Weakness, Fear And Inability Erode The Cuban Government

Weakness, Fear And Inability Erode The Cuban Government / 14ymedio,
Pedro Campos

14ymedio, Pedro Campos, Miami, 23 February 2017 — The recent
"diplomatic" action by the Cuban Government to try to prevent the
presence of foreign personalities in a private event in Havana to
receive a symbolic prize bearing the name of the late regime opponent
Oswaldo Payá, denotes the weakness, fear and incapacity that
characterize its actions since the visit of Barack Obama to Cuba and the
subsequent death of Fidel Castro.

According to the declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX)
in the newspaper Granma, the plan was to mount an open and serious
provocation against the Cuban government in Havana, generate internal
instability, damage the international image of the country and, at the
same time, affect the good progress of Cuba's diplomatic relations with
other states.

According to MINREX, Almagro himself and some other right-wing
individuals had the connivance and support of other organizations with
thick anti-Cuban credentials, such as the Democracy and Community
Center, the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America
(CADAL), the Inter-American Institute for Democracy, and a person they
call a CIA terrorist and agent, Carlos Alberto Montaner.

In addition, says MINREX, since 2015 there has been a link between these
groups and the National Foundation for Democracy in the United States
(NED), which receives funding from the US government to implement its
subversive programs against Cuba.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, which prevailed in Cuba 57 years
ago, has thus invented an "anti-Cuban" (against Cuba or against
themselves?), "imperialist", "counterrevolutionary" and "CIA" hoax
behind what could have been a small and simple limited ceremony; in
short, if they had been allowed to hold it without the presence of
foreign guests it would have served the Government to improve its image
with respect to the rights of Cubans as citizens and shown some tolerance.

Their response to this assessment is given by the MINREX note: "Perhaps
some misjudged and thought that Cuba would sacrifice its essence to
appearances," as if appearances are not an example of essence. It is the
ignorance of the dialectic relationship between form and content.

But in short, not one step back. According to MINREX the military state
is in danger from this provocation, without arms, without masses,
without leaders who enjoy wide support among Cubans on the island. We
cannot give ground to the "counterrevolution," — they say — as if it
were not precisely the defenders of the indefensible regime themselves
who prevented the revolutionary changes that would lead us to
prosperous, democratic Cuba, free of authoritarian hegemonies, with all
and for the good of all.

It is weakness, fear and incapacity that led the government to put its
repressive character on full display and to miss the opportunity to have
been hospitable to the Secretary General of the Organization of American
States and to have discussed with him the conditions for possible ties
to that Inter-American body.

If they were a little bit capable they could have "stolen the show," but
we already know that in Cuba 'counterintelligence' dominates in its
broadest sense.

The organizations and individuals who prepared the event have a vision
different from the government's on the ways in which politics and the
economy should be conducted in Cuba and, of course, it was an opportune
moment to promote the positions of change previously promoted by the
Leader of the Christian Liberation Movement, Oswaldo Payá, who died in
circumstances demanding further explanation.

But if something like this can destabilize the regime, it should do the
same!

The government's actions provoked exactly what it was trying to avoid,
creating more interest among Cubans and international opinion in the
Varela Project and in how Oswaldo Paya died, a man who might not have
been to the liking of the government and other cities, but who lived on
the island, worked there and from from within promoted a peaceful and
democratic change of the system, with all his rights as a Cuban citizen.
Something to respect.

The Cuban government's action, vitiated by extremism, Manichaeism,
intolerance and repression, favored what the organizers of the event
ultimately wanted to demonstrate: the absence of space in Cuba for
different thinking, the existence of a tyrannical regime that impedes
freedom of expression and association, and that it intends to continue
to govern based on jails, police and repressive security agents.

The repression of the opposition, socialist dissent and different
thinking, pressures against the self-employed, the stagnation of the
reforms proposed by the Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba itself,
the voluntary efforts to try to control the widespread corruption
generated by statist wage system, in short, everything that is being
done by the senior bureaucratic hierarchy is generating chaos that
undermines and will burst the system from within from ignorance of the
laws of economic-social development.

They don't know where they stand! Don't try to put the blame on others
later.

This service against a "socialism" that has never existed will perhaps
be the best historical legacy left to us by these 60 years of
voluntarism, populism and authoritarianism of Fidel Castro communism,
such that the most retrograde forces of international reaction will
eternally thank the "Cuban leadership."

Source: Weakness, Fear And Inability Erode The Cuban Government /
14ymedio, Pedro Campos – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/weakness-fear-and-inability-erode-the-cuban-government-14ymedio-pedro-campos/