Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach, 23 January 2020 – the hare has finally jumped. The recently starred report on Cuban television news about the capture and information of the alleged members of the spooky group “Clandestinos”, tends to seal the fate of what, so far, has the appearance of a warped creation developed in the offices of the State Security rather than that of a true “rebellion” in the Castro ranch.
Showing the usual media manipulation to which the regime has so accustomed us -and which, nevertheless, continues to surprise us by its rampant bungling- this time they have presented a group of alleged criminals who confess their participation in the graffiti to the Busts of José Martí and other “symbols of the revolution”, which the authorities themselves claim, without offering images, were occurring in the first weeks of this year.
Incidentally, the statements of the aforementioned accused offer “testimonials” about financing from Miami by the long-established and cliché “anti-Cuban mafia”, also linked to other counterrevolutionary groups on both sides of the Florida Strait. Nothing new in the official script.
Leaving aside the unreliable television reporting which is lacking in evidence, it is worth highlighting the repetitiveness of the scheme created by the political police. Not only is a plot organized and financed from the US and carried out by stateless mercenaries within the Island; not only is the dissident scheme reiterated, the same as the criminal scheme that all critical sectors to the system within Cuba have been demonized -which this time brings the additional component of drug possession and consumption- but they have taken advantage of the opportunity to expand the scope to include independent art and journalism sectors in the saga, at the same time raising the tone of the threat to a few, not too veiled insinuations of applying the death penalty to such “crimes” that affront the Fatherland.
I strongly attracts attention that in the midst of the increasingly pronounced economic crisis, given the growing uncertainty about the future that awaits Cubans, and with a permanently bleak horizon with no signs of a viable exit, in just a matter of days it has “emerged” and has been “defeated” by a police force that presumes to be among five best in the world, an imaginary liberating group that had an ephemeral but meteoric life in the networks only to stir up the hopes of the most naïve, and also serves as wild card to the regime to justify any repressive action against the opposition and against any manifestation of dissent or questioning the dictatorial power. All very suspiciously opportune.
But, although crushing, the message of this television report is not harmless: it points directly to the fact that any demonstration against the designs of the Power class will be severely punished, without ruling out the maximum death penalty by execution. And in that broad “criminal” spectrum that the regime has staged are included from a blueprint that summons legitimate citizens right to vote against a spurious Constitution, from staining a bust of Marti or a billboard of the official ideology to peacefully opposing the application of a government disposition, as is the case of Decree 349 that prohibits independent art demonstrations, but note, not in favor of the political power. All the unhappy and freethinkers are absolutely susceptible to falling into the dark sack of disloyal mercenaries.
Paradoxically, it is this murky media escalation of Power that seems to shed more light on the hoax. If anything is demonstrated, it is that “Clandestinos”, far from meaning a libertarian advancement, as its most ardent defenders wished it were so, has proved to be a maliciously useful trick to the dictatorship both to quell the outbreaks of citizen protests that have begun to bargain in different parts of Cuba and to stop future similar manifestations and through its course, to maintain the iron fence of isolation around dissidence.
However, the set could collaterally transmit a subliminal information: such wear of police “intelligence” and so much time and resources destined to plan the bluff, discredit any manifestation of nonconformity and raise the repressive emphasis suggest that the internal Cuban situation is a lot more complex and delicate than what we see or guess at.
the moment is definitive critical but defining, not only for those who hold the absolute Power and for all its cohort of Amanuenses, hitmen and other thugs, but also for the entire independent civil society that aspires to rights and freedoms long denied. Now the cards are on the table. As far as I am concerned, Clandestinos does not go beyond being the most recent deception of Castro’s “intelligence”, although confirmation of my suspicions does not give me any satisfaction.
If this unfortunate episode can be of any use to us, it is to stop believing in masked mirages and put aside our differences. Because it is clear that they come for everyone: opponents, journalists and independent artists, network activists and even corner protesters, that is, all those who defy the regime’s excesses or exercise citizen freedoms without asking permission and with unmasked faces.
If Castro’s media has convinced me of anything with this TV report, it is that Clandestinos is its Frankenstein: an invention of State Security “think tanks” meant to hunt the unsuspecting, deepen the divisions that weaken civil society, create false expectations to provoke disenchantment and discourage Cubans’ aspirations for change, make believe that any resistance to the dictatorship is impossible (even that which is framed and hidden), and create a matrix of negative opinion about any manifestation of confrontation to the regime.
But it so happens that not only the dictatorship and its dark repressive apparatus depend on the success or failure of this awkward presentation. Ultimately, it is also up to us, opponents, dissidents, journalists and independent artists and freethinkers of all trends not to let us be tempted with ghostly creations and keep our claims. Let the Power invoke its specters. And good luck to them and the past that awaits them!
Translated by Norma Whiting
