizers have not responded to a request for comment.
April 15 update: Several Tweets – see details here and here – indicate that the summit may be underway.
April 10 post: An international summit aimed at energizing the democracy movement in Cuba will start April 25 in Panama, not April 11 as previously announced, organizers said on the {think} Cuba website.
The website says that applications to attend the private meeting are no longer being accepted.
Please note that…all selected attendees have already been notified. If you have not received your welcome kit by April 20th, please get in touch.
Organizers say they want to attract an elite team of international activists who have been “successful in building notable movements” and use technology to promote their causes.
The event asked for applications from people who “do not currently focus on Cuban issues,” but “are willing to open their hearts to learn about Cuba…”
Among those confirming attendance, via Twitter, is Tom Serres, co-founder of Piryx, a San Francisco company that won Politics Magazine’s Reed Award for Best Online Fundraising Tool in February 2011. Piryx describes Serres as:
a seasoned technology professional, specializing in digital strategy and leveraging new media technologies. He has consulted for political campaigns, from the smallest levels of government to federal and statewide offices, corporations, and non-profits. He was named a 2009 rising political star by Politics Magazine, awarded with the title of “40 under 40″ in 2009 by the New Leaders Council, and is a CNN Political Technology Expert in Washington, DC.
The summit has stirred some concern among supporters of Cuba’s socialist government. An April 9 story in CubaDebate, a pro-government website, said the event was part of a “cyber-war against Cuba.”
The story said Cuban journalist Ernesto Hernandez Busto was preparing to cross the Atlantic Ocean on his way to the summit and planned to take part in a U.S.-government-inspired “strategic offensive” against Cuba. And it described Hernandez as a “cyber-extremist.”
Hernandez, a critic of the Cuban government and the creator of a popular blog called Penultimos Dias, said he wasn’t enroute to the summit as CubaDebate claimed.
“The people at CubaDebate had the courtesy of sending me to Panama, something that the organizers of {think} Cuba haven’t done,” Hernandez said in an email.
Iroel Sanchez, who wrote the CubaDebate piece, doesn’t mention Hernandez in an updated April 10 post.
International activists taking part in the summit will try to step up the democracy movement in Cuba. The {think} Cuba website says they are scheduled to meet at the InterContinental Miramar Panama from April 25 to April 29.
Two of the most important websites about Cuban affairs (in Spanish), Diario de Cuba and Penultimos Dias are not even mentioned in the list of thinkCuba’s Resources.
Bob,
Thanks for pointing that out.