Former Cuban Officers Call on the Eastern Army ‘Not to Comply with the Orders of the Dictatorship’

A special forces agent faces demonstrators in Nuevitas, Camagüey. (Captura)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 22 August 2022 — The group Military Conscientious Objectors (MCO) calls on the agents of the Cuban security forces to put themselves “on the side of the people” and help “end this corrupt mafia dictatorship.”

In a statement issued on Sunday, the organization, founded in 2021 by former Cuban officers in exile, refers to the “new national wave of repression” posed by the actions against the protests in Nuevitas (Camagüey) this weekend, and asserts that “it must be decisively rejected by the whole country but especially by the Revolutionary Armed Forces.”

“Our comrades in arms cannot and should not comply with the orders emanating from a dictatorship that has ignored the well-being of the people and today pushes Cubans into increasing misery,” they say in their statement.

MCO urges General Rigel Tejeda, head of the Eastern Army, to ensure that “his troops don’t act as minions or mercenaries of the new oligarchy.” His was quoting his predecessor, General Onelio Aguilera Bermúdez, who “did not stain his hands with blood on July 11, 2021. Don’t give in to pressure that would smear your name and that of the commanders under you.”

The Eastern Army, the retired soldiers insist, “shouldn’t act as private troops in the service of those who spend time on their yachts while millions of Cubans go to bed without food, without electricity, without medicines and without a roof over their heads.”

In addition to expelling the current rulers from power, former officers call for the “nationalization” of the Gaesa military conglomerate, which they allude to as “the monopoly that this new oligarchy has registered as a Panamanian company, which controls 60% of the economy and is not accountable to any institution in Cuba. It left tens of thousands of Cubans to die during the pandemic due to lack of oxygen tanks, medicines and ambulances, while spending billions of dollars on building new luxury hotels.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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