Cubanet, Norma Whiting, West Palm Beach, U.S., 29 April 2017 – The news, later refuted, of a supposed Cuban flag burning in recent days by Venezuelan demonstrators who oppose the government of Nicolás Maduro provoked diverse reactions on social networks and some Cuban websites. Many Cubans, mostly residing overseas, immediately expressed their indignation against Venezuelans at what they interpret as an affront to a national symbol they consider sacred, which does not represent in the least the dictatorial power that has ruled Cuba for almost sixty years, ultimately co-responsible for the deep political, social and economic crisis that Venezuela is currently experiencing.
The misconception, however, was not completely unfounded, considering that a few years ago Cuban flags burned in connection with student protests in Venezuela.
However, leaving aside anything smacking of nationalism, justified or not, the Venezuelans’ apocryphal pyromantic message against the Cuban flag in several important cities of their country would have made clear the rejection of the gross Cuban interference in Venezuela by Havana’s Palace of the Revolution, since it is not just the perverse tabernacle where the devastation of their nation has been cooked for years, but, to date, it’s the arena from where the strings of the Chávez-Maduro regime are manipulated, now decadent but, because of this, more dangerous.
Thus, in any case, it should have been that evil power and not the Cuban national emblem that Venezuelans burned in their riots of recent days. In fact, the images from 2014 that caused the confusion leave no room for doubt when we see that several of the flags burned then carry Fidel Castro’s image on a bundle of dollars displayed under his face, and other pictures where the signs “Out with the Castros” and “Out of Venezuela” can be seen. At that time, they also set on fire mannequins that mimicked the now deceased creator of the longest dictatorship that has existed in this region.
But it is also true that one of the dangers now is that, in the midst of the violence applied by the repressive bodies and the gangs incited by the central government against the demonstrators, their response will turn more violent. The Venezuelan crisis offers a much more convulsive and highly volatile and unstable scenario as a result of widespread hunger, the shortages and the needs of the population, social frustration, and the regime’s misrule, so that any situation can lead to uncontrollable chaos for any of the parties.
In this context, popular indignation would not be able to discriminate between Cuba and Cubans on the one hand, and the Castro regime on the other, bypassing the irrefutable fact that the misfortune of living under autocratic regimes is something that nationals of both countries share.
In this sense, and not wishing to be apocalyptic, it cannot be denied that the thousands of Cuban civilians who currently collaborate in the populist programs (called “missions”) of the Castro-Chávez alliance are very fragile links in the midst of the Venezuelan confusion, not only because they could easily become victims of the hatred, accumulated over many years, against a political project led by a gang of thieves and crooks which turned out to be a swindle, but because the perverse nature of the alliance between the hierarchs of Havana and Caracas would not hesitate for a second to sacrifice them motu proprio, and to attribute to the opposition the loss of life and the violence against Cuban civilians.
The Cuban gerontocracy knows that the loss of Cuban lives would allow them to unleash a whole Witches’ Sabbath through their monopoly of the press, and would be a golden opportunity to stir the patriotic spirits of the masses in the hacienda in ruins, especially now, when the defunct revolution doesn’t have any credibility among Cubans, and when the final fall of ” twenty-first century socialism” also heralds (more) difficult times for the Cuban population.
The fact that it would involve Cuban professionals, mostly in the health industry, who carry out a humanitarian mission of medical care to very poor populations, would add a dramatic touch that is extremely conducive to the propaganda effects of the Palace of the Revolution. Who could resist the tragedy of perhaps dozens of Cuban families?
For now, the official Cuban press is keeping a suspicious, almost sepulchral, silence about what is taking place in Venezuela. Or it has lied cynically, as is evident in the printed version of the main official newspaper, Granma, which contained a brief note this past Monday, April 24, stating that “normalcy reigns” in Venezuela, despite the opposition to Maduro calling for demonstrations, the massive mobilizations that have flooded the streets of many cities in Venezuela since the beginning of April, and the dozens of deaths, mainly protesters’, that have taken place at the hands of the delinquents grouped in the sinister “collectives”, that variety of motorized terrorists at the service of the government who assassinate their compatriots with impunity, just for exercising their right to protest.
Let us hope that the best children of Venezuela do not allow the just aspirations of freedom, justice and democracy of her people to be contaminated with criminal acts against Cuban civilian collaborators. They need to not give in to the hatred sown by officials in power. But, in any case, the evils that might take place in Venezuela will be the direct responsibility of the Cuban leadership and its puppets at the head of the Venezuelan government.
(Miriam Celaya, a Havana resident, is currently visiting the U.S.)
Translated by Norma Whiting