14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 1 July 2022 — The unexpected death of General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja has given way to a list of questions and a mountain of speculation. [See also.]
Among the questions that have arisen since Friday, we should mention those that refer to his possible successor and whether whoever replaces him will have the same degree of concentration of power that the now deceased maintained due to his “family condition.” Something as important as access to certain bank accounts or as seemingly simple as the password for his phone or his personal computer may be causing insomnia in many people right now.
As expected, speculation has begun to question the cause of his death. Some have gone so far as to recall that the death certificate of the (also) General Arnaldo Ochoa, executed by being shot in July 1989, listed “acute anemia” as the cause of death; and that a heart attack was the official explanation for the death in prison of the (also) General José Abrahantes in January 1991.
The opacity that surrounded the life of López-Calleja allows us to suppose that he was a person who knew an enormous number of important secrets. Among them, the identity of those who have signed their names to register as owners of Cuban companies abroad to circumvent the economic restrictions imposed by the United States. Economic restrictions that the regime calls the “blockade,” and names that the opposition calls “figureheads.”
If he was the only contact, the only one who knew, and he didn’t have time to tell others he trusted, then there is a risk of a stampede by those who guard the values that belong to the Cuban people. Upon learning that their boss has died, it cannot be ruled out that alleged businessmen in Monaco or Zurich might auction off their companies and run away with the money.
Death is never so unexpected, because in the end we are all going to die; however, this move to the unknown beyond did not appear in the calculations of those who, confusing life with chess, attributed to this general an irreplaceable role in the next foreseeable moves in the future of this Island. Understand a “fraud exchange” or “the Burmese variant.”
Without López-Calleja on the Cuban political board there is no castling possible and the checkmate of the dictatorship remains in the hands of the pawns.
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