Cuban Televisions Raises the Tone Against the 27th November Collective

Humberto López read Article 4 of the Constitution very slowly, which calls for severity against those who do not respect the socialist character of the Republic. (Screen capture)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 30 March 2021 — The Cuban National Television presenter, Humberto López, again dedicated a video in his space this Monday in which he threatens to apply “the most severe sanctions” to the 27N [27 November] collective, the San Isidro Movement and, by extension, to all the nonconformists with the Government and the Constitution.

In a new attack on the opposition from state television, López starts from the premise that anti-government groups are linking actions by the authorities with alleged violations of the Constitution and the laws in force in Cuba. “They are looking for cracks in the law. Soon I will bring you other inventions, but this is one of the main ones. They cite articles to legitimize everything that occurs to them, perhaps because they have finally understood that it [the constitution] was endorsed by 86.85% of the population, “says the presenter.

Based on this idea, the presenter maintains that the intention of the opponents is to modify the Constitution, making the article that declares socialism irrevocable disappear, something that is impossible as indicated in article 229 which states: “In no case can the pronouncements on the irrevocability of the socialist system established in article 4 can be modified.”

At this time, López went on to read the section to expressly indicate to the critics what they are exposed to: “The defense of the socialist homeland is the greatest honor and the supreme duty of every Cuban. Betrayal of the homeland is the most serious of crimes, whoever commits it is subject to the most severe sanctions. The socialist system endorsed by this Constitution is irrevocable. Citizens have the right to fight by all means, including armed struggle, when no other recourse is possible, against anyone who tries to overthrow the political, social and economic order established by this Constitution,” he recited slowly.

According to López, critics cannot invoke rights enshrined in the Constitution endorsed by such a large majority of the people to subvert them.

The Lopez’s speech begins with a frontal attack on the 27N Collective and the San Isidro Movement, personalized in Tania Bruguera, who is described as a leader and is accused of appropriating the law to launch accusations against Cuban television and ask everyone not to watch it. The video echoes a publication by the artist in which she accuses the News program of falsification for including an invented logo for the 27N Collective. “I acknowledge that we created the logo to make it look nice,” justifies the presenter.

López believes that “those of the 27N, those of San Isidro and the analogical classic counterrevolutionaries do not have prestige here in Cuban society” and they intend to attract social groups that the population respects for being serious and passionate, among them feminists, animal rights activists and LGBTI groups.

In the video, the presenter mocks the alleged lack of convocation of these movements, opposing to a protest action promoted by the 27N (although he calls it “Citizen Articulation”) the images of the official march this weekend to ask for the end of the US embargo. “It seems that it had a tremendous impact because yesterday what happened was this,” says López while projecting photographs of the Sunday caravan along Havana’s Malecón.

The apparent low importance the main Cuban News program attributes to the 27N and the San Isidro Movement contrasts with the time that television program dedicates to it, which in recent months has referred to these groups and their members on multiple occasions to defame them and accuse them of being in the service of “subversion” and the US Government.

“I have much more, I will return very soon,” says the presenter in what is a clear warning that the campaign is far from over.

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