Pedro Corzo – Page 2 – Translating Cuba

Cuba: Opposition and Opponents

Demonstrators in the Plaza de Cibeles, in Madrid, during the “March for Cuba” held in August 2021. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, August 26, 2023 — Developing an effective political opposition in a democratic society is a complex and delicate matter, but when a dictatorship is challenged, the situation worsens drastically, since the purpose of autocrats is the permanent conservation of power and, for that, they must destroy the opponents before they become a force capable of dethroning them.

Reflecting on this motivated the former political prisoner Amado Rodríguez, 23 years behind bars, to say: “In Cuba there are many opponents, many brave ones, but it has not yet been possible in these more than 60 years to articulate an efficient opposition because the dictatorship prevents it, with its frequent raids, plus the iron social control it exercises over the population.” One of the first requirements of absolutism is to impose severe control over the citizenry through systematic, continuous, and brutal repression.

Another factor is the economic poverty of the opponents, particularly when the dictatorship acts within the framework of a totalitarian system.

Elections, even in democracy, are difficult and complex, so it is not difficult to imagine under dictatorships such as those of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, how false elections are called, particularly after the experiences of the autocrats Rafael Correa and Daniel Ortega, who called for elections without properly securing the fraud.

On the other hand, since public management is a monopoly of the State-Government, the political operation of opponents is extremely complicated, a factor that does not prevent the appearance of opponents, although it does not cease to be extremely dangerous to develop and articulate an efficient opposition that can successfully challenge the government. continue reading

In order to bring together a viable opposition, it is essential to involve, with total commitment, a percentage of people similar to the sector that makes up the hard core of power. Let’s say that any of our despots has 35 percent of the electoral mass identified with their program; if so, the opponent must have a similar support if they want to compete with chances of success, and that is with the assumption that the elections are not rigged.

One factor that fully plays in favor of these rulers is the proliferation of candidates. When there are many challengers, even if it is in the primaries, the opposition force is divided, unless the candidates and their supporters have an absolute desire for change, regardless of who leads it.

In addition, there is a situation, despite how often it has been repeated, which has not served as a lesson to opposition leaders, and that is that the regime, being aware of the electoral farce that it promotes, does not make concessions regarding to the electoral power, knowing that the opponents, due to their democratic discourse, are obliged to participate in a certain way, even though there are not sufficient guarantees for the elections.

Facing a dictatorship, particularly the populist ones of any sign, demands great moral solvency and a lot of courage. Autocrats, politicians, or simple criminals, do not respect differences and resort to crime without contemplation, also, they have plenty of guard dogs, who, believing, that they interpret the will of their masters who are almost never wrong, tear enemies to pieces.

In addition, it is important to highlight that one of the fundamental characteristics of these regimes is the high level of political participation of the population. It is difficult to find indifference. One is against or in favor, the most notable being anger, irascibility and intolerance, which makes an appearance in discussions related to public affairs a situation that invariably ends in favor of the authority.

It should not be ignored, I consider it the basis of this column, that political predators, be they Castro-Chavistas, Marxists or Fascists, do not consider those who oppose them as mere rivals or adversaries; for them, those who reject them are enemies to be destroyed physically and morally. Consequently, those who do not agree that their living conditions should reflect the decisions of others, and whose opinions are censored, must prepare to face deadly enemies, who seek our destruction.

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New Economic Actors in Cuba

Puesto de Buenas Vibras [Good Vibes Post], a private business, at the Linea Cultural Station Fair, in El Vedado. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, July 29, 2023 — I have rarely addressed Cuban economic issues or those of any other country, but upon receiving my fellow prisoner and friend Juan José Estrada a statement from the Vice Minister of the Food Industry of Cuba, Midalys Naranjo Blanco, I have no choice but to venture into one of the great failures of Castroism.

The official stated that the Cuban seas did not have enough fish to feed the population, a sovereign nonsense that shows the stupidity of those who hold power in Cuba, never because of competition, but because of their unrestricted submission to totalitarianism, distinguishing themselves among all of them, Miguel Díaz -Canel.

I share the vision of many friends that the most capable assets of the regime have always worked in two ministries, the Police and the Armed Forces, and it cannot be denied also in Foreign Affairs, but this is a unit of the branch that directs the repressive forces.

It must be remembered that, despite the corruption that existed in Cuba and with all the money that Fulgencio Batista and the hierarchs of his regime allegedly stole, in 1958 our country ranked third in Latin American reserves of gold, dollars and convertible securities. Gold: with 373 million dollars was only below Venezuela (1,050 million) and Brazil (465 million); and sixth place in the continent in gross national income, 2,834 billion for a population of 6.6 million inhabitants.

It is worth noting that contrary to what is currently happening, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in calorie consumption, Cuba was only behind Argentina with 2,730 calories per person. In 1957, the FAO itself highlighted that Cuba was the largest exporter of agricultural products in Latin America in proportion to its population. Today it imports a large amount of food, including from the United States, 328 million dollars, and this, with the embargo.

True, we did not live in a paradise, nor in the hell of the present, but we were the third country in the region, in 1958, with the most number of telephones, newspapers and cars per 1,000 inhabitants. continue reading

I recently read that the dictatorship, through the State-run Cubatramite [literally “Cuba paperwork”] agency, is promoting MSMEs ( micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises), as Estrada affirms, “a socialist invention to save the economy that they themselves sank when they abolished private companies,” particularly small businesses, including the most insignificant, creating countless government companies that confused the population while still having fun, such as the famous Ecochinche, the Consolidated Company of bedbugs.

Let’s remember, including the blind, who did not want to see the disaster, in 1968 all self-employment was prohibited. Even the shoe repairer, the traditional scissors sharpener and the home-based barber, was eradicated, on pain of going to prison.

They must remember, especially the Castroites of the time, that on March 13, 1968, the government expropriated 11,878 bodegas, 8,101 restaurants, including street frita stalls — which sold the Cuban hamburger — 4,544 mechanics shops, 3,345 carpentry shops, 6,653 laundries, and an endless list of small businesses passed to the State.

The confiscation and closure of the 3,198 bars was the only time I saw the drunk on the block upset with the dictatorship, the one who most vehemently calling for an execution, and it was because his favorite bar, El Hatuey, had been closed. Overnight it was politically incorrect to have a drink.

Those entrepreneurs, or as they say today, better still, with pure Castroite language, “new economic actors,” had their assets confiscated regardless of whether the workplace was in their own home.

I clarify that the seizures would have been many more, but the inventory of small businesses had been reduced, among other reasons because people who were sentenced to prison for political reasons, had all their assets confiscated, however modest they were. And I am not mentioning the large companies that had disappeared from the economy several years earlier.

In short, Fidel Castro and his henchmen, in one of those many crazy nights, robbed 55,636 MSMEs that were on the Island, all Cuban properties, most of which were staffed by family and friends, employing more than two million people.

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No to the Deportation of Free Cubans

Ramón Saúl Sánchez (center), leader of the Democracy Movement, during a protest in Miami. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, July 22, 2023 — The topic that I will address below is an issue that has not been dealt with much, if at all, by the so-called Cubanologists in exile, a very complex curia that brings together academics and experts in the Cuban plot, as well as explorers and posh opportunists, not to mention other specimens, part of the congregation, who provide services to the enemies of Cuba’s freedom.

In the United States, there is a significant number of Cuban citizens who are threatened with deportation, for having violated some legislation in force in their fight against the totalitarian Castro regime, the real threat to this nation and to those who defend freedom and citizen rights.

These people did not commit crimes for personal gain, but rather to destroy the staunchest enemy of democracy and freedom in the hemisphere. They are fighting the main promoter of a political model that violates all the rights of the citizens of the country that ensnares, as is the case in Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia and is a real threat to many of our republics, such as Honduras, Argentina, Brazil or Mexico, without the rest of the countries ceasing to be among their objectives.

The deportation of any citizen to Cuba entails serious dangers for their well-being and life, but when that extradition is of a staunch enemy of the regime, as is the case of Ramón Saúl Sánchez and other compatriots residing in this country, we can be sure that they will be subjected to the most criminal and abusive practices that the henchmen of Castroism are capable of carrying out, without excluding death from their extensive recipes of terror. continue reading

Ramón left the Cuba he loves so much, although he barely knew it, when he was only 12 years old. His life has always been marked by exile with all that this implies of uprooting and family separation, and taking precedence over all conditions is his commitment to fight for freedom and democracy for his country.

That obligation led him to be during his youth to become one of the most notable and committed activists in the confrontation with totalitarianism, getting involved in the only form of struggle that the dictatorship made possible, overthrowing the dictator by violent methods.

Sánchez told a journalist from the EFE agency the causes of the setbacks he suffered in such a precise way that no one should have any doubts about his integrity and commitment to the rights of all. His truth is reiterated in Cuba despite the decades that have elapsed: “My homeland lives the terrible solitude of oppression, the tearing of families and the violation of its sovereignty.”

Sánchez, for acting in accordance with his convictions, went to prison for four and a half years. He refused to testify before a federal grand jury investigating an alleged 1980 attack on despot Fidel Castro in New York. Ramón’s civic conscience led him to be a conscientious objector to the denunciation that was demanded of him. He simply acted like so many other citizens who are opposed to participating in a war for reasons of conscience.

Ramón spent more time in prison than many criminals, but it did not affect his spirit, on the contrary, he came out of prison strengthened in his ideals and with a new vision of the fight for democracy that many did not understand at first. His perseverance and sacrifice have been well received by those who do not make concessions to the insular tyranny.

Sánchez has become a remarkable civic leader, with a hemispheric vision of freedom that sets him apart. He is in solidarity with all the oppressed regardless of the border where he was born, he fervently believes in non-violence and, to make public the demand for his rights and those of others, he has carried out several hunger strikes and returned to prison.

This conscientious objector risks being deported. His activism for many years is shown in civil disobedience and in public demands in favor of those who seek protection in this country and in organizing flotillas of boats to protest in the vicinity of Cuba, because his enemy is Castro’s totalitarianism, not the United States of America.

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Cuba: The Violence of the 26th of June, the Peace of the 11th of July

The moment when several young people overturned a patrol car at the corner of Toyo, in Havana, during the protests on 11 July 2021. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, July 15, 2023 — We have reached the second anniversary of the peaceful protests led by young Cubans on 11 July 2021, and close to the 67th anniversary of the bloody attack on the Moncada barracks, organized and directed by Fidel Castro on 26 June 1953.

The protests of July 11th did not have the objective of seizing power, as was always the ambition of the Castro brothers and their acolytes, although it is fair to recognize that the demands for “freedom” from these young people, who have been imprisoned, imply a deadly demand to all tyranny.

The attack of July 26, 1953 was the starting point for the destruction of the Republic of Cuba. What seemed to be a new revolt in the convulsed history of the nation, was the beginning of a tragedy that has demolished Cubans, and the country, to its deepest roots.

In reality, it was another violent act in our history, perhaps the most poorly planned and worst executed under the command of a particularly ambitious gang member with messianic airs, who never spared any damages in order to achieve his goals. Undoubtedly, the attack on the military stronghold transformed Fidel Castro into a kind of star of the cult of violence on the Island and abroad. He vertiginously stopped being a university gangster with a pistol at his belt, to become the champion of all those who wanted to do justice, for themselves and in their way.

Unfortunately for Cuba and the hemisphere, Fidel Castro, although he failed as a ruler, succeeded in his intentions as a snake charming piper because he managed to get many people to follow him and even impose his political formula of taking power and keeping it until death. For examples, at least four: Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega. continue reading

The seduction that Castro’s proposals exercised over his national and foreign supporters does not differ much from that achieved by his teachers Adolfo Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin. Regardless of the ideology that each one of them promoted, they always found eager subjects to implement their delusions, which have always resulted in more violence, destruction and death.

It is true that the attack on the Moncada Barracks and the Granma expedition were a resounding failure. In addition, the guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra, the supposed invasion to Las Villas and the final attack on a falsely armored train, have been oversized feats, we must recognize that the survivors of the assault, particularly the Castro brothers, imposed a regime that is close to sixty-five years old and outlived its main builder.

It is a great truth that Castroism has nothing to be proud of, but unfortunately the history of Cuba cannot be written without making reference to the mandate of Fidel Castro, for many scholars, the most extensive dictatorial exercise in history.

Fidel Castro’s return to politics was the consequence of the lack of identity of purpose of another dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who decided to release the Moncada attackers a few months after their confinement despite having caused the death of 18 of his men and wounding 28 others. Nine of the assailants died and 11 were wounded, although, according to this information, numerous attackers were executed immediately after their capture, sparing Fidel Castro and his brother, Raúl, their lives, apparently, even to kill one indulged in indulgences.

Paradoxically, the protesters of 11 July 2021 without murders to their charge, received much higher sanctions than Fidel, who, being directly responsible for dozens of deaths, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, of which he only served 22 months, without limiting his human rights.

The results of the 2021 protests, the blood shed, was the work of totalitarianism, with several hundred prosecuted and sentenced, with at least 36 of them sentenced to between 5 and 25 years in prison for the crime of sedition, is another strong evidence. Since the dictatorship does not voluntarily give up its prerogatives, it must be wrested from it, as the Bronze Titan, Antonio Maceo, wrote: “Freedom is conquered at the edge of the machete, it is not requested; begging for rights is typical of cowards incapable of exercising them.” Honor to the youth of July 11.

Honor to the youth of July 11th.

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Castro’s Tortures

Inmates in the Combinado del Este are subjected to discriminatory treatment, labor violations, and physical and mental torture. (EFE)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 10 June 2023 — The NGO Prisoners Defenders, led by Javier Larrondo, has presented a report entitled “First Comprehensive Study on Torture in Cuba,” a well-prepared work that demonstrates how the Cuban totalitarian regime ruthlessly abuses its citizens regardless of age, sex or any other condition.

According to the document, the work began in 2022 based on 15 patterns of torture and 181 victims, who “served as a random and statistically representative sample of a group of 1,277 civilian political prisoners, all of them tortured in Cuban prisons in the last 12 months.”

“Eighty percent of those random cases suffered more than five types of torture, and children and young people are two of the most tortured groups. Gabriela was a protester on 11J who went to prison at the age of 17. According to written and oral testimony, the guards made her squat, put their fingers in her vagina and threatened to rape her. She still suffers emotionally from the many things they did to her, says the document.

This kind of research is fundamental for those who remain determined not to see the tragedy that the Castro regime has meant for Cuba and Cubans, a situation that undoubtedly repeats itself in Havana’s allies (Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia), as well as in other countries that are attracted by totalitarian temptation.

In 2012, under the direction of the filmmaker Luis Guardia and the pro-democracy activist Francisco Paco Lorenzo, we produced a documentary entitled Castro’s Tortures, a historic film that can be found on social networks, which shows how from the moment Fidel and Raúl Castro came to power, torture and the violation and abuse of human rights have not ceased on the Island. continue reading

The film begins with Castro saying that in Cuba there has never been repression, torture or murder, and it continues with former political prisoner Abel Nieves responding that even as a teenager he was tortured. They put him on his back, his arms at his sides, unable to move, with water running over his body. He concludes by saying that he spent seven days in that wet coffin, one of the gloomy drawers of the Atares Palace in Havana.

Abel, a 21-year-old prisoner, was a man of great moral integrity but very affected by the numerous abuses he suffered. His dedication to the Cuban democratic cause was absolute, and his commitment throughout imprisonment was extremely remarkable.

Orestes Pérez, a 28-year-old prisoner, like other prisoners in Topes de Collantes, was tied to a large stone and thrown into a pool to get him to denounce his companions. Evelio Ancheta was savagely tortured in the gloomy cabañitas with sudden and radical temperature changes. He was also thrown tied up into a swimming pool, and the family was misinformed about his condition. Aurelio Hernández, in the same place, was injected with sodium pentotal, received electric shocks and was subjected to simulated shootings , as was Rigoberto Hernández. Prisoner Annete Escandón did not suffer from mental problems but was given 20 electroshocks in the Mazorra hospital for three months, the same as other prisoners, including Raúl Salazar, who suffered severe consequences from the torture.

It would be painful to describe all the witness statements in the documentary. In addition to physical abuse, there are “violations of labor rights, the legislated violation of due criminal process, the violation of multiple fundamental rights and freedoms such as freedom of thought, expression, assembly, association, movement and religious freedom, among others. Other aspects are the legislated impunity for abuses by the authorities, arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, provisional imprisonment and the lack of defense lawyers in Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Russians in Havana, the Second Possession

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during the signing of bilateral agreements in 2019. (EFE)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 4 June 2023 — It is evident that the Kremlin exerts a more than fatal attraction on the Castros. I do not say Russians or Communists; it’s those famous buildings that have transcended in time as a symbol of power and devotion for those who think and feel like autocrats, a feeling shared to the core by the Cuban rulers, without a doubt, the most representative despots of that fervor.

First were the tsars, then the general secretaries of the Communist Party and now Colonel Vladimir Putin, who, as a good KGB, knows that the Island can be his most reliable preserve, since exploitation knows no limits or borders there. Everything seems to indicate that the employee of the Castro family, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is pushing himself harder than his predecessors, something impossible to imagine, to be in that situation.

Fidel and Raúl Castro handed over Cuba to the Soviet leaders. The bolos, as the Cubans called them, could do whatever they wanted, including settling anywhere in the national territory, in exchange for a very generous subsidy that allowed the construction of the wall of totalitarianism.

The eagerness to Sovietize Cuba was so intense that the regime, since 1959, has granted scholarships to tens of thousands of young people to study in the communist paradise. Paradoxically, a significant number of those young people did not buy the fable, becoming staunch enemies of communist proposals, many of them assuming leadership positions, particularly in Europe, in the fight against the Castro regime. continue reading

Soviet power in Cuba was overwhelming. The Castros responded blindly to Moscow’s mandates abroad and applied the precepts of their Motherland to the interior of the Island. Cubans of my generation should not forget that Soviet and Russian literature flooded libraries and bookstores, cinema was a propaganda festival about the invincible socialist world and the artistic companies of the communist area did not cease with their great spectacles.

Nor should we leave aside the chronic shortage of food that was solved with the magical appearance of a can of Russian meat; that the most popular medicine, for a time, was a balm of resins with a name impossible to pronounce, until both disappeared; and that, after standing in line for hours to enter a miserable amusement park, access was denied to Cubans if a group of tourists from the socialist countries arrived.

The privileged relationship between Havana and Moscow was not interrupted because the Castros were nationalists but because the Kremlin of the time, managed by Mikhail Gorbachev, decided not to continue paying the bills of the country that had contributed the most to Soviet bankruptcy.

Now, as former political prisoner José Estrada wrote a while ago, former military, KGB and their heirs are returning, for the moment dressed in civilian clothes and discussing investments and profits, as in the past they instructed the repressors and Island bureaucrats on how to implement effective social control. In turn the Castros, not at all selfish, shared these tools with their associates from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, just as they would with any enlightened leader ready to implement their instructions.

The autocrat Díaz-Canel and his henchmen have declared that they are ready to provide special conditions to Russian businessmen, “including the right to use Cuban land for 30-year terms, the tax-free importation of agricultural machinery and the right to repatriate the profits in foreign currency, which the Cuban Government currently restricts.”

This second triumphal entry of Russia into Cuba, by the hand of Vladimir Putin, does not seek to solve the needs of the population, but to perpetuate the Castro dynasty in government and strengthen an alliance with the Kremlin that to some extent revives the old military association, a situation that directly threatens Western democracies.

The dictator Díaz-Canel and his mentor, Raúl Castro, know that there are more profitable opportunities in the world than those of the Russians, but for them they are inadmissible, since their survival means exercising strict control over the sector of society capable of producing wealth, and the development of the economy must conform to the interests of the ruling class.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Carlos Alberto Montaner, Tireless Fighter for Cuba’s Freedom

The writer and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner during a conference in 2018. (Sergio Santillán Díaz / YouTube / Captura2)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 28 May 2023 — The first time I learned about Carlos Alberto Montaner was thanks to an article of his entitled Henry Kissinger in Havana, a work that I liked very much and that established my future interest in a compatriot who, when no one was listening and even less wanted to see, assumed the commitment to attack Castroism, without considering the damage that such a decision could bring about.

The clipping was sent to me in Cuba in the mid-1970s or late 1970s by former political prisoner Héctor Caraballo, who had managed to escape the island on a raft. Héctor, based in Puerto Rico, established a relationship with Montaner as a result of the interest they both shared in Cuba.

Let us not lose sight of the fact that those were decades in which rare voices cried out in the desert of anti-Castroism. Not a few, including governments, underestimated the Cuban dictator who dizzyingly set up a gigantic apparatus with the help of the former Soviet Union to subdue all of America.

Montaner is among the pioneers who confronted the nascent totalitarianism in Cuba and abroad, an honorable credit that not many can show. His management has been successful, to the extreme, that, in a few years, he became a benchmark for learning about the reality of the Island that the Castros and their henchmen had taken over.

On the other hand, Carlos Alberto is among the first to denounce the danger that Castroism represented for the entire continent. His works in this regard were many and I am sure they were among the most widely read by politicians and intellectuals in the hemisphere, including in the United States, which greatly contributed to the mission of combating totalitarian subversion. His farewell letter leaves a void that is difficult to fill.

It is true that I have commented on more than one occasion that one of the sayings of the writer José Antonio Albertini is “ink also kills,” but there are writers like Montaner and Albertini himself who, with the ink they use, have saved and protected those who require aid. continue reading

We must never forget those who, with their talent and dedication, have defended freedom, as well as others, with plenty of courage, who have fought the Fidelista subversion with arms in their hands in different parts of the world, such as Félix Rodríguez and Rigoberto Acosta, among others, as well as the Makasis, Cubans who fought in Africa, both on land, in the air and even in the legendary Lake Tanganyika, the Guevarist and Víctor Dreke armies.

Nor should the many patriots who languished in prisons in Cuba, Mexico, the United States and Venezuela be overlooked for confronting, in their own way and with their convictions, the Island’s totalitarianism.

Castroism has never stopped repressing, and nor have dignified Cubans asked for quarter, among them Carlos Alberto, who through the media, his political activism and international appearances did not stop attacking the dictatorship that overshadowed his homeland, turning him into one one of enemies most hated by Castroism.

There was no lack of patriots to wage war against totalitarianism in all its forms, with or without the consent of the United States. Nor have compatriots been absent who, like Montaner, José Ignacio Rasco, Juan Clark, Eduardo García Moure and Humberto Medrano, just to mention a few, put their talent to the task of spreading the truth about Cuba, achieving, modestly, that willful blindness would give way to some light.

Not all of us will agree with the work that Montaner has accomplished throughout his intellectual tenure, but we do recognize that his work has been exemplary. While the Castros sank Cuba as a nation and a Republic, his life’s work has profoundly contributed to demonstrating the catastrophe that was taking place in our country.

Carlos Alberto Montaner has been, in my opinion, one of the most productive promoters of democracy in Cuba and the rest of the continent. His indisputable talent for debating and his ability to communicate his ideas made him a giant whose work we should all be proud of. He is a great man and as such he deserves our respect and a prominent place in our present and in national memory.

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Cuba Will Be Free

Following a crackdown on those who participated in the July 11 protests of 2021, Cubans living abroad held several days of demonstrations in support of the detainees. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 13 May 2023 — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, considered France’s most able politician by some historians, once told the emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, “Sir, you can do almost anything with bayonets except sit on them,” a reality that Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel and his entourage are living in the present like no other despot of his lineage.

Last Sunday’s protests, along with those of July 21, 2021 and numerous others which have take place in the interim, confirm better than any opinion poll that the Cubans have grown increasingly dissatisfied. Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Castros’ faithful servant, is capable of shredding his victims as cruelly as his predecessors did. What he does not do is inspire terror. People are simply fed up with all the wrongdoing and government inefficiency.

On January 1, 1959 — the day after their victory — the Castros and their henchmen sat on their bayonets. No one told me this; I experienced it firsthand. Even their supporters felt pressured to act without stopping to consider the reasons or the legality.

That was the period described by the unforgettable José Pepe Illan as a time of both fear and hope. The horrors of the moment did not matter — they were even considered justifiable — because there was the expectation of a bright future. At least that was the belief of the future servants of Fidel, Raúl and their many accomplices, who turned Cuba into their own giant ranch.

Fidel misgoverned the country with impunity for forty-nine years. And like other dictators such as Francisco Franco, Joseph Stalin and Augusto Pinochet, he died in his bed without being brought to justice by the people whose lives he devastated. It must be acknowledged, however, that, in addition to committing many crimes, he was a masterful liar. He not only managed to deceive many of his followers and a large segment of the island’s population, but also third parties such politicians and foreign governments, who allowed themselves to be manipulated, never stopping to call him out for his dirty tricks.

Thanks to his talent for lying, obfuscation and manipulation, he was able to turn his multiple failures into victories, an achievement made possible in no small part by his submissiveness to the now defunct Soviet Union. Castro was a consummate con artist who turned Cuba into a totalitarian state, brought about its material destruction and caused lasting damage to its civic values. continue reading

Though the hand-picked successor, his brother Raúl, never had the melodramatic flair of a Latin American strongman, he was no less criminal and no less able to guide the country in a direction that suited his interests. Having already acquired an extensive criminal record, he assumed the leadership at a time when the state was in full decline.

The public’s level of frustration was very high. Though people could no longer be fooled by promises of a better future, the strong-arm tactics were still effective. And the Castro surname still gave him some clout.

Raul, old and tired, was perhaps more convinced than Fidel, who once admitted and later denied, that the revolution was a failed proposition. Looking for a quick fix within the framework of the Cuban Communist Party, he decided to refresh the makeup of the top leadership, just as had been done with the Chinese Communist Party, which appeared to be in decline judging by a recent decision from Xi Jing Ping, the latest emperor of the Asian monolith.

Raúl held onto the presidency for ten years while at the same time directing the farce that is the Communist Party, whose real name should be the Party of the Castros. He left power to enjoy the remainder of his life, which had been dedicated to serving his brother in their common aim of destroying the republic and the nation.

The new comandante, as inmates who run certain areas of a prison called him, was sadly the all-too-well-known Miguel Díaz-Canel. Though he has demonstrated that he knows how to obey, this shadowless figure does not have the public’s respect. So far, he has not fallen on the bayonets on which he is sitting, a position that must be extremely uncomfortable.

I am certain that Cubans are fed up and willing to find freedom at whatever price the dictatorship demands. Onward!

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Castrochavism and Its Accomplices

Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Cuba’s Raul Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, in a 2012 image. (Cubadebate)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 4 May 2023 — Castroism has been catastrophic for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, as well as a certain threat to the progress and stability of the rest of the countries in the hemisphere because of its vast, deep and different ways of operating against democracy, so many that, despite the accumulated failures, they are still poles of attraction for those who see power as spoils of war.

Decades after their emergence, these nations and those that have approached them — Ecuador is a valid example — present serious governance problems, exacerbated by chronic misery and a total absence of freedoms and rights, a situation that forces citizens aware of their prerogatives to fight disgrace with the tragic consequences of death, prison and exile.

However, it is a source of pride for all of us that, although the tragedy in these four countries is a painful reality, resistance has not been broken in any of them, since repression, however crude it may be, does not succeed in extinguishing free spirits.

However, it would be very helpful for these resistance fighters to have more concrete support from the international community, and to get beyond high-sounding declarations and sanctions that are seldom fully implemented.

A network of regimes of force such as the one built by the Castro-Chavistas cannot be destroyed or neutralized with superficial solutions and in isolation, because, in addition to having power, there is no lack of friends ready to serve them, as is the case of Brazil’s Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, among others. continue reading

It is true that the greatest responsibility lies with the people who put up with tyranny, but history has shown that transnational domination cannot be overthrown by unilateral actions. Common and decisive action on the part of those who challenge them is necessary. There is no country free of predators, there is no vaccine against little gods, as Anatole France would say, with the capacity to destroy what has been built, a warning that no time should be lost in what has to be done.

On the other hand, we should keep in mind that the commanders who impose the ignominy of a government of force are the people most responsible for that misfortune, but they are not the only ones. Their collaborators and followers share responsibility, because as José Martí wrote, “to calmly observe a crime is to commit it”, and those regimes are characterized by spreading their cruelty to achieve the desired social control, and in that way gaining numerous accomplices who join in the mischief.

These dictatorships have a vast clientele of servants who can mutate from victims to aggressors. The latter are transformed into abused slaves when they get a bad conscience about their complicity, or on a whim are punished by their masters.

There is no shortage of willing and talented autocrats, cruel and merciless people, but even so, they cannot build a regime in their own image and likeness by themselves. They have to find a team of executioners in the literal sense of the term, and people to carry out the dirty work.

The work of autocrats, be they Fidel and Raúl Castro, Hugo Chávez, Daniel Ortega, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Evo Morales or Rafael Correa, is assisted and complemented by ever-present opportunists, or by those who carry out their designs with blood and fire. They are the ones who give form with their actions to the official slogans and voluntarily give up their rights.

The work of these despots, including their march to power, is aided by the bad judgments, idleness and complicity of large numbers of their fellow countrymen. Of these, perhaps the majority, the most passionate supporters, come from the common people. Nevertheless, they have to count, at least in part, on the ruling class, intellectuals, businesspeople, social leaders, artists and professionals, to be able to build their empire, at least that is what happened in Cuba, and it was also seen in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Although as Cubans it is painful for us to see it, we must recognize that the Island´s regime has provided a wealth of experience and knowledge to its Latin American peers. The dictators of these countries, and those that the future may bring, have been able to impose their will thanks to the direct advice of Castro’s totalitarianism, which has sent many of its executioners to show how terror should be systematically and institutionally imposed.

Translated by GH

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60th Anniversary of Cuba’s ‘Year of the Lash’

A group of rebels in Escambray. (Pedro Corzo)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 16 April 2023 — This is not an opinion article, but rather a chronicle that intends to offer a close account of the 60th anniversary of the bloodiest year in the fight against Castro’s totalitarianism. So fierce was the year of 1963 that everyone calls it the “year of the lash*.”

It was during the commemoration of the 56th anniversary of the closure of the Isle of Pines political prison, organized by the Institute of Cuban Historical Memory against Totalitarianism under the leadership of Ramiro Gómez, that it occurred to Enrique Ruano to remember the bloodiest year of our republican history.

Sixty years ago some of the bloodiest combats took place in our plains and mountains as well as several of the mass executions sponsored by Castroism.

On January 3, guerrilla captain Porfirio Guillen fell, along with ten other men, in the vicinity of the Manicaragua cemetery, one day after Enrique Ruano himself brought him supplies necessary for the war.

On February 23, a militiaman murdered four young men at the La Perla hotel in Sancti Spíritus. On March 1, the second chief of the Escambray, Tomas David San Gil, fell in combat at the Monte de las Cuarenta Caballerías [Mount of the 40 Cavalries ], also known as Las Llanadas de Gómez, along with twelve of his men; an exceptional young man who would have contributed a lot to Cuba.

That same month, on the 21st, in a place known as El Algarrobo, in Escambray, a confrontation took place between the guerrillas commanded by Captain Ramón del Sol with the militias and the Army; six insurgents died there. The next day, near the Limonares sugar mill, in Matanzas, the guerrilla captain Juan José (Pichi) Cátala was mortally wounded, along with a brother and four other guerrillas. In El Guayabo, Camagüey, the forces of the guerrilla chief Juan Alberto Martínez Andrade , were attacked resulting in the death of four of their men.

On May 18, the guerrilla leader, Pedro Perico Sánchez, who had already lost two of his sons in combat the previous month, fell. Eight days later, near Encrucijada, the guerrilla leader Domingo González García, Mingo Melena, died with a dozen of his men. According to information from eyewitnesses, the wounded were finished off by the militias. continue reading

On June 20, in a confrontation with the militias and the Army in Las Piedras, near Aguada de Pasajeros, guerrilla captain Esteban Morales was killed along with six of his men, four of whom have never been identified.

June 11 and 13, 21 men are massacred in Manacas Izaga, Trinidad, after spending almost two years in the Isla de Pinos prison without trial or sentence, 23 were to be shot; one of the survivors, Aldo Chaviano, is living testimony of that massacre.

On August 15, a guerrilla commanded by Maro Borges faced several militia battalions and the Lucha contra Bandidos / LCB (Struggle Against Bandits), in Guácima, Escambray; the guerrillas lost 11 men and several wounded, including Raúl García, El Quechole.

The regime continued to deploy thousands of fully armed troops and with the support of helicopters in all the areas where uprisings were operating, motivating bloody combats such as the one in Laguna de Taje, near Trinidad, Las Villas, where the guerrilla leader Pedro González, together with his brother and seven other men lost their lives. The mortal remains of Pedro González and his lieutenant, Guillermo Torres, were transported to the Trinidad park and thrown on the pavement, where they were vilely abused by the mob summoned by the LCB troops and State Security.

December 19, one of the bloodiest combats in the entire history of guerrilla struggles in republican Cuba takes place. In some sugar cane fields near the Portugalete sugar mill, in Palmira, south of Las Villas, the guerrilla leader Luis Molina died, and the guerrilla leader Antonio Otero, along with 6 other guerrillas.

That was the Year of the Lash, and here there are not the confrontations resulting in two or three deaths, nor the almost daily executions, nor the armed incursions that came from abroad. I paraphrase an expression of our director and friend, Pepe Bello: “Who says that the Cubans did not fight against totalitarianism?”

*Translator’s note: See here for the prior Year of the Lash in 1844

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Cuba: Politics, Art and Sport

The Cuban baseball team said it felt under pressure in the Miami game, and, after its defeat, the regime blamed the audience and the opposition. (Jit)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 1 April 1, 2023 — They are three independent activities, but when the arts and sports, like any discipline, are developed under a dictatorial, even worse, totalitarian management, such as the Cuban State, the management, individual or collective, is subject to the will of the government.

There will be those who do not understand the protests, which, in other words, are not against the athletes, but against the regime they represent, although as citizens, they also have rights and duties within their community.

I confess that I remember with bitterness those days of death sentences that were carried out in 24 hours, and that many prominent athletes and artists, receiving awards abroad, in their first statements to the press dedicated their awards to Fidel Castro or simply said that he was their inspiration.

The distinctions that athletes receive under the regime are a product of their own efforts, but the Government capitalizes on them for propaganda purposes, and this contributes to disinformation and to the athlete’s dependence on the State. Something similar happens with any scientific advance that occurs in Cuba. They make believe, they disseminate the results, as a genuine progress of the system, not of the nation; even less, of the individuals who with their talent and dedication achieve success. continue reading

The totalitarian regime takes credit for any award or recognition to a Cuban who represents the Island. But some do not feel a triumph as something national or as a success that belongs to everyone.

I have participated in protests against the dictatorship at sporting events. I confess that it’s not easy. I have felt like the character of the book The Two Halves of the Viscount, by Italo Calvino, which describes an aristocrat physically divided in half by a cannonball, which results in the contradictory behavior of his two halves.

The situation presented by Calvino in his short novel is complex, similar to that suffered by those of us who face totalitarian regimes that are capable of appropriating the values of a nation. It is true that there are those who do not have problems with their halves; they are whole, and they act as a battering ram without suffering the consequences.

In the early 1980s, a sports competition was celebrated in a stadium in Valencia, Venezuela, attended by Cuban boxers.

It was an intense day. Together with Kemel Jamis, a former political prisoner, and two other compatriots, we appeared on the grounds with a couple of large signs that said, “Welcome Cuban sports brothers” and another, “We condemn Castro-Communist tyranny.” Fortunately, for our safety from the Cuban and Venezuelan henchmen, the National Guard intervened and took us into custody and out of the stadium.

Protesting is a right, especially when people are not assaulted and public and private property are not damaged.

Totalitarianism introduces the citizen to a perennial debate. Consciousness, feelings, interests, politics and ideology face off against each other in a constant discussion, which acutely complicates reaching conciliation. The regime that prevails in Cuba is so absorbing and inclusive that, no matter how hard the individual tries, he cannot escape the influence of the system, unless he absolutely breaks with his roots and what he derives from them.

This perception to some extent is also based on the fact that totalitarianism, beyond the will and doing of each citizen, instilled for decades the certainty that the homeland and Fidel Castro were a single entity, an absolutism that led to the belief that any contrary individual decision would have a negative impact on the values and commitments of the nation.

All this generates an irreconcilable confrontation between the two supposed halves, not only in sports but in similar aspects. It affects everything, even the help you can give to a family member, because the reality is that totalitarianism is like a gigantic funnel that swallows everything.

But what to do? Totalitarianism is a dirty trap that corrodes us. On the Island everything is kidnapped, even our loved ones, and can there be a homeland without a family?

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Electoral Farces of Castro and Chavez

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 5 March 2023 — I have no doubt that those who participate in elections in the countries where castrochavismo prevails are wrong, regardless of the good faith they contribute to the effort. The oppressors do not allow elections where they do not have the victory assured. It is true that in 2015 they lost the Legislative Assembly in Venezuela by respecting the popular will, but, how many times before and after have they mocked it?

Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have resorted to electoral despotism as an ideal political formula to preserve power, dressing in the legitimacy that the vote confers, so that their allies inside and out continue to proclaim that democracy reigns in Caracas, La Paz and Managua, and so that alleged defenders of democracy have arguments to continue supplying police cars to the repressors.

It is valid to note that, although Cuba is the parent company of these despotisms, its electoral practice is more crude, since it simply exercises absolute control over the elections and leaves no space to dream. However, in the land of Martí, as in the three countries mentioned, there has been no shortage of bona fide people who have believed in the electoral proposals of these autocrats.

In Cuba there is no electoral campaign or farce of opposition candidates, as in its metastasis, although according to Juan José Estrada, the activities carried out by Miguel Díaz Canel, the dictator handpicked by the Castros in the province of Villa Clara, is the closest thing to a candidate’s campaign, which is perhaps a first step in a kind of facelift of the regime in search of international recognition and support, which for its continued failures is more than necessary.

On the other hand, if some appreciate that the Nicaraguan duo of Ortega-Murillo are flirting with real Castro socialism by increasing their insane cruelties against the population, perhaps Don Miguel considers that, to survive among the Castros and their henchmen, it is vital to approach the farce of 21st Century Socialism, the story that Hugo Chávez, Lula da Silva and Fidel Castro promoted with relative success. continue reading

These three regimes, although inspired by Cuban totalitarianism, have pretended to respect the division of powers of modern states. However, in their first administration, as happened in Cuba in 1959, they placed all the organs of justice under their control to be able to delegitimize any direction contrary to their interests.

We must not forget that the Supreme Court of Justice of Cuba, in the early morning of January 1 of the year in question, proclaimed that “the Revolution is the source of law,” conferring on the process a license that initiated the most aberrant impunity.

Unfortunately, the majority of citizens do not give the judiciary the importance it deserves, when in fact it is the balance of all public management. All public powers are relevant, but the control of Justice and its magistrates gives the despot the ability to act at will in an alleged legal framework, including the always diminished electoral authority, which we only remember when the elections are approaching.

In the twentieth century, when information technology was still in its infancy, the practice to pretend that the head of government was a democrat respectful of the laws went through the purchase of votes, the theft of ballot boxes or simply a fraudulent count that favored the candidate who protected the Government. At present, although the formula has not been completely eradicated, other more sophisticated methods have been added that allow a more efficient cover-up of the true ends of those who, while seeking absolute power, intend to perpetuate themselves in it.

Perhaps Hugo Chávez’s greatest contribution, parallel to the delivery of Venezuela’s vast resources to Castro, has been the control he had over the electoral authority once he assumed power — in fact he practically hijacked it — because most of the magistrates faithfully served his interests, although possibly none with the vileness of Jorge Rodríguez Gómez, who has occupied practically all government positions. A true faithful servant, with no fear of making mistakes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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In Coyote Regimes

The former Cuban president, Raúl Castro, along with the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and their Venezuelan partner, Nicolás Maduro. (Twitter)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, 18 February 2023 — We often read about that particularly predatory human subspecies that we call “coyotes,” unscrupulous subjects who live from the despair of those who seek to have a better life for themselves and theirs.

These people have no mercy. They traffic people, making them face countless dangers, like being kidnapped, raped or killed. It’s a dirty international business of billions of dollars in which organized crime has a great participation, an entity present in more than one government in the hemisphere.

It is prudent to wonder if that activity was in principle an invention of criminal-minded governments or simple criminals who are always looking for a greater fortune. The question is a consequence of the recent decision of the Nicaraguan dictatorship to banish 222 political prisoners, an act that confirms that the tyrants of Castro-Chavismo do not even respect their own laws.

This release of political prisoners to obtain some political or economic benefit was a practice that Fidel Castro instituted in the 1960s, when he put a price on the head of each and every one of the prisoners of the 2506 Brigade*. Later, every time an influential U.S. senator traveled to Cuba and interceded for a prisoner, the dictator released some of his slaves. The same happened with the few Ibero-American political leaders who were interested in those who were in the Caribbean tyrant’s dungeons. Even the Nobel Gabriel García Márquez was rewarded by his friend Castro with a slave, the already disappeared political prisoner Reinol González.

Castro-Chavista regimes dictate particularly repressive laws whose direct results are death or imprisonment and, nevertheless, they break them extremely easily if there is any benefit involved, because all those dictators share the greed of coyotes. continue reading

Of course, these exiles, in addition to looking for economic benefits, have political gains in their sights. The Ortega-Murillo duo seeks, with the banishment of political prisoners, an approach to the government of President Joe Biden, who apparently, as former President Barack Obama did, is in favor of a rapprochement with the despots that prevail in the hemisphere, perhaps with the naive idea that the bad guys give in to good examples.

Political prisoners are a by-product of repression, the greatest hallmark of Castro-Chavism. To achieve absolute social control, punishment is essential. That’s why in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia there are political prisoners who in most cases have not committed any crime; they have been punished for the right to think and give their opinion without hypocrisy, a crime for the autocrats who govern those countries.

The worst thing is that they use repression as an instrument of punishment, in addition to simulating changes. These regimes condemn a large number of people for no reason with the aim of breaking them, sometimes releasing them en masse and banishing them, in order to receive benefits from the government that welcomes them or, at least, making “useful idiots” think that the dictatorship is changing by exiling prisoners who did not commit crimes, as the writer José Antonio Albertini said.

The best evidence of this statement dates back to the arrival in Spain of several prisoners of Cuba’s 2003 Black Spring, something similar to what Ortega-Murillo did. On that occasion, Member of the European Parliament María Muñiz, of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, told Deutsche Welle: “We must appreciate this gesture of Cuba,” adding, “this will allow the European Union’s Common Position towards Cuba to be changed in the near future,” ignoring that the prisoners were unjustly sanctioned, as is the case with the banished.

It is not fair that tyrants are rewarded for rectifying their crimes. The Iranian autocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, pardoned prisoners for the protests that motivated the murder of the young Mahsa Amini and, according to some rumors, the Cuban regime will release some of the protestors arrested on July 11, 2021. These injustices should not be rewarded by democratic governments by declaring that there are changes and granting benefits, when the dictatorship is actually preparing the prisons to receive new innocents.

*Translator’s note: The 2506 Brigade was made up of Cuban exiles, and in 1961 they landed at the Bay of Pigs [known as Giron in Cuba] to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Miguel Diaz-Canel, the Most Faithful Servant

Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart, Vladímir Putin, in front of the statue of Fidel Castro unveiled in November in Moscow (EFE/EPA/Sergei Savostyanov)

14ymedio, Pedro Corvo, Miami, 13 February 2022 — In the late 1990s, times when spy Ana Belén Montes successfully insisted that Castroism was not dangerous for the United States — an assertion that resonated with some US officials who have always looked on the island dictatorship with fondness — a considerable number of Cubans rejected that assertion, arguing that the aggressive nature of the regime did not allow it to overlook any opportunity that would allow it to affect US interests.

However, everything seemed to indicate that after Fidel Castro’s death, the imperialist influence of the project he sponsored would lose momentum. This because, during Raúl Castro’s term of office, there was a notable decrease in Cuba’s participation in the international arena. This a situation that has been slowly changing since the hand-picked dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “received,” at least apparently, “the baton,” as the head of government was identified by the compatriots of the beginning of the last century.

Island totalitarianism has taken at least two particularly intense initiatives. One towards the interior of the country, through which it controls power and the other towards the exterior, in order to gain political clients and associates, who have been particularly useful to it over the years. In addition, the Castro regime has masterfully used its real or supposed successes abroad, making them an essential part of its coliseum or circus with the aim of manipulating the population, aware of the chauvinistic vision that many Cubans suffer from. continue reading

Díaz-Canel’s first trip as head of Cuba’s failed state was to Venezuela, a visit that ensures the mutual dependence of both regimes. The island supplies repressive experience and social control and Caracas continues to provide vital oil. This was shown by an agency report that the Venezuelan government bought approximately 440 million dollars worth of crude oil abroad and shipped it to Cuban ports under very favorable payment conditions.

There is no doubt: it is increasingly easy to conclude that the ties between these countries are a kind of parody of the relations between Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, both autocrats of the same ilk.

It must be acknowledged that the hand-picked President is adapting to the times and, contrary to what his predecessors did, he travels with his wife, Lis Cuesta, who, it seems, enjoys the advantages of being the “First Combatant” as they say in our beloved Venezuela.

To this difference with the Castro brothers we must add a similarity, and that is that the despot travels with a bodyguard who, moreover, is his stepson, a situation that shows that nepotism is a constant in that old dictatorship.

The island’s press, always loyal to the boss, has highlighted Díaz-Canel’s numerous trips abroad since he was appointed dictator, describing him as “tireless president,” a title not as distinguished as those granted to Fidel Castro.

The international exposure of this most faithful servant, a label deserved because he took other distinguished vassals out of the game, such as Carlos Lage, Roberto Robaina and Felipe Pérez Roque, among others, has been constant, if we bear in mind that in his first eight months in office he made 11 trips abroad. He demonstrated on one of them, to Jamaica, that he is as much a liar as the Castro brothers, because he brazenly said that Cuba was “perfecting socialism” and building a “prosperous and sustainable” nation, while in his appearance at the United Nations he spoke cynically about his commitment to fight chronic hunger, a constant in his government, as in that of his benefactors.

One of his most recent trips was to Algeria, Russia, Turkey and China, countries he visited in search of vital aid for his regime, while reiterating to Colonel Vladimir Putin his unrestricted support for the invasion of Ukraine, a support that Kiev should evaluate, if it is true that “the friend of my enemy is my enemy”.

Díaz-Canel is irredeemably faithful to the Castroist route of being an ally of countries hostile to the United States, as evidenced by the Iranian Foreign Minister’s visit to the Cuban capital and Pyongyang’s vaunted and invincible friendship with Havana.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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‘Bolos’ [Russians] and Yankees in Havana

Miguel Díaz-Canel receives a group of Russian businessmen on January 18, 2023 at the Palace of the Revolution, in Havana, Cuba. (Cuba Presidency/YouTube/Captura)

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, February 4, 2023 — It’s evident that the Castro leadership, those whom they call moncadistas [the ones who took part in the attack on the Moncada barracks, celebrated every July 26], by their stubbornness in maintaining privileges and fortunes at all costs, don’t cease to reinvent themselves by resorting to any maneuver in order to preserve power, the only guarantee of their survival. Miguel Díaz-Canel has shown great talent in managing to genuflect before the Castros.

There is no denying that the Castros, the First Family on the Island, knew how to make their transition from power. They found the ideal person to run their errands, while they continue doing as they wish with the rights of Cubans, so much so that I dare to parody a song by Panchito Riset: “Fidel, the little room is the same as you left it, as you arranged it.”

Nothing has changed in Cuba, although there is no shortage of those who despair about finding developments that would indicate a new direction, or of those who continue demonizing the opponents of totalitarianism. The new governance acts under the instructions of the Castros. The nature of the regime is the same as 64 years ago. Those who sponsor a policy of coexistence are wrong, as are those who defend giving carrots to the dictatorship, which only strangles the people.

Also, those who assumed the Spanish transition as a model for the change in the Castro regime were wrong, just like those who said that when Fidel is gone, [the Revolution] “will crumble like a merengue [cake] at the door of a school” (a very Cuban expression). We have been mistaken in the predictions of how Cuban totalitarianism would end. However, I have no doubt that it will end as long as there are Cubans in prison demanding their rights, such as the young Angélica and María Cristina Garrido, Lizandra Góngora Espinosa, Félix Navarro, José Daniel Ferrer and a thousand other people, after 64 years of a doctrinal dictatorship. continue reading

A few weeks ago my friend and prison mate, Juan José Estrada, warned that the Russians, whom Cubans called bolos [from ’Bolsheviks’] in the sixties because they were crude, poorly dressed and smelled bad, would return to Cuba to the rhythm of capitalism and not in representation of a failed regime that victimized both Russians and Cubans. He suspects that this became a reality in past days.

The presence of Russian businessmen on the Island — most likely some were KGB leaders along with Vladimir Putin — should be an indication for the hitmen of Castroism, those who beat, imprisoned and condemned the young protestors of July 11, 2021, that the regime they defend is doomed to failure and that their crimes have a punishment, as Fyodor Dostoyevsky would write.

Estrada stated in his comment that the Russians would visit Cuba as predators more voracious than the mafia that they had displaced halfway around the world, not as officials ready to squander their goods, as Moscow did in the past for ideological reasons. These realities don’t worry the Island’s totalitarian leaders as long as they hold onto power.

The interesting thing was that the visit of Russian businessmen coincided with the trip of President Joe Biden’s government officials to Havana. A paradoxical truth: the Russians came to do business, while the Americans visited Cuba to “establish and increase channels for law enforcement cooperation to better address transnational threats, not at the expense of human rights.”

It’s difficult understand the stubborn desire of some politicians, businessmen and social leaders of different nationalities to negotiate with Castro totalitarianism, arguing that the precarious situation of Cubans has a solution with the supply of goods and migratory placebos. The violation of the rights of Cubans and the opportunities that are denied to them are decisions of their own Government, not of foreign powers.

The problem lies in the prevailing system and not in its environment. Cuba was not a failed state or sponsor of terrorism before the arrival of the Castros. It was far from being a paradise, but it was a viable country, just as Venezuela and Nicaragua were before the arrival of Chávez, Maduro and Ortega-Murillo.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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