Iroel Sánchez
For this picture Obama preferred the Bushes company - father and son. Will it be the same in his policy towards Cuba?
During the last weeks we have witnessed numerous events related to US-American politics toward Cuba. Seen as a group, these facts seemed to be putting a lid on the confrontational strategy that encourages extremist sectors of Cuban origin, even if the administration in Washington does not clearly distance itself from them.
On one side we have the recent appeals from very influential U.S.-Americans such as former President Jimmy Carter – who just completed a visit to our island where he called for the end of economic blockade, freedom for the Five antiterrorist Cuban prisoners in the U.S. and the end of the travel ban to Cuba for U.S. citizens. That was followed by the announcement by John Kerry, president of the Senate Committee for External Relations, that he will oppose the budgeting of additional funds for anti-Cuban subversion.
On the other hand, we see the successive failures accumulated by the “opposition” managed in Cuba by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, whom according to the same U.S.-American diplomats lacks any influence among what they call “average Cubans.”
As well, Cuban authorities have liberated all prisoners convicted in 2003 for conspiring with the U.S. diplomats in Havana to provoke heightened tensions, as recognized by former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispher Affairs, Roger Noriega. The very few released prisoners who decided to remain in Cuba have ceased to be news even for the Miami media.
The call on February 21st for a “popular uprising in Cuba” which was 100% ignored was the prologue for several pompously named events that had equally dismal results – the “National Zapata Tamayo March”, on February 23, or President Barack Obama’s directives to the “Ladies in White” to continue demonstrating under the supervision of his diplomats in Cuba. Even if these actions have obtained the release of their imprisoned relatives – bringing to an end the supposed cause of their protests – they have culminated in such a harvest of ridicule that no government in its right mind should associate itself with them. Under the capitalist principle of paying workers by the piece, if these characters were to be paid according to their real influence, they wouldn’t deserve a single cent from U.S. taxpayers.
Adding insult to injury, all this has happened on a stage with backdrops like the perjury trial in El Paso, Texas against terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, that has shown the connections – proven by the FBI – between the financing of anti-Cuban terrorism and prominent political figures in Washington and Miami. As well, in the Cubadebate series Cuba’s Reasons, several Cuban Security agents who had been recruited by the special U.S. services have uncovered the activities – paid with public U.S. funds and organized in both Washington and Havana – designed to accomplish the strategy of “régime change” pursued by the so-called Bush Plan, a plan that Obama has not stopped. The ties with senior U.S.-American officials from both the old dissidence and the new figures created with the help of juicy payments, media campaigns and technological tools have been uncovered in this series. In spite of the efforts by Washington and by some of their paid agents to keep it secret, it has been demonstrated that there is not a single one of these people who doesn’t work in exchange for money and in obedience to the visiting or permanent U.S. agents in Cuba.
Although these facts have not appeared in the U.S. mainstream media, both the decision-makers in Washington and all influential people around them should be taking note. If Carter has presented a report to Obama on what he saw in Cuba it should contain numerous arguments in favor of changing U.S. policy toward the island. One of them would be his testimony on the third-rate character of the handful of people whom the U.S. diplomatic representation deceivingly presented to him as “Cuban civil society” in a media performance that had nothing to do with real politics.
Both Obama’s officials in the Cuban capital and the most ethical President the U.S. has had in the last fifty years are whispering this to him: artificially financing an opposition in Cuba does not work.
To make matters worse, the most closely held desire of some of these characters – as one of the mentors of the so-called “cyber-dissidents” has admitted from Barcelona – is that the U.S. solve their problem by invading Cuba, a position reaffirmed by José María Aznar, one of the main champions of this “opposition.” The former Spanish president has expressed aloud what many of them dream of: Libya’s recipe must be applied to Cuba. But Obama already has enough problems without embarking on a new adventure against the Pearl of the Antilles paid with the very limited money Washington has at its disposal.
(Translated by Manuel Talens – Machetera in Tlaxcala) Original in spanish Obama y Cuba: ¿Tiempo de cambio?
