Author: Miriam Celaya

Add to this that both the content of the Constitution and the laws, the courts that must enforce them and the institutions that must ensure order, exist in order to guarantee the privileges of Power, not the rights of citizenship, which determines that the subject (let’s call him the “citizen”) is constantly forced to commit crimes because of the imperatives of survival, and tends to alienate himself from a legal body that neither represents nor favors him.

Such legal confusion is also reflected in the opinions reaped by León and San Martín, where a segment of the participants, whom the authors define as “more radical,” believe that in the current constitutional reform process “everything must be changed, starting with the political vision from which the new document will be written,” while another imprecise number of testimonies show “modest aspirations,” of which only one is revealed: “increase in salaries and pensions.” A longing that would be related to a specific law in any case, but not to a Constitution.

Unfortunately, we do not know the number of subjects involved in the aforementioned journalistic survey, and we also lack other information about them, such as their ages, occupations and places of residence, which may be useful for venturing additional assessments. For this reason — scarce in testimonies and abounding above all in opinions issued by the authors — the text does not meet the expectations suggested by the title.

However, it is appreciated that León and San Martín bring up a topic as important as the preparation of a new constitution in Cuba. Especially if one takes into account the environment of conspiracy in which the new Statute is being cooked, the peculiar moment in which its drafting has been decided — marked by the transfer of the presidency of the country from the so-called “historical generation” to the “generational relay” — and the inexplicable fact that such a complex task is headed precisely by the ex-president, General Raúl Castro, who had the opportunity of convening a Constituent Assembly and amending the Constitution during the more than 10 years of his ill-fated mandate, but didn’t do it.

And since the corset that will truss the “new” Constitution from its inception was already announced — socialism’s irrevocable character and the role of the Cuban Communist Party as the leading force of society and of the State — it can be assumed that the novelties the new Statute brings are simple accommodations to disguise the subtle return to capitalism that has (illegally) been taking place before our eyes.

Clearly, the Constitution of Castro II will legitimize the highly vilified “exploitation of man by man,” which returned decades ago to successfully emulate the already previously sacramental (though never explicit) exploitation of man by the State; the privileged presence of foreign capital; the exclusion of Cubans and the perpetuation of power, all camouflaged under the innocent euphemism of “the Cuban model.”

So, if the official media have made reference to the debate by the National Assembly of Peoples Power of less conspicuous issues, such as equal marriage or revision of the Family Code, I do not think it intends to catapult Princess Mariela Castro towards future political stardom — in such a macho and homophobic country, much more is needed than the support of an army of gay revolutionaries to assume the presidency — but to create a smokescreen, a mere distraction that offers the world the image that, in effect, Cuba is changing and that it is more democratic and inclusive than many developed countries. From the UMAP* to the Palace of Marriages… Now that is the will to change, gentlemen!

As for the political and economic freedoms for Cubans, we already know that this option is vetoed. The olive-green mafia, now dressed in elegant suits and neat guayaberas, will move only the chips that certify their political interests, endorse their capital and maintain social control and “political balance.”

And in addition, they may astutely throw some legal crumbs that favor the minimal and undemanding private sector — a wholesale market, even if it is not stocked or offering better prices than the retailer, for example — in order to win their support and compliance. It is known that, as a general rule, the goals of long-term societies are not related to being freer, more prosperous and independent, but also to the petty aspiration of not belonging to the majority sector, the poorest members of the population.

And assuredly, the remnants of the Castro regime and its political heirs will make their legalistic move so well that they will be able to show the world how some eight million idiots will go docilely to the polls to consecrate with their vote the perpetuity of the dispossession of their rights. We have already seen it before.

Except that (who knows?), the “masses” should understand that, this time, only they have the possibility to surprise us, and to use the power of their vote to say “NO” to a Constitution that is born mutilated and spurious. Maybe we are facing an opportunity and not a defeat.

Perhaps some opposition leaders, so engrossed in defending their own little egos, are missing a golden opportunity to show the world that there are a large number of Cubans who deserve recognition and support in their democratic aspirations, and — in passing — to clarify to the autocracy that they can no longer count on a unanimous and monotonous herd.

A tiny step, yes, but a step forward. It’s true that it would be an arduous task for leaders and activists to mobilize this time to get people to go the polls – rather than to boycott them – and to cast NO votes to oppose the conspiracy of Power. It is also true that this would not produce money or allow for personality cults, but on the contrary: it would cost capital and blur the leadership into “all of us.” For the first time the common leader would be the electorate. But, if what it really is about is the future of Cuba and of all Cubans, it would be well worth the effort.

*The UMAP, Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción, (Military Units for Aid to Production) were forced-work agricultural labor camps operated by the Cuban government during the mid-1960’s. Scant information available has characterized the camps solely as an instance of gender policing, though it was created for individuals who, for religious or other beliefs were not able to serve in the regular military units.

Miriam Celaya is a Cubanet journalist, resident in Cuba, who is visiting Florida

Translated by Norma Whiting

The zero-tolerance policy for illegal immigration, applied to the letter by the current resident of the White House, is causing a flood of opinions that tend to be located in two diametrically opposed poles: at one extreme, those who support the high-profile leader in this and all positions, in an absolute and uncritical way; and in the opposite extreme, those that are ready to launch an attack against any initiative of the current administration.  There are no gradations in any of these two sides, neither in the Trump supporters nor in the Trump critics. Their common denominator is the field of emotions.

And in the midst of government politics, debates and emotions, are the plight of migrant families and the tensions that irregular migration creates within the receiving countries; a phenomenon that has become a crisis and is affecting internal policies in the main developed hubs of the western world: Europe and the United States.

There is no doubt about the solidarity aroused by the helplessness of migrants. But, what if we momentarily situate ourselves on the other side of the spectrum, that is, the receiving part of all that migratory avalanche? Who will assume the social costs of uncontrollable and massive entry into their territory? And, looking at the details, who is directly responsible for the fate of those minors held at the US border?

Demonization of migrants in the Trump era?

It is known that the problem of illegal immigrants – (“irregulars”), to avoid hurting susceptibilities – that penetrate the porous US borders is a long-standing issue of such complexity that it exceeds the simple political confrontation between presidents of one party or another, or the political interests of either Democrats or Republicans.

In fact, the fundamental cause of migration from Latin America to the US lies in the economic, political and social crises of the countries of departures, and not – or at least not directly – in the “pro-immigrant” or “anti-immigrant” actions of successive US administrations. And this is precisely why the solution of the evil begins with the respective countries of origin of the migrants, regardless of the migratory policies of the White House.

In any case, no nation, however developed and rich it may be, and no matter how much or how little territory it encompasses, can allow the unstoppable entry of irregular immigrants that has been going on at the US borders, subjected to a virtual hounding.

On the other hand, while a powerful and rich nation such as the United States is capable of absorbing a huge number of immigrants from all over the world, it is no less true that the much-needed “right to emigrate” ends where the sovereign right of each country becomes vulnerable to accept or reject the entry of a flood of immigrants whose cultures and customs are dissimilar to theirs. And this is the reverse logic that reluctant governments employ to refuse the entry of an infinite flow of immigrants.

To the rhythm of wars, gang wars, economic and political crises, epidemics, famines and all the infinite litany of calamities that loom over poor nations – previously called “third world” and now, euphemistically, “underdeveloped or developing countries” – hundreds of thousands of human beings face the dangers of exodus each year and illegally cross or pile up at the borders of countries that are almost always called “interfering enemies” when they intervene in the internal policies of “motherlands” of the migrants, though many of the migrants consider themselves political refugees and place the responsibility for their national misfortunes on Europe and the US, without taking into consideration the burden they create on the economies of those countries they wish to enter.

Another point is the irresponsibility that’s involved in enlisting minor children in an adventure as dangerous as it is uncertain, practically using them as currency or emotional blackmail in order to achieve the regularization of their immigration status. This is what is happening on the US border. Curiously, no media scandal or waves of protests over the situation of these children took place in any of the intermediate borders or nations. Neither did the army of quasi-indigent families of migrants seem to have queued to request asylum before the embassies of proletarian paradises such as Cuba, Venezuela or Bolivia, countries that presume to be societies where equality and social justice prevail. No. They march straight towards the abominable empire of xenophobia, discrimination, racism and social exclusion… The dispossessed of our Latin American nations are such masochists!

For the record, I am absolutely in no way a supporter or a sympathizer of Trump or of his policies, but rather the opposite. Only that the extreme polarization of the migratory crisis in the US borders that is simplified as an image of the (always) good migrant and the (always) bad government is too schematic, plots against the complexities that characterize the reality of the current world and does not allow for a reasonable solution to the problem of the millions of migrants who are forced to seek, far from their home nations, the opportunities for the life and prosperity they aspire to as an elementary right.

True, Trump does not verbalize or carry it out in the best way, but it is indisputable that the United States as a nation – and not just Obama, Trump, or the next president – has the right to regulate the entry of migrants into his territory, beyond the national tragedies of our respective countries, be they an emporium of dictatorships or cardboard democracies.

Translated by Norma Whiting

During the substantial analysis of our distinguished leaders, convened last Monday, June 11^th, they insisted that the greatest impact “was in the municipality of Ciénaga de Zapata, mainly in Cayo Ramona, where 205 houses were still flooded, because the water is receding very slowly.” For this reason, they pointed out, “more than 3,000 people who were evacuated are still not able to return, including 219 students who are missing school.”

Such a difficult situation provoked a brilliant revelation on the part of the very sagacious Cuban president, who indicated “a detailed study would be conducted of the terrain and the reasons that have caused the area to still be flooded more than 15 days after the rains ceased.”

Obviously, not one of the smarty pants assembled there saw fit to point out to the President that it would be pointless to waste time and resources in such a “study,” since Cayo Ramona is adequately charted on the maps, where it is shown as a slightly elevated land in the midst of one of the largest wetlands in this geographical region called the Caribbean, characterized by the presence of abundant springs or “waterholes,” which causes the soil drainage to slow down even more when its islets are flooded.

On the other hand, what would the specialists propose, then? Drying the bog? It would not be a novelty either. Already in the 1960’s and 1970’s his Majesty Castro I was caressing that idea, when he dreamed to turn the huge swamp into the largest producer of rice in the hemisphere, a project that he discarded perhaps when in one of his many epiphanies he also glimpsed the creation of the largest crocodile farm in the world … “Plan Crocodile,” he called it, although in reality that hallucination was so ephemeral that it was barely given press coverage. Or maybe he had a plan that included raising crocodiles in the paddy fields. We will never know exactly how many hallucinations went through that arcane brain.

But in reality, this flood of “Councils of Ministers” and analyses of the national situation among senior leaders not only reaffirms that what is involved is to deliberately follow the traditional strategy of the Cuban government, whose representatives of the so-called historical generation continue to throw their shadowy shadow, consisting of holding hundreds of meetings from which “commissions” and “detailed studies” are derived, with the sole purpose of lengthening, over time, the solutions to the problems until, finally, the people resign themselves to living with the problem.  It also evidences the uncertainty of a government, tied hand and foot, to an ideology that is no longer useful even for Power.

The current times, marked by the sociopolitical and economic crises of the allied governments of Latin America, the retreat of the left, the epidemic of widespread corruption — in Cuba and the rest of the region — the collapse of the Cuban economy, the failure of the socialist “Model,” national despair and an infinite number of reasons that encourage social discontent and the sense of fatality of a people plunged into dismay, constitute the greatest challenge for a fatigued dictatorship that seeks to perpetuate itself in spite of the reality that surpasses it.

That is why neither the fake elections, nor the “youth” of the stand-in replacement president, nor the useless Guidelines nor the projected new Constitution, weighed down by the same old precepts that led to the “revolutionary” shipwreck, will be able to stop the inevitability of the changes. Because if something is truly irreversible in Cuba today, it is the failure of the Castro regime.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Despite certain inaccuracies arising from the exclusion of important parameters, such as gender and child violence, or the dubious reliability of data and sources in the case of some countries – for example, Cuba – the GPI has great referential value, not only for being the first to identify the elements that intervene in peace, but for constituting a permanent record that allows us to observe the mobility in the levels of peace of the different countries and regions that make up the list, where the lowest scores correspond to the most peaceful countries, and vice versa.

Collaterally, the GPI research establishes a clear correlation between levels of peace and levels of income, education, transparency, corruption and democracy in the countries analyzed.

Due to its methodological contribution and its systemic nature, which facilitates the evaluation of advances or setbacks in terms of peace over a period of time and in specific territories, the GPI established an inescapable precedent for any subsequent proposal and for the ability to trace political strategies in pursuit of the conquest and sustainment of peace.

Peace… in Latin America?

Seven years after the first report of the GPI, 33 member-countries of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), meeting at its Second Summit held in Havana (January 2014), unanimously declared this Region as a Peace Zone, allegedly “with the objective of promoting cooperation and maintaining peace and security in all orders among its member countries.”

The aforementioned Declaration was not accompanied by a strategic design that would explain the criteria or parameters followed by those 33 leaders in order to consider as a “Peace Zone” a region permanently crossed by the conflicts and violence imposed by guerrilla wars, drug and human trafficking, gang violence, disappearances and kidnappings, human displacement due to poverty and crime, constant migration, border crises, paramilitaries, assassinations, corruption reaching even the highest political strata, human rights violations, offenses against freedom of press and expression, repression against demonstrators, and an countless crimes that depict in somber tones a geographic and political scene diametrically opposed to what might be called Peace.

Neither did the CELAC establish in its Second Summit a program of proposals to overcome regional problems that threaten peace, methodology to measure improvements or retractions in each country, nor a special commission charged with supervising a joint project of the member countries to guarantee results that might turn Latin America into a true “Peace Zone.”

In fact, today’s stubborn reality indicates that violence and conflicts in our region, far from diminishing, have the propensity to increase. The political and social instability that already existed in Venezuela before 2014 has been joined by the political crisis in Brazil, and more recently in Nicaragua. Mexico continues to exhibit staggering crime rates linked to drug, arms, and human trafficking, gender crimes and targeted killings, amid a climate of insecurity augmented by swift impunity; criminal gangs continue to spread terror in Central America, while the Peace Accords – also signed in Havana – between the narco-guerrillas of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government of that country are very likely to end up in a complete failure.

And as if it were not sufficiently spurious that such a Peace in the abstract should be declared in a happy conspiracy of all the democratic governments of “our America” with this hemisphere’s longest dictatorship – responsible, directly or indirectly, for several regional conflicts and incapable of propitiating spaces of dialogue and harmony with its own people – these days Havana is, once again, the base and guarantor of another “sham peace process.” which this time will take place between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army, the Communist guerrilla organization that persists in armed violence.

Now that we have heard the evidence, it is obvious that the dreams for regional peace are just another kind of Latin American myth, something like the legend of El Dorado or the Fountain of Eternal Youth: a promise full of frustrations that transcended into just a fantasy.

Translated by Norma Whiting

In defense of this purported transitional agenda – to date more desired than possible – to which some seduced foreign media refer, it could be mentioned that there are in today’s Cuba, in effect, socio-political similarities with countries that carried out processes of democratic transition after long dictatorships in the last third of the XX century, among them, Portugal and Spain, the longest-lived dictatorships in Europe, although not as long-lasting as the Cuban one.

In fact, the Castro regime’s almost sexagenarian autocracy is but a failed attempt at a transition that ended up being betrayed: the drift of the pro-democratic revolution came to power in January 1959 under the pretext of overthrowing the previous dictatorship, which was imposed by Fulgencio Batista’s coup d’état in March, 1952. This awards Cubans the dishonorable privilege of having lived uninterruptedly under conditions of two consecutive dictatorships for the past 66 years.

However, and except for the reasonable variations of nuances, among similarities of the current Cuban reality and the conditions of the aforementioned countries at the moment when their respective transitions took place, there is the presence of an autocratic power based on a unique and egocentric ideology, the intense and permanent propaganda of governmental thought, coupled with the most inflexible censorship on any alternative political opinion or current alternative politics, the official worship of the leader, which is intended to extend beyond his death in the Cuban case, the exaltation of a heroic historical past that supposedly justifies the ideology and leadership of the dictatorial Power and that, moreover, defines the national standard up to the present and towards the future, social control through the repressive political police and the pro-government organizations (selective repression to sow fear and silence in society), and the State’s economic corporate doctrine, which in Cuba is, all at the same time, Government and Single Party.

However, the differences, though fewer in their quantity, are more profound and decisive in explaining the delay, or rather, the non-existence, of the long-awaited process of democratic transition in Cuba.

In the case of Portugal, the overthrow of the Salazar dictatorship was the result of a military uprising that would become known as the Carnation Revolution (April 1974), led by the Movement of the Armed Forces (MFA), a rebel faction of the army led by a group of officers dissatisfied with the government, fundamentally due to the stalemates in the wars in the Portuguese colonies of Africa and East Timor.

Precisely because of the importance of the military elite in perpetuating ownership of the colonies, the army was an important political pillar for the Portuguese government, hence the possibility of a military conspiracy of great proportions in Portugal not only seemed contradictory or almost impossible for the regime, and thus was able to take by surprise the powerful political police, the most effective guardian of the Salazar regime. The capacity for organization, military discipline and the extension of the MFA, made it possible for the dictatorship to be overthrown in just a matter of hours, and after two years of political turbulence, democracy was established in the country.

The Spanish transition, meanwhile, started in 1975 after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, and was a complex civil process. In addition to the changes ordered by King Juan Carlos I as successor, previously appointed by the old head of the State as its leader, the broad support for the King played an essential role, both among a major sector of capitalists within Spain and among many Western countries, and led to the consensus reached by the political parties of the most dissimilar ideological tendencies – including elements of the old Franco regime – which eventually contributed to the creation of the new constitution, the referendum that approved it, and its enactment as the official precept of the government on December 1978, the rule of law being enshrined.

It is true that pitfalls were not lacking throughout the process, but the success of the Spanish transition also played a fundamental role in the support of sectors and personalities of the old Franco regime, who bet on the peaceful and gradual evolution towards democracy and worked towards its consolidation.

A glance is sufficient to discover that, while the similarities between the current Cuban reality and the scenarios that favored the democratic transitions of Portugal and Spain have been determined by their respective dictatorships, the departure of the autocrats from power and the processes of evolution to democracy in both European countries were made possible by social and political actors that do not exist in Cuba, or at least that have not been revealed to date. Namely: elite sectors of duly organized disgruntled military willing to change the political order, reformist elements within the political power itself that favor an orderly transition, national economic power groups capable of influencing pro-democracy changes, an opposition duly articulated and willing to generate political consensus in the interest of a common democratic destiny and, not least, an international community positively interested in supporting the emergence and consolidation of a true democracy in Cuba.

Faced with the lack of rights and the civic squalor of Cuban society, and given the lack of consensus among the opposition sectors, the Castro regime of late, now represented by a new generation of servants, holds all the trumps for a prolonged stretch in Power. To do this, it is ready to legitimize the new era of the dictatorship through a new constitution that must be submitted to a referendum in the future, and that – as expected – has already begun to notch another schism among the opposition: on the one hand, those who take on the challenge as an opportunity to say “NO” to the regime, to one party and to compulsory socialism; on the other, those who not only deny that possibility, but choose to wear themselves out in the disqualification of the former, accusing them of trying to “legitimize” the dictatorship.

It does not seem reasonable, in the midst of such a regrettable scenario, to speak of a Cuban transition. As far as many Cubans are concerned, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez is nothing more than the heir and follower of the dictatorial regime until he demonstrates otherwise. In any case, what is currently offered is a “transition, Cuban style,” a process equivalent to transition from a dictatorship of a life-long government to a government with handovers of power, but a dictatorship nonetheless.

Except that (who knows!) along the way, new actors and circumstances may appear, the miracle of a consensus among the Cuban democrats may take place and, surprisingly, the dreamed about transition to democracy might yet begin in Cuba

But those enthusiastic colleagues of the foreign press, as divorced from the aspirations of Cubans as they are ignorant of our reality, should note that until such a wonderful moment arrives – if it does – it is neither legal nor realistic to talk about a political transition in Cuba.

Translated by Norma Whiting

The recent imprisonment of former FARC guerrilla leader Jesús Santrich, accused of having links to drug trafficking, and his possible extradition to the United States – a situation that, as the high commissioner for the Peace of Colombia has declared, should be clarified judicially and not through debates between the government and political actors – deepens the doubts about the seriousness and veracity of the commitment of the leaders of the now called Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (FARC) to leave behind a past of violence and war that marked half a century of national Colombian life.

However, this episode is just another nail in the coffin of a handful of Agreements that evidently lacked the broad popular support that was attributed to them from the beginning, as demonstrated by the results of the October 2016 plebiscite, and more recently, with the popular rejection that the FARC leader received in his political campaign tour related to the presidential elections, from which he chose to withdraw.

On the other hand, public opinion is not greatly surprised by the arrest and incarceration of Mr. Santrich. It was an open secret that, after losing the financial and logistical support of the former Soviet Union, the Marxist fighters of the Colombian jungles, once champions of the cause of the poor, had rapidly evolved into narco-guerrillas.

The trafficking of cocaine and the extraction of gold which, it is claimed, were always part of the fighters’ “self-financing”, thus became essential sources for the economic and material support of the war and, at its core, for the enrichment of the members of its power elite.

It is not surprising, then, that after the signing of the Havana Peace Accords, the FARC leaders – far from looking like the leaders of an army made up of peasants, workers and other poor and “oppressed” sectors of society – in truth were transformed into administrators of goods and assets of about $345 million, according to an estimate from a list delivered to the Government of Juan Manuel Santos by the UN Mission in Colombia in August of 2017.

However, it is baffling (at the very least) that instead of the gang of the needy one would expect from those who, in theory, have suffered the privations of war and jungle, the harshness of fighting and the persecution of the army, the cream of the crop of the former guerrilla force are in a position to fulfill the obligation to have gold, money, land, livestock, means of transportation and other assets to pay to the fund for reparations to the victims of the armed conflict, as settled in the Agreements.

In this way, due to these difficult paradoxes of reality, the fruits of systematic crime, kidnapping, extortion and terror which was planted in Colombian society for decades, is today part of the safe-conduct for impunity that, though not necessarily forced or required, leaves a bitter taste on the mouths of the victims.

That is why it is even the more brazen that the cynicism with which the FARC – and here I refer to the “political party” – pretends to pose as a victim of political persecution, when one of the members of its clique has been caught in flagrante delicto of drug trafficking, according to the Colombian authorities, breaking with what was agreed in the Peace negotiations.

These days, his colleagues in arms and misdeeds affirm that poor Santrich is in his 15^th day of a hunger strike, which “has begun to wreak havoc on his health” and one we hope he is determined to continue to its ultimate consequences.

Since the accused does not have the one act-farce style, so often used by the regional left when defeat circles its wagons, this angelic image that’s being offered of a poor, unjustly incarcerated blind man (and two other companions (cronies?) locked up in the same prison), who is willing to sacrifice his life to prove his innocence, denied the assistance of his own doctors by the authorities, is almost tender. It would seem that those kidnapped and murdered until recently by FARC guerrillas had received a lot better treatment and considerations.

But perhaps such a plaintive stance only tries to mask, as far as possible, the ramifications that drug trafficking reaches among that dark amalgam of Marxist-drug-traffickers-guerrillas-politicians, for whom perhaps the failed Peace Accords – not coincidentally negotiated in Havana’s Palace of the Revolution by their historical allies, the Castros – are too much like a capitulation of their olive-green glory days, when they camped at will, kidnapping, extorting, trafficking and murdering in the jungles and towns of Colombia.

Translated by Norma Whiting

If the fissures and struggles between two tendencies of the Power cupola – one “Raulista” and the other “Fidelista”— are true (and certain signs suggest that they are), it is certain that such discrepancies were not reflected in the results of the ballots voted by the 604 deputies who participated in the “election” of the CE. But by themselves, these results do not deny the existence of such a crack, rather they suggest the possibility of agreements between both tendencies in order to safeguard economic, political, and even personal interests and privileges which are common to them, since they are a class that has held power for six decades and that has direct responsibility in everything that happened during that time and in the deep socio-economic crisis that suffocates the nation.

The election process initiated in the month of October 2017 culminates in these two days of sessions of the Ninth Legislature of the National Assembly. However, they were not exempt from surprises, among which stands out – with differences – the strange and unexplained exclusion of Marino Murillo, a member of the Political Bureau and Head of the Implementation and Development Committee of the new CE.

His absence seems all the more confusing because in his inaugural speech the new Cuban president expressed the will and commitment to continue with the implementation of the Guidelines and the Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030, drawn up by his mentor and predecessor, Raúl Castro, to whom – by the way – he dedicated an exaggeratedly laudatory segment.

Murillo should be, at least in theory, an important player with regards to the “continuist” economic policy announced by the incoming president, so his elimination from the CE – without any announcement of his transfer to “other important functions,” as explained in the case of Mercedes López Acea, following the official jargon’s cryptic style – opens the door to speculation about this high official’s possible fall from grace.

Another curious fact in the composition of the new CE is the almost nonexistent presence of any active military. Beyond the symbolic olive-green uniforms of the historical old commanders Guillermo García and Ramiro Valdés – ratified among the five vice-presidents of the CE – General Leopoldo Cintra Frías has been the only minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces who was ratified as a member.

No less notable was the postponement of the election of the Council of Ministers until the next ordinary session of the National Assembly, scheduled for July 2018 as proposed by the president himself, Díaz-Canel, taking into account the country’s complex current circumstances. The proposal was approved unanimously, in accordance with the tradition of the Assembly.

In general, and contrary to what one would expect from these momentous days, when after almost sixty years the departure of the Castro clan from the presidential armchair has finally happened, there are more unknowns left to unravel in times to come than there are certitudes that the new Cuban president had to offer.

His speech held no promises, certainties or proposals for a more promising course for the millions of the governed, who – for their part – lack hopes or expectations for the “new” government. Perhaps the only miniscule novelty of the presidential discourse was the mention, on two occasions, of the word “prosperity,” towards which, according to the “young” ruler, socialism must lead us.

Nevertheless, in spite the heir’s manifest orthodoxy, his language of the barricades and his frequent attacks against anything that differs from the path marked by the leaders of the “Revolution,” we will have to carefully watch his next steps. Rehashing old speeches is not the same as facing the reality of a country in urgent need of deep changes or refusing to take the necessary steps to reverse the calamitous legacy he has just been handed. Because changes in Cuba are not just an option, but a requirement, beyond the interests of the Power claque, its tendencies, its interests or the desires of the brand-new, freshly unveiled, president.

Going forward, what Raúl’s dauphin “says” will not be as important as what the Cuban president “does.” Without a doubt, the shadows of the two Castros – one a ghost, the other a phony reformer – will continue to perniciously influence his mandate for a time. Unfortunately, “time” is not what this new honcho has a lot of, and betting on continuity and pauses, he could end up as the scapegoat of the Castro regime. His only options are to leap forward or bear the entire responsibility for the bad works and ineptitude of his predecessors, while maintaining the balance between the factions of the old power. He won’t have it easy, but this is what he wished for. Meanwhile, for ordinary Cubans, the horizon continues to be as gloomy today as previously, but, at the end of the day, April 19^th was the first day of a government without Castros. And only that minutest circumstance is, in itself, good news.

Translated by Norma Whiting

If Brazil reached a relevant position in the world economy in just eight years, and if ever the developing countries looked with hope at what was known at the time as “the Brazilian miracle,” it is largely due to the political talent and the economic reforms promoted by Lula, which explains his enormous popularity in his country and the considerable political capital which he still has, even in the midst of the judicial process – a corruption plot not yet concluded – that has landed him in jail.

But, along with all of Lula’s merits listed above is that other essential component of the best exponents of political populism: a mixture of charisma and histrionics that the former President, now a defendant, has deployed astutely, in the purest style of the television soap operas produced by his country, to manipulate the exalted spirits of his followers in his favor. Staying in the political game, despite everything, is one of the most common tricks of populist leaders, regardless of their ideological alignment.

The hoax reached its climax precisely at the end of the 48 hours of the weekend in which he remained resistant – self imprisoned, it could be said – in the face of the order to surrender to the authorities to begin to serve a 12-year prison sentence, when, surrounded by militants of his own party (Partido de los Trabajadores, PT) and other allied parties – among which the everlasting scarlet shadow of the Communists could not be absent – Lula used popular sentimentality to invoke the memory of his late wife on the first anniversary of her death, with a Catholic mass that served to close a chapter in what promises to be an extensive and complicated saga.

Afterwards, before surrendering to the authorities, the beginning of messianism and megalomania surfaced in one who, now purified by his punishment, assumes himself as metamorphosed into the Illuminati of the poor, to harangue his enlightened discourse, with a mystical touch: “I will not stop because I am no longer a human being, I am an idea (…) mixed with your ideas.” And “in this town there are many Lulas.” Apotheosis of the peoples. The crowd cheered deliriously, tears flowed and hugs for the martyr abounded. Curtain down.

It is not personal. It is known that the defense of those who are condemned must be allowed, even from the guillotine, and that those who are hanged also kick about. However, as far as it has transpired, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was prosecuted with the corresponding guarantees under the Brazilian judicial system rules, and he is being convicted of corruption, not because of his political ideas.

Ergo, even though Lula’s downfall benefits his political adversaries, it was Lula himself who, in committing the crime, deeply harmed the PT and dirtied the “cause” of his followers. It is not, then, a “political trial,” as his regional leftist allies want others to believe, and some of them are beginning to fear they could also be splashed by this great mess of putrefaction.

Beyond all that Lula did well, no one is above the Law. After all, whoever is corrupt should be prosecuted and imprisoned, especially those who hold political office. It is true that, in good faith – and judging by the corruption scandals that are being uncovered in recent years among the political classes of any alignment – it would be said that, in order to imprison the dishonest public servants, prison capacities would have to be expanded rapidly, especially in Latin America.

In fact, the history of our region is so lavish in examples of political and administrative decay at all levels that this last uncorking, which continues to expose long chains of corruption and to implicate numerous high level politicians, should not surprise anyone. The novelty – and this, only to a certain extent – is that they are being judged, condemned and imprisoned.

We must not forget the case of the former Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello (who governed between March 1990 and October 1992) as the young politician who assumed the first presidency of a democratic Brazil. He won the elections in the second round – precisely against Lula da Silva – for the right-wing National Reconstruction Party, with the promise of ending the illicit enrichment of public officials.

Paradoxically, just over two years later, Collor de Mello was forced to resign because of investigations of corruption – acceptance of bribes in exchange for political favors – and influence peddling, followed by a Congress that officially requested his dismissal. A technicality in the court process prevented his being found guilty of political corruption, and that saved him from prison. However, Congress did consider him guilty and condemned him to eight years of suppression of his political rights. So far, Collor de Mello has not succeeded in his political career, although he has again attempted to venture into it.

Now, Collor de Mello’s asking his supporters back then to publicly demonstrate against what he called a “coup d’état”, seems to be part of a desperate recourse followed by presidents fallen into disgrace, beyond their political color. Years later, Dilma Rousseff took that same stance when facing her own destitution.

And these are only Brazilian references. We can also mention recent cases of fallen angels in other countries of the region, such as the left-wing Argentine president, Cristina Fernández – also said to be “persecuted politically,” the poor thing – or the right-wing Peruvian president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. It has been said that corruption is not an ideological disease, but a moral one.

And while the spiral of corruption continues to expand, dragging more and more prominent figures of regional politics in its dizzying cone, Latin Americans who are followers of one leader or another – or one party or trend or another – continue to show civic immaturity and the proverbial political infantilism.

So, instead of taking on the challenge of the moment and embracing the end of impunity as an essential principle that, without distinction or privileges, will reign over all public servants, they prefer to project themselves as if this were all a brawl between street gangs, where what really matters is not to prove one’s innocence but to accentuate the guilt of the adversary. It isn’t so much that “mine” is corrupt, but that “yours” is more so. And so it seems that we will continue to the end of time.

To paraphrase a well-known Cuban poet: It’s Latin America, don’t be surprised at anything.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Such behavior, far from disappearing from the official practice, has become the style of the school of Cuban diplomacy. It consists essentially of exchanging the absence of arguments with verbal and at times even physical aggression, as was demonstrated during the VII Summit of the Americas, held in April 2015 in Panama, where the well-trained hosts of the “civil society “of the dictatorship violently attacked the representatives of Cuba’s independent civil society, who were invitees to the same forum.

The show was deplorable and will be engraved in the memory of those who had the questionable privilege of witnessing it. The worst thing, however, is that despite all this previous experience, the organizers of these forums continue to invite the “obnoxious one”.

Behold, the obvious inability of the Cuban Government to behave correctly in the democratic programs of the world was once again demonstrated by the rude behavior of the Cuban Ambassador to Peru, Juan Antonio Fernández, within the framework of the Hemispheric Dialogue held on March 21^st in Lima, in preparation to the forthcoming Summit of the Americas.

This time the outburst of the Cuban amanuensis took place in the midst of a comment from José Luis Vallejo, the Peruvian representative of the Latin American Youth Network for Democracy (RLJD). Vallejo’s “sin” was to make reference in his speech to the ceremony to grant the Oswaldo Payá Awards in Havana, remarking that the prize winners have not been able to attend two of the ceremonies in a row by the express prohibition of the Cuban authorities. Vallejo also expressed his enthusiasm to attend the third award granting ceremony in Havana.

“Don’t even dare mention that name in my presence” the “diplomat” shouted to Castro Vallejo, in an intimidating manner. “I’ll ask you not to stick your nose in Cuban matters. Stop hassling us and stick to whatever you need to discuss.”

And representatives of the regional left claque, fulfilling its traditional mission, immediately applauded enthusiastically from their seats.

Because of his language and his attitude, it seems as if the faunal pawn of the insular dictatorship, instead of participating in respectful dialogue on foreign soil like the rest of the delegates, and in the presence of numerous representatives of various civil organizations in the region, was behaving as if he were on– any Centro Habana street corner, facing some troublemaker trying to sneak in the line to get his coveted quota of rationed potatoes.

The picture is more Kafkaesque because minutes before, during an intervention by the uncompromising official — as had previously been done by his compatriot and associate, Yamila González Ferrer, vice president of the ruling Union of Jurists of Cuba — he had launched a fierce attack against the RLJD, without having been interrupted by the representative of said organization.

However, this unfortunate event is just the prelude to what will be the presence of Castro’s groups at the VIII Summit of the Americas. Only, unlike the previous Summit, where after half a century of isolation, the “new” president of Cuba was given the opportunity to demonstrate that he was at the height of this important regional democratic forum — to which the General responded by blasting the alternative spaces of the Summit to encourage his pack of faithful servants to lash out against other Cubans — this time the Peruvian hosts do know, or at least they should know, what to expect.

In light of today, for many commonsensical people, the presence of the longest dictatorship in this Hemisphere is incomprehensible in a conclave that the Venezuelan government was excluded from, precisely because it did not respect the rights of its people. Without a doubt, the proselytizing work developed by the Castros through their doctor/slaves and other vassals has penetrated the political interests sufficiently strong – though not in democratic feelings – of more than one government in this region.

So, when this coming April we witness once again the shameful Panama experience and the loud troops of the Castro regime’s mob sabotage the VIII Summit of the Americas, let the hosts not complain, and let the rest of the representatives of the democratic governments and civil society organizations not be surprised, because an old Arab proverb will be fulfilled.  It goes like this: “The first time they deceive you, it will be their fault. The second time, the fault will be yours”.

Translated by Norma Whiting

This time, however, it is not a problem of shortage of equipment, but of drivers. The truth about a growing popular rumor about this new fatality has just been confirmed by the director of the Provincial Transportation Company of Havana (EPTH), according to the official press. The aforementioned director said that, currently, the EPTH deficit is 86 drivers, which means – always in their own words – that, on a daily basis, 700,000 passengers cannot be transported in Havana, which represents about 60,000 pesos less in revenues and an average of 500 fewer trips.

The matter is not trivial. Among the four terminals most affected by the exodus of drivers are two with the highest demand: the ones at Alamar and San Agustín.

So, following “the vision of the directors of this company,” the (new) problem in the capital’s public transportation service, that is, the shortage of drivers, is due to “more tempting offers of salaries and hours at other work centers, as well as the increase in inspectors’ demands and actions so what is established in the sector is fulfilled.” (The underlined section contains the author’s views).

There wasn’t the slightest reference to fundamental issues that affect the transportation sector, and in particular, public transportation drivers, such as the salary incompatibile with the always ungrateful task of driving a heavy vehicle, loaded with irritated passengers, circulating through obsolete, insecure roads, full of potholes; the constant harassment of state inspectors, and the obligation to follow to the letter the sacrosanct commandments written by bureaucrats far removed from the actual work from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices.

However, the brainy directors of the EPTH have conceived a solution to “alleviate” the crisis: “in the coming weeks, a contingent of drivers from several provinces will arrive from the provinces, and the call for all those who wish to join the workforce will continue.”

All of which demonstrates the infinite capacity of the leading cadres of the socialist state enterprise to create several problems for each solution instead of one solution for each problem. Because one doesn’t need to be a genius to see that – except for the possible existence of inflated records – if drivers from the interior provinces are the solution to the transportation crisis in the capital, wouldn’t that be creating conditions for a transportation crisis in those provinces?

Another vital point of the matter: in Havana, aren’t there enough housing problems and insufficient shelters for thousands of victims who have lost their homes due to building collapses or evictions? How is the State going to guarantee accommodation and living conditions for those provincial drivers who will come to “save” the passengers of the capital for an undetermined period of time?

The experience of decades of massive “contingents” mobilized towards the capital – for example, policemen and builders from the eastern provinces, mainly during the 1970’s, though the practice has not completely disappeared – shows that this is a boomerang strategy: it not only increases the problem that is being solved but also generates new ones, mainly in the area of housing.

Although we must recognize that the topic of contingents in Cuba is all a State policy: in any crisis situation – which is the norm, not the exception – the creation of a contingent is always proposed. A contingent can serve the government (and only it) in all cases. Thus, there have also been contingents of teachers, doctors, sports coaches, cultural instructors, etc., whose common denominator is not having solved any problem, but the complete opposite.

And it could not be otherwise because, as is known, the word contingent defines something eventual, not definitive; which is why you cannot face a crisis – be it public order, housing, transport or any other – with a “contingent.” It is necessary to deeply reform the roots of the system that generates the evil, otherwise the contingent will end up being the one that takes root.

But, returning to the issue at hand, it would be interesting to know how the EPTH managers suppose that keeping an open call to increase the workforce of the company will resolve the deficit of drivers. Isn’t that the same type of negotiation that called for drivers to work at other locations that provided better wages and more manageable hours? So, what makes them suppose that the next influx of drivers will remain faithful before the helm, and facing the ferocious harassment (supposedly “demands”) of the inspectors, for the same salary and with the same schedule that determined the stampede of the previous drivers?

Paradoxically, in this case, as in many of the complex problems that overwhelm Cubans today, the solution is very simple and not at all new: allow the creation of autonomous cooperatives of transportation workers, give the fleet to these cooperatives, allow for those cooperative members to purchase fuel at reasonable prices and import cars and spare parts and apply a fair tax burden that encourages work for the sector. In summary, allow the freedoms and rights of workers in the sector. Only then will the eternal transportation crisis disappear, not in the capital, but in all of Cuba.

Because we Cubans have only one problem: an obtuse and failed sixty-year-old political system, which threatens to become eternal.

And in Cuba everything, even a humble bus driver’s employment post, is a reflection of the general crisis of the political system, and as such, constitutes a potential threat that must be “solved” deep down from the structures at the service of the regime. And while we’re waiting around, we can only exclaim what our grandparents used to say: “what a mess!”

Translated by Norma Whiting

Protests were immediate. The objections were initiated through the Facebook page of an official journalist who received a long reply from the wife of the victim, Mrs. Olga Salanueva, expanding the matter in detail. Numerous fans of the former spies posted their comments on the same social network and on some websites that have joined the debate on the case, collaterally revealing other demons that lie beneath the national opinion and are far more significant than the exclusion – another supposed “injustice” – suffered by a simple, utilitarian and disposable element of the Castro regime, or as they are often called, “useful idiots” like René González or the other two who were omitted.

The OnCuba website published an extensive article that starts in an apologetic journey about the five infiltrated agents of the State Security who were imprisoned in the US, and ends with their return to Cuba, meandering through the cyclopean campaign and the mobilizations deployed in Cuba and abroad in favor of their release. The legal defense costs, the artificial insemination of the wife of Gerardo Hernández at a private clinic, the frequent trips of the family members of the prisoners and the large support group put together by Cuban government officials around the world, remains an absolute secret to this day.

The truth is that, after Mrs. Salanueva resentment, it is perfectly established that her husband was in a position to assume the candidacy and eventually the position as deputy, something that the five “deserve” since all “are more tried than chocolate” and “it is in very bad taste to try to establish differences” among them. In fact, the style in which Salanueva expresses her displeasure seems to suggest a peculiar way of interpreting the deputy position: more as a recognition award for her husband’s merits (and those of his heroic “brothers”) than as a mandate to the service of the people and the nation.

Obviously, Salanueva longs for the times when, as prisoners in US jails, all of them had the same rank and their families received similar attentions and benefits, and she now objects that some are now considered bigger heroes than others and that the perks are not shared uniformly.

An unequal treatment that – although she does not express it directly – is also evident in the position that each of them was assigned upon their return to Cuba. In René’s case, he was assigned a post as irrelevant and obscure as the vice-presidency of the José Martí Cultural Society, but one which he has fully complied with “despite his task having nothing to do with his vocation, and his not being able to even exercise the profession he loves,” affirms his angry wife.

However, all the gossip and disagreements are unprecedented inasmuch as they break with the usual acquiescence of the “revolutionary” ranks and indicate that an indeterminate number of subjects of the pro-government sector is willing to question the status quo strongly and to demand explanations.

Furthermore, those who support what we might call the new cause of the Five – or perhaps we should say of the Three – are demanding rights of political participation, at least in relation to the representation they aspire to have in Parliament, beyond the “political measures” of a National Candidacy Commission – which, as the Electoral Law stipulates, has the prerogative to nominate 50% of the deputy candidates – whose legitimacy is left unquestioned, since it only pursues “the satisfaction and safeguard of the current real power”.

And who is the subject of that “current real power”? It is not mentioned, but inferred. In any case, it is the “formal leaders who absorb political activity in Cuba today,” specified in the OnCuba text as those who lack the “tremendous accumulation of popular sympathy” – OnCuba states – that the five former spies, in their role as “potential leaders” do have.

It would seem that by repeating the lie “the people are sovereign” some of the faithful in the Castro regime have come to believe it and really want to wear the crown, something like an unthinkable advance in the era of Castro I, but an unequivocal indicator of the state of dissatisfaction of broad social sectors, even though there are still those who naively believe that Cuban deputies – that strange amalgam made up of bureaucrats, artists, intellectuals, “sports glories” and machete yielding millionaires in a country where there isn’t even sugarcane left, and now even recycled spies – really have the capacity to make political decisions.

Those who consider all this cyber-bullying a trivial matter should take into account that in conditions in Cuba, after almost 60 years of totalitarianism in which the governing dome and its institutions have kept everything under control concerning the electoral system and “elected” parliamentarians, it seems like a real surprise to have such an avalanche of criticism and demands from a social base that defines itself as revolutionary, that manifests itself impatient for the hope of a “never materializing” electoral reform and that should grant them greater participation in the political decisions of the country.

Anyway, and taking into consideration that there are a mere 80 days remaining until the general-president Raul Castro leaves his position at the head of the Cuban government, such an uproar among his hardened revolutionary troops must be worrisome. Just in case, on the night of Thursday, January 25^th, a few hours after the beginning of the cyber protest, the nobody’s hero was unveiled: René González appeared on a TV special news broadcast about the upcoming celebration of Martí’s birthday celebration, as if to demonstrate implicitly that his fidelity to the regime is above all proven. Including degradation and oblivion. Certainly not!

Translated by Norma Whiting

An insignificant figure, especially if you take into account a simple fact not mentioned by Fariñas Rodríguez in his article, but which is of major importance because of its implications: methylphenidate is a synthetic psychostimulant substance – that is, a drug – that raises the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the central nervous system. Because of its molecular structure, methylphenidate is similar to amphetamines, but its effects – which start approximately 30 minutes after the pill is ingested and last for several hours – are analogous to those of cocaine, although less powerful.

Thus, these criminals would extract, not the raw material of, say, the dypirones, the hypotensives or the diuretics – medicines that are scarce and in great demand among the population – but “coincidentally” a psychotropic substance… But the journalists, (piously?) overlook that detail. Could it be that on this Day of the Holy Innocents the official Cuban press tries to pull the wool over our eyes? Is it a question of deceiving the national public opinion by concealing what is clearly an illegal drug trade, that is, a drug trafficking network within the Island?

Undoubtedly, the official Cuban press is like fine lingerie: what it insinuates is much more interesting and attractive than what it really shows. The rest of the article leads into other administrative considerations, the kind absolutely not commented on in Granma, which should imply criminal consequences for others, much higher than those thugs trapped in the case and pointed out in the same old article.

So that the reader is immersed in an ocean of questions and many concerns.

Let us put forward some questions that emanate from this published article – not by the enemy press or by the spokesmen of the Empire to distort reality and damage the Revolution – but precisely by the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba:

• It is obvious that (at least) at the aforementioned laboratory there is no adequate control over raw materials, including those that constitute a strong potential for the development of an underground drug market in Cuba, with all that this implies;
• Adequate quality control is not carried out with systematic and thorough randomized examinations of the batches of medicines produced in the laboratory, since indeterminate quantities of placebo went to the retail network, instead of the tablets with the appropriate components;
• The technological records of pharmaceutical laboratories can easily be violated by unscrupulous people working in this industry;
• The machinery of the laboratory is capable of being used at will by operators and other workers;
• There is no effective surveillance system on the production process despite the fact that psychostimulants substances are handled which – as it is informally known – are beginning to flood many neighborhoods and very crowded areas of the Cuban capital.

At this point, it begs the question: what guarantees are there that these and other violations are not being committed in other laboratories, including the production of drugs that are exported to other countries?  Who can the parents of the children make claims to, since – according to the article –children were consuming adulterated tablets, ineffective for their illnesses? How serious and reliable can the certifications be that guarantee the production of medicines in Cuba?

How long will there be an inexcusable irresponsibility for all managers of the pharmaceutical industry and other officials related to it, from those closest to the production process up to the new president of BioCubaFarma, Mr. Eduardo Martínez Díaz and the Minister of Public Health, Dr. Roberto Morales Ojeda?

Is anyone really thinking that “the training of personnel, the sense of belonging, the ethical and moral values and political-ideological development” will be effective strategies to eradicate the crimes that in the article are euphemistically called “extraordinary events”?

Surely without meaning to, these correspondents of Granma have put their finger on a sore that, if they think about it, they might have preferred to leave hidden, because the truth is that the decay of today’s Cuban reality is so widespread and uncontrollable that it is impossible to be able to uncover a fraction of it without exposing a barrage of corruption that will splash even the most egregious feet when the crap hits the fan.

They have opened another Pandora’s box that, with all certainty, will have some sequels… perhaps some of which were not foreseen. They are the risks of the profession, even for those who exclude the commitment to the truth in order to prostrate themselves at the feet of ideologies.

Translated by Norma Whiting

However, some signs point out that in the background of this sudden date change for the departure of Castro II from the Presidency lies the urgent need to make certain readjustments in the power machinery, in order to ensure their own interests and those of their beneficiaries, which reinforces the hypothesis of some analysts who sustain the existence of significant cracks in the once monolithic structure of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) and of the leadership, based on alleged struggles between the most conservative and orthodox sectors (supposedly “Stalinist” or “Fidelista”) and those most prone to the pseudo-changes introduced in the last decade (“reformists” or “Raulistas,” as they are called). Struggles that would have arisen after the forced retirement of Fidel Castro from the government, and made deeper through the 11 years that followed.

Perhaps the Raulistas are waging a strategic battle in order to guarantee their own continuity at the head of the country, and especially the safeguarding of their economic interests, so everything must be tied and re-tied before the presidency’s transfer to the hands of a loyalist who does not belong to the Historical Generation, avoiding unforeseen and unwanted events.

The truly surprising thing is the impression of urgency and instability that is being transmitted, trying to consolidate, in a matter of three months, something that should have been achieved in a decade, that is, to avoid any danger, which, at the same time, belies the discourse of “unity of all Revolutionaries” wielded by the totality of the leaders and high officials interviewed while standing by the ballot boxes during the municipal elections of this past November.

Of course, the cryptic style of (dis)information in Cuba forces us to decipher hidden codes, with the risk of erroneous interpretations and inaccuracies. However, it does not seem accidental that the most important information published on the front page of the official press this Thursday, 21 December,  was the previous day’s celebration of the 4th Plenary of the Central Committee (CC) of the PCC – parallel to the parliamentary debates – within the framework of which the First Secretary of the Party, Raúl Castro, announced the celebration of the next Plenary, which will take place in March 2018, a fact that cannot but be related to the coming election of the new Cuban President.

It is possible speculate that this next Plenary of the CC of the PCC could be, above all, the occasion introduced by the general-president and his most faithful acolytes, not only to “expand on the experiences obtained during the implementation process of the Guidelines and in the projection of the coming years, according to the official press statement, but to strengthen commitments and strategically prop up the one that will later be officially “elected” by the State Council to occupy the presidential chair, and perhaps to also secretly agree among the ideological elite who will be the next First Secretary to be elected in the framework of the VIII Congress.

But the current constraints of Raulism, in a December that has had more haste than pauses*, are not confined to the political plane, but began instead to affect the economic plane. Just a few days ago, on 13 December, untimely “new legal norms” appeared and went into effect over the Cuban business system.

In other words, the “improvement” experimentally initiated by the general-president during the 1990’s to (gradually) metamorphose the high command of his army into civilian entrepreneurs – who now direct all the strategic lines of the country’s economy – and later endorsed in the Guidelines, are now legitimized in the legal body through decrees and decree-laws, which gives the future President a legal tool that not only protects the changes implemented until now by the general-president against real or potential internal adversaries, but will allow an extension of their future scope in the interests of the elite and their favored ones.

But beyond all speculation we must recognize that the Cuban political landscape is at least confusing. In any other country where the predominant characteristics of the government are hesitation, setbacks, failure to comply with all its promises and, finally, the postponement of the presidential elections, the situation would be described as a “political crisis.” Not so in Cuba. At least not explicitly. Four generations of Cubans on the island have survived for six decades under conditions of dictatorship, suffering crises of all kinds without even internalizing them as such. How would they perceive the crises that are resolved within the bosom of the olive-green Olympus?

In any case, we will have to follow closely the political events that come our way in 2018. Meanwhile, in the midst of so much murkiness something is clear: the proclaimed unity of the power cupula is just another myth of a worn out and outdated gerontocracy that today seems to doubt even the survival of its bleak legacy.

*Translator’s note: “Without haste, but without pause” has been a catch phrase for Raul Castro, in speaking of economic reforms in Cuba.

Translated by Norma Whiting

Therefore, and in spite of that fact that in Cuba the separation of powers between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches doesn’t exist either – because these are concentrated in the most holy trinity Government-State-Party, legal representative of that ambiguous and intangible body that has been called “the people” – Cubans should not have any reason to question the electoral results that the National Electoral Commission reports, however surprising the figures may seem.

It is worth remembering, in advance, that it is Law 72 (the electoral law) itself, which, when establishing the functions of the National Electoral Commission (CEN), certifies the subordination of the latter to the Council of State inasmuch as it determines that it is to “it” – and not to the “people” – that it must report the results of the national polls in the referendums and the corresponding computations, as well as rendering a “detailed report of the unfolding of each electoral process” (Chapter II, Article 22, paragraphs k and m) .

Thus, the possibility remains that the totalitarian power might be (as it is, in fact) the one that ultimately determines the electoral results and, eventually, manipulates the figures, according to its own interests.

A very peculiar feature of the Cuban electoral law that allows for tricks by the governing class is the number of registered voters, never known publicly in advance of the referendums, even though every Cuban citizen since birth is rigorously registered in the Management Registers of each municipality where he or she resides on the Island. Perhaps the only efficient ministry in Cuba, the Ministry of the Interior, controls the Registry, which in turn appears, duplicated, in each Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, so it should be relatively simple to monitor the voter’s location and update the electoral roll whenever it is required.

Thus, the updating of the register should result in an almost automatic task, since Article 5 of the Electoral Law establishes that the right to vote belong to all Cubans “who have reached the age of sixteen (16), who are in full enjoyment of their political rights “…; while Article 6 specifies the requirements that must be fulfilled in order to exercise the right to active suffrage, among which is “to be recorded in the Register of Voters of the Municipality and in the the electoral district corresponding to the voter’s established place of residence…”

For this reason, there is no logical explanation how it is possible that, after the voter registries have been updated in each constituency and after having had a “successful dynamic test” on Sunday, November 19^th, prior to the elections, when it was supposedly demonstrated that “everything was ready and arranged for a triumphant electoral day,” the CEN has “updated” for the first time the national electoral register precisely on the day of the elections. And it is even more incomprehensible that in the five days following the elections, the final numbers of this registry have varied, not by a few tens of thousands, but by hundreds of thousands of voters.

Let’s review the facts: in the press conference behind closed doors, offered by the president of the CEN, Alina Balseiro, on the afternoon of Monday, November 27^th, to provide information about the “preliminary results” of the elections, this official stated that the voter registration update had yielded a total of 8.8 million voters. This implies a colossal increase in relation to the 8.4 that, according to official data disclosed at that occasion – was the initial estimate.

As if by magic, in just the two and a half years that had elapsed since the last elections, 410,158 new voters appeared, almost half a million more, in the national register. This, in spite of the waves of emigration abroad realized by tens of thousands of Cubans, most of them of voting age, in the same period – and in frank challenge to the many desertions, deaths, dissidences and other adverse factors. Who would have imagined it!

Such an exaggerated number allowed the authorities, in just 24 hours, to increase to 85.9% the embarrassing 82% registered at the polls just one hour before the official closing of the polling stations, but also to declare that the attendance of the electorate had surpassed that of the elections held in April 2015.

The impressing avatars of the electoral numbers of the registry did not stop there, however. Because not even that surprising and already fat attendance at the polls satisfied the inflated official expectations. No matter what anybody says, public opinion tends to internalize percentage figures more easily than the numbers of voters, so the collective memory would have archived 85.9% of voters: a result lower than the 88.30% reached in 2015. The authorities were not going to allow such an unacceptable blunder, because the so-called “Fidel’s Elections” had to be, at least, superior to the previous ones. Those were the orders and they had to be carried out.

And this is how the CEN reapplied its twisted sense of mathematics and worked the new “miracle” of inflating to an impressive 89.02% the number of people attending the polls, with a total of 7,610,183 voters. Thus, the final “compatibilization” of the results with the Register of Voters was published last Friday, December 1^st by the official press.

How did they achieve this new phenomenon? Easy, with the impudence of those who believed to be above punishment, the scribes of the geriatric palace returned to “update” the voter registry, and, as a result, it contracted again, this time by almost a quarter of a million voters. More nonsense, whose sole purpose was to allow the percentile result. If they couldn’t bring it up to the ideal number, at least they would bring it up to reach a higher number than on previous elections. And so, what appears to be the most unquestionable fraud in the 40 years of Castro’s electoral practices to date, was achieved.

Finally, the CEN certified that the final electoral roll for these newly held elections was 8,548,608 voters, which means a whopping 251,392 fewer than those reported in the preliminary results.

With so much inflating and deflating the registry and the polls over decades, the abundance of many flabby cheeks among the lords of Power are justified. However, all this overwhelming saga of numbers and implausible percentage figures undoubtedly point the finger at a gross manipulation of the election results, although we have no chance to prove it, which is another trick which the conspirators counted on.

Nothing new, of course, only that on this occasion the Cuban authorities have shown a rampant disregard for national and international public opinion. Not coincidentally, the journalistic note that reports the “official results” of the Cuban democratic party appears, not on the cover, but just on the third page of Granma, the most official of the official newspapers. They know that they need to lower the profile of even the biggest lies, otherwise, it is way too big a pill to swallow.

Interestingly, as an additional fact, these meticulous back-and-forth “compatibilizations” that favored the regime so much did nothing for the 4.12% of blank ballots or the 4.07% of canceled ones, so that we must accept – because this is what the CEN and its leaders, who (no sarcasm) are the only ones who know the truth – that in a few days the number of voters that swelled the ranks of those who went to the polls to exercise their right to vote, but additionally, their ballots became valid.

And since in Cuba the decisions “from above” cannot be appealed, the olive-green gerontocracy and its conga lines, with their proverbial triumphalism, will have scored this burlesque farce, not as the desperate play that it actually was, but as another “victory.” If so, it will be them and not us who are truly deceived.

Translated by Norma Whiting