It is a secret to no one that the Cuban government has fixed its attention on the possibility of negotiations with the United States that could be advantageous to them. To divide a part of that society and its US investors who want to trade with Cuba seems to be the strategy designed to keep them entrenched at the head of the Antillean country without the threat of politically binding commitments.
They have outlined a plan of selective commercial bites that permit them to have lucrative benefits with capitalist associates, who worry about the enlargement of their bank accounts and are not interested in other matters that could affect their ties with Cuba. That is why they silence we Cuban dissidents who are committed to a process of normalization of relations with the giant from the north.
It is like the irony of asking the United States to lift the embargo, but only that part that impedes their obtaining earnings, not in a complete way. Sometimes it even seems to me that they are thinking of doing the same thing with respect to the Common Position of the European Union, where they prefer to take care with its dividends so that “they do not risk their businesses with inappropriate petitions for rights and freedoms for Cubans.”
It is possible that the planned and “shiny” package, also includes the intention of creating controversy and debate within the US and European societies, in which it is an advantage to them to be treated as an underdeveloped, small, blockaded country, that “fights strenuously to move forward.”
That seems to be the motto they have been repeating for years to the rest of the world, including fundamentally to Washington and Brussels. No one mentions the dictatorship or the embargo on civil and political rights and liberties that the government imposes on its people: whatever does not suit them does not exist. They are victims before the foreigners, victimizers with their fellow citizens; they are humanitarians with others, but with us they have been a barbed whip in almost all aspects of society.
In the almost 54 years of this model, we have learned that they are only effective at militarization, political discourse — not always well founded — strategies for permanent command and control. The militarism established in the early years made it possible for them to be rapacious with their compatriots in the exercise of power and facilitated their systematic violation of the fundamental rights of Cubans.
In the present, they are taking steps in issuing, revising and repealing some laws, and although they are not making all the progress that we need, at least it means a small advance in dismantling old structures and procedures that anchored and formed mentalities with which they cannot advance towards a model a little more human, which seems to be the objective of the leadership of Raul Castro.
They want to reestablish relations with the United States — clearly with conditions — and they were working to pierce the nest that they publicly despised and verbally attacked so many times — and still do — by which they trampled their rights — as well as with those of many Cubans — by confiscating their property without compensation.
It seems that so many years in power have deluded them so much that they believe they can fool their opponents with some few moves on the bilateral political chess board, like easily defeating an opponent with a bishop check. Today they present themselves to US society as innocents and tempting prey, but they only offer bird seed to the rich descendants of the bald eagle, which as everyone knows, are also carnivores.
Translated by mlk
December 6 2012
