Committees for the Defense of the Revolution
Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Spanish: Comités de Defensa de la Revolución), or CDR, are a network of neighborhood committees across Cuba. The organizations, described as the "eyes and ears of the Revolution," exist to help support local communities and report on "counter-revolutionary" activity. As of 2010, 8.4 million Cubans of the national population of 11.2 million were registered as CDR members.[1]
For similar local political committees in Burkina Faso, see Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (Burkina Faso).Agency overview
CDRs provide community services, such as assisting in literacy and vaccination campaigns, but have been criticized for their human rights violations.
Structure[edit]
Joining the committee is not selective; however, the top leadership of the organization is drawn from a select pool of loyalists at the discretion of the general secretary of the PCC.[4] Each CDR subdivision has an elected president that manages their locale and is subordinate to the CDR president immediately above their. Each block president is also charged with collecting and centralizing the information about every citizen in their block, giving such information to local police, investigators for political organizations like the Union of Communist Youths or the Communist Party of Cuba or the investigators for the Department of State Security (G2). Each committee also has one responsible for Vigilance, Ideology, and Community and Service. Those tasked with vigilance write annotations on citizens, monitoring how often people go to their house and how many attend, their whereabouts, family and work history, how many packages they may be receiving or enforcing curfews.[5] Those in charge of Ideology are tasked with spreading political material to orient the people towards the party and recording overall revolutionary moral character. Those responsible for community and service plan various activities on rest days like maintaining optimal hygienic conditions on the block.