Cuban Committee for Democracy

The Cuban Committee for Democracy, Inc. (CCD) formed in 1993 "is a non-profit organization of Cuban-Americans and individuals of other nationalities from all walks of life, including professionals, academics and entrepreneurs, who seek a peaceful, negotiated transition to democracy in Cuba. The CCD, founded in 1993, represents the more moderate sector of the Cuban-American community, whose voice is not otherwise represented by other existing organizations. CCD is not a political party. Rather, it seeks to fill a void and to address the misperception that the Cuban -American community is monolithic and uniformly conservative." 


 * Silvia Wilhelm - Executive Director

Has received funding from the Ford Foundation and from the Arca Foundation.

According to a 1995 NALCA article:


 * "The Cuban Committee for Democracy (CCD) is more active in Washington than is Cambio Cubano, and appears poised to challenge the Cuban American National Foundation's monopoly on exile political influence. The CCD leadership is stacked with noted business and academic figures from the exile community. Vice president Marcelino Miyares is a prominent broadcasting and communications professional in New York, where he heads Times Square Studios. CCD board members include Alejandro Portes, chair of the Sociology Department at Johns Hopkins University, and Maria Cristina Herrera, founder and director of the Institute for Cuban Studies at Miami-Dade University.


 * "CCD's current president is Alfredo Duran, a lawyer in Miami who chaired the Florida Democratic Party from 1976 to 1980 and remains active in Democratic politics. Duran, like Gutierrez Menoyo, spent time in literal combat against the Castro government. He participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion and was a prisoner in Cuba for over a year. At this stage in the Cuban struggle, however, he favors dialogue, reconciliation and respect for Cuba's (present and future) sovereignty. Cuba's transition to democracy, Duran insists, "has to be peaceful, and has to involve all segments of Cuban society."


 * "The CCD emphatically advocates freedom to travel by U.S. citizens, and is making inroads among exiles who yearn for more contact with relatives in Cuba. The group has been most active lately in its opposition to the Helms-Burton bill. The CCD has sponsored a range of Washington outreach activities focusing on problems with the legislation. In addition to briefings and visits on Capitol Hill, CCD members have met several times with senior Clinton Administration officials, including National Security Council aides Morton Halperin and Richard Feinberg, and White House Cuba policy coordinator Richard Nuccio. The Helms-Burton bill, Duran told the Senate's Western Hemispheric Affairs Subcommittee on June 15, "is a dagger in the heart of national reconciliation. And for that reason alone, it is contrary to the U.S. national interest." Without dialogue and national reconciliation, Duran warned, "there will be no democracy in Cuba."

Directors include

 * John de Leon
 * Ricardo Gonzalez, "a Madison, Wis. businessman and former City Council member, is president of the Cuban Committee for Democracy."
 * Marifeli Pérez-Stable - past vice president