War Games In Cuba

Yoani Sanchez
Award-Winning Cuban Blogger
Posted: November 29, 2009 02:31 PM

War Games In Cuba

Someone shoved a piece of paper under my door. A sheet cut in half with
instructions about how to evacuate in the case of a hurricane or an
invasion. One phrase struck me like the refrain of a bad song: "Sew a
tag to the clothes of minor children with the identity of their parents
(in wartime)." I imagined myself putting stitches into my son's shirt,
so that in the middle of the chaos someone would know that his mother
was named Yoani and his father Reinaldo.

The "War of the Whole People" -- currently undergoing a practice run in
the military exercise called Bastion 2009 -- has an assigned job for
each of us. It doesn't matter that they make us fear weapons, or if we
have never believed in confrontation as a path to solutions, or if we
have no confidence in the leaders who will head up our squad. Those who
sit at a table covered with tiny plastic tanks and planes, playing at
conflagration, want to hide that we citizens have dug the deepest trench
to protect ourselves from them.

The news is full of soldiers with their weapons, but the martial
maneuvers fail to hide that our real "enemies" are the restrictions and
control imposed by the powers that be. War as a distraction no longer
works. The threat of parachutes landing and bombs echoing as an antidote
to the desire for change has ceased to be effective. I think more and
more people are pointing a finger at the true origin of our problems
and, though it comes as a surprise to the champions of the battle, their
fingers do not appear to be pointing abroad.

Yoani Sanchez: War Games In Cuba (29 November 2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/war-games-in-cuba_b_372891.html