Degeneracy Among Cuban Military Officers/ Juan Juan Almeida

Some official, unofficial and foreign media outlets have been subject to a certain government manipulation, serving as an echo chamber by focusing special attention on the fight against corruption, which seems to have the become the principal challenge facing the Cuban president. It was for this reason that in 2009 he created the office of Controller General, the bureau in charge of conducting audits of state businesses and institutions.

“We can`t think twice about the battle against crime and corruption,” said the General in a speech before the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. He thought it sounded catchy and since then the refrain has become a leitmotiv.

I ask myself how far the mighty sword of the controller’s authority or scope of action might reach. I suspect that the purpose of this imaginary wordplay is more mythical than real. It has the hint of a purge and less transparency than a Tamagotchi screen.

We all know that the concept of corruption goes a little deeper than the corrupt bureaucrat. It does not enjoy “real official consent,” yet it leads to unnecessary and superfluous expenditures from the state treasury. I prefer not to call it “stealing,” which is such a horrendous word.

The anti-corruption verbosity of the president-general is simply a Stanislavsky-like mannerism — something energetic and appealing to the ear. He should channel all this talent into something more constructive, or more respectable, like not ordering crowds of paramilitaries out into the streets every Sunday to attack defenseless women.

Cuba does not realize that this is just another infection eating away at society.

Has the General forgotten that during his term as head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces military leaders participated not only in military campaigns, but also in popularity contests and licentiousness?

I cannot believe that Raul Castro, a symbol of Victorian puritanism and a man obsessed with scrutinizing other people’s lives, has not read even one of the many reports dealing with incidents of assault or sexual abuse by Cuban military personnel.

The president of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba knows perfectly well that there is an endless list of high-ranking leaders and important officials with gargantuan appetites, who are as high spirited as festival clowns. They have been seen to be involved in one or another “little scandal” related to inappropriate sexual practices in which they have made use of pressure, position, rank, deceit, subjugation or shamelessness.

How to combat this degeneracy? Here is a telling figure. According to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces’ own figures, which are no doubt overly conservative, more than 40% of Cuban women who served in Angola during the war years or afterwards were victims of sexual assault or rape. And this does not include those who remained silent out of fear.

The island’s leadership is made up of perverts, who are very attuned to all the meanings of the word corruption.

1 March 2013