Little Paper Boat My disloyal friend

Little Paper Boat*. My disloyal friend. / Fernando Damaso
Posted on August 1, 2013

The mess about the North Korean boat loaded in Cuba with obsolete arms
for repair, hidden under some tons of sacks of sugar, suitable for the
captain's suicide attempts and the crew's hunger strike, all lunatics of
Kim Il Sung and his descendants, continues to monopolize international
media attention. Nevertheless, for Cubans, after the concise initial
report, absolute silence and secrecy are maintained trying to give the
impression that nothing is happening, basing that on the fact that if it
does not come out on the TV News or appear in the newspaper Granma it is
because it does not exist.

It calls attention that this happens immediately after the end of the
9th Congress of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) where, among the
few things of interest that were considered, some journalists requested
(they did not demand) to be permitted to have access to the reports. It
seems that, although the word was yes, in practice it is no, beginning
with the concealment, the same days as the closing ceremony (July 14),
of the composition of the baseball team, which would participate in a
tournement with one agreed to by North American universities in cities
of that country, from which sports reporters discovered, when this was
already known in the United States (July 15), in the afternoon, in the
schedule of the insufferable Roundtable TV show, and continuing, almost
immediately, with the mess about the boat.

The official press and the secrecy that accompanies it seem to have no
remedy: it is something inherent in the model, that cannot subsist in a
climate of freedom of information, not even under the control of the
party through the UPEC, its bureaucratic shell.

The boat is another thing: no one understands this political bungling,
it it wasn't orchestrated for the purpose of torpedoing possible
contacts, directed at the gradual normalization of relations between the
governments of Cuba and the United States. As was expected, on the event
of the 60th anniversary of the 26th of July assault on the Moncada
Barracks, after the sausage of slimy speeches for the occasion by the
invitees, absolutely nothing was said about the thorny matter. It seems
that this stings and extends until August. Give it time!

*Translator's note: "Little Paper Boat" is a Cuban children's song. The
words, in English, are: Little paper boat, my faithful friend / carry me
away over the wide sea. / I want to meet children from here and there /
and take them all my flower of friendship. / Down with war, up with
peace / We children want to laugh and sing.

Translated by mlk

26 July 2013

Source: "Little Paper Boat*. My disloyal friend. / Fernando Damaso |
Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/little-paper-boat-my-disloyal-friend-fernando-damaso/