Havana Cuba. – Once again we hear about deferred debts and free money, and that has been enough for the Cuban regime to qualify as successful what could undoubtedly be called the “failure tour”, while it shows how desperate they are, that worse when they have had to go out and knock on something more prosaic than doors so as not to return to the Island empty-handed.
Because even considering that the lease of the aircraft of Conviasa where they traveled has been another of the “royalties” between allies, we only have to look at the clothes, coats, shoes and accessories used by the main members of the entourage to get an idea of the thousands of dollars they invested —rather, they bet— on this “diplomatic performance” that is between the “rider”, the apparent madness and the circus.
The riding because we already know what purposes took them so far; madness, because embracing Putin at the precise moment when Europe —always distracted by the violations of human rights in Cuba— qualifies him as a terrorist is not at all advisable; and circus because it is evident that, a few hours before the voting this past Sunday, they have wanted to show that they are “doing something good” so that the abstentionism, every day greater, does not reveal how unpopular the Cuban communists really are.
And it is that, as stupid as it may seem, still breathing among us (with the difficulties of the terminally ill) are those who trust that the 100 million donated by China will not go to the construction of hotels, in which the Turkish businessmen are easier to deceive than the Galicians, and that the Russians, in the midst of a war with Ukraine that makes them very nervous, as long as it could spread to all of Europe, are planning mass tourism in the Caribbean.
Beyond the moratoriums that do not mean “victories”, and the agreements that will remain “memories”, the tour has only served to show the severity of a crisis and how difficult it will be for the regime to get out of it if it is not capable to expand and improve its catalog of political partners.
Both the Havana International Fair (FIHAV) and the meeting with Cuban-American businessmen (carried out not by chance just a few days before the tour), did not produce the expected results, despite what was said by the official press on national television to create an atmosphere of economic prosperity, “inclusivity” and political openness that is far from of the harsh reality
Nor were there relevant agreements beyond the creation of a new beer brand (consistent with the strategy of alcohol first and food later) for which the production plant in Mariel has not even been completed yet; nor were the Cuban-Americans who attended the meeting in Havana other than the same as always, installed in a great paradox: they ask for an end to the embargo but it is precisely the embargo that has made their businesses prosperous.
If tomorrow the United States Senate decides to eliminate the embargo, all companies shipping to Cuba would disappear, and with them the other businesses that directly or indirectly benefit from this “uniqueness.”
And the Cuban regime is no stranger to the political opportunism of the Katapult and Apacargo, but it still needs them and uses them not only to support a possible network of agents of influence in “Consolación del Norte” (as a certain friend used to call Miami) but also Furthermore, to simulate before public opinion that atmosphere of “we are happy here” increasingly rarefied by “experiments”, blunders and conservatism.
In the same way, on the persistence of the embargo, not only the discourse of a regime that justifies its incapacities is sustained, but also the entire institutional system that lives at the expense of unnecessary trips and stays abroad, from the creation of businesses to personal title with the pretext of “evading the embargo” and a whole dark framework where corruption, bureaucratism, nepotism and other evils are generated that if they are not totally typical of totalitarian regimes, in these they become more common.
Today suffocation is deadly. No formula is giving them results, neither immediate nor in the long term, therefore they have had no other option than to pack their bags and, resuming the plan that they have always had as number one on the list, they went horse riding along those few distant routes. where something-beyond the flu from the intense cold-would have hit them, yes or yes.
Just the impossibility of getting to the places if it is not using the services of a foreign airline, and not by Cubana de Aviación, has offered the worst image of themselves, making evident the times of misery they are going through, even when the wardrobe they loaded has gone to fill it in the boutiques from those same Paris Club creditors who, by virtue of sentimentality and complicity, have done the charity of deferring the debt, just as the Algerians, Turks, Russians and Chinese have now done in the face of so much tearing.
But also the timid rapprochements with the United States in recent months made it foreseeable that the regime, always careful not to completely demolish the myth of Cuba as a besieged place, would make one of these moves that seem bordering on madness as long as it could bring negative consequences. especially because of the open alliance with Moscow.
However, the experience of recent years tells us that the democratic governments, in their “intimate relations” with the dictatorship, are like the mother facing the spoiled son, that the worse the child behaves, the more he does to please him, and if he punishes in some way, he will always do it with a kid glove.
OPINION ARTICLE
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