Traitors to the Thinking of Marti / Angel Santiesteban

If José Martí warned that “capitalism is the superior phase of slavery,” how can those who belong to the Communist Party, beginning with Fidel Castro, call themselves followers of Martí? It’s no secret that when the Comandante of the bearded ones came to power he said on several occasions, in Cuba and in the United States, that the Revolution was not communist, that this possibility was a campaign to discredit them.

Caption on video: “I’ve said very clearly that we are not communists.”

Videos exist where he denies he’s communist. And from night to morning, he declares the Marxist character of this social movement that catapulted him to power in the nation. I always wonder how great the despair of Cubans was that they forgave him and followed all his nonsense. Of course many glimpsed what would come and so resigned, like Comandante Huber Matos, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo, William Morgan, among others who were disillusioned that after putting their lives on the line, they understood they had been betrayed by personal ambition.

Fidel Castro never put the people before his insatiable appetite for power. All the social power that at first he obtained was to mask his image of a dictator. Above all because then, economically, we didn’t depend on our own attempts, on the skill of investments, but we did have the teat of the Soviet Union and the rest of the socialist camp to satisfy his insanity and his plans for conquering the rest of the world.

If those countries didn’t exist who shared “ideology,” his mandate to govern wouldn’t have lasted more than five years, precisely by the great defect of not knowing how to listen to his specialists, to those who were suddenly removed if they didn’t agree with his dreams and his inconsistent, baseless mega-plans that always ended in failure.

Knowing this defect, his “collaborators” became adulators who lied in order to continue receiving the benefits of power. In spite of everything, he has been a brilliant manipulator who knows where to get resources for staying in power, now making his brother, Raúl, head of state.

At the end of this cursed cycle, the only thing that assures us is that José Martí is renewing himself, that his prophecies acquire more timeliness, and that for many years the Cuban people have been slaves, surviving in order to continue breathing, always scared of being whipped by the officials for any criticism or demand for improvement. We are a people basically seeking refuge in being run-away slaves, dispersed throughout the hemisphere.

Let’s hope that this 21st century will be prosperous for the Cuban nation and reunite its families, and that we will be capable of achieving a free and democratic society that assures and balances the needs of its people.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Lawton Prison Settlement. January 2014

Translated by Regina Anavy

25 January 2014