The Dictatorship Between Obama’s Wink and Maduro’s Fall

The Dictatorship Between Obama's Wink and Maduro's Fall / Jeovany
Jimenez Vega
Posted on March 1, 2016

Jeovany Jimenez Vega, 22 February 2016 — Cuba started 2016 looking
toward an uncertain horizon: a parasitic economy in the red, bankrupt
for decades, as dependent today on Venezuela as it once was on Soviet
gulag; a neo-bourgeoisie oligarchy clinging to the same absurdity that
has plunged us into the manure; lazy leaders turning a blind eye to the
people's needs, despoiling millions in their secret accounts and willing
to do anything to maintain their privileges; the main economic gears —
like GAESA (the state entity that controls almost all retail in the
country), the monstrosity that controls the principal corporations and
the entity that does or does not authorize every foreign investment on
the island — in the hands of impudent soldiers who know nothing of
economics but know very well the language of despotism.

In my country there is no division of powers and this guarantees the
absolute impunity of the Communist Party and Political Police henchmen
in exercising the most shameless repression against the dissent of
ideas. Cuba is a country that stepped into the year 2016 as a country
without laws, in the hands of an elite of tyrants who are as concerned
about Liborio's poverty as they are about the existence of water on Mars.

Faced with such a bleak picture, we see perpetuated the exodus of the
most fertile of Cuban youth, in an irrepressible flight that ends up
being the hallmark of my generation and which I have already taken. The
current immigration crisis in Central America — unleashed by Havana with
the docile complicity of Daniel Ortega — is the most recent evidence of
the lack of credibility with which Cuba's youth look on the stale
promises of octogenarian Raul Castro, and the insubstantiality of his
alleged economic "reforms," and can be read as the clearest plebiscite
of rejection the old dictator has received — something he will never
allow to occur in actual practice — before the eyes of the world.

Amid this dramatic internal situation two critical elements from outside
carry influence: the policy of concord/legitimation toward the
dictatorship offered a year ago by Barack Obama, and the imminent
collapse of the Venezuelan monstrosity, that will bring the inevitable
consequence of cutting off its payment of "royalties" to Havana.

The combination of both at this time come with the inevitable
culmination — finally! — of the vital life cycle of historical
gerontocracy of the Revolution, and this places Cuban society at a
complex crossroads, as yet unknown.

I was always a staunch advocate of lifting of the US embargo on
Havana. As for millions of Cubans, for me it has always been very clear
that 80% of the excesses and endless shortages suffered by us during the
last half century have been due to the bad faith and the mediocrity of
the government of both Castros, so always I considered that the
termination of this policy would clearly unmask, before history, the
real culprits of our ruin.

But I confess something: when the revocation of sanctions against the
dictatorship threatens to become a reality, right now Caracas is
skimming off the last crumbs and the repressive Castro advisors are
packing their bags, looking to a resumption of relations between Cuba
and the United States. This leaves me with a sense of pleasurable
frustration, difficult to explain, but very similar to the
disappointment of a power outage at the movie theater at the exact
instant when the hero is about to liquidate the film's villain.

Without taking as absolute what is outlined above, I can't help but
taste in my imagination the diarrhea that would have dotted the halls of
the Council of State and the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist
Party — not to mention the offices of the Cuban political police — if
the collapse of Venezuela had occurred without the last minute escape
hatch thanks to the providence of the almighty Obama.

The question is obligatory: under what rock would Havana's parasitic
regime — consummately incapable of generation resources for itself —
looked for its next benefactor? They couldn't count on Putin's Russian
because despite the astronomical forgiveness of old debt and the
geostrategic plans of the Tsar seeing Havana with its tip oriented to
South America, it has become clear to everyone that the Island-of-Eden
phase was definitely in the past and the Kremlin tovarich (comrades) are
not willing to support their loony-tune boy from the old days any longer.

Much less could they count on neo-capitalist China, because beyond the
coincidence of its totalitarian party/state ideological/strategic
similarity, business with the great Asian economic giant demands timely
payment in hard cash, something the Cuban dictatorship has no ability to
take on for obvious reasons.

In short, little doubt remains: if the collapse of Caracas had happened
in the absence of this opportunistic escape route to save the
dictatorship in water up to its neck looking toward the brutal north —
the same one they sneered at — there is no questions but that more than
one general in Havana would have literally shit his pants. People
could not face, again, the rigors of those terrible years that started
in the '90s known as the "Special Period." Things aren't like then, and
tempers are short and the entire top brass knows that were a new "zero
option" [extremely severe economic austerity] be considered, a very
different rooster* would be singing in Cuba.

*Translator's notes: An expression similar to "a horse of another
color" that can have a good or bad meaning; in this case a very negative
one.

Translated by RSP

Source: The Dictatorship Between Obama's Wink and Maduro's Fall /
Jeovany Jimenez Vega | Translating Cuba -
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