HARRISONBURG, United States. – This Thursday, August 15, the airline arrived at Miami International Airport Manuel Menendez Castellanoswho until a few years ago was closely linked to the repression of the Cuban people.
I found it significant the way he tried to hide his face, but above all seeing him sitting in a wheelchair that the airport services use for sick people and from which he quickly got up as soon as he was received by the welcoming committee of his CDRsorry, for his relatives. It was curious to see him with a pink shirt, something that made me remember an interesting book by Fernando Martínez Heredia entitled The red shift, Although in this case the path of the former communist gendarme has been the other way around, from red to pink.
Mario Pentón, journalist from Marti News, recorded his arrival. And the recording reflected how the violent character of this Castroite puppet continues to be rooted in his soul, as much as his cowardice. Because Manuel Menéndez Castellanos acted like what he has been and what all those who occupy high positions in the Castroite nomenclature are like him. He was cowardly when he refused to answer the reporter’s questions, he was also cowardly when, feeling protected by those around him, he slapped the journalist’s phone, a fleeting imitation of what the Minister of Culture did against a young journalist a few years ago because it is actually a demonstrative action of the dictatorship’s intolerance, reproduced ad infinitum by the agents of the Castro police every time they try to prevent a citizen from offering testimony about our reality.
Having experienced first-hand how far the lies and manipulation of Castroism can go, the proverb “think badly and you will be right” is enthroned in my mind when analyzing events such as the arrival of this henchman.
First Secretary of the Communist Party in my home province, Cienfuegosbetween 1993 and 2003, there are quite a few anecdotes that I heard from the mouths of some of my fellow countrymen that link him to notorious acts of corruption during that decade, although he always escaped any problems due to his proven dog-like genuflection towards the Castros.
After being “released” from his post in 2003, he went on to “work” in the Central Committee of the CCP as part of the team Fidel Castro. Then his name began to be mentioned less in the official media. Now he arrives here and perhaps his mission is to strengthen the discredited groups that support the dictatorship from this country. Who knows if he comes with the mission of doing, together with Misael Enamorado Dager, former first secretary of the PCC in Santiago de Cuba and with Arelis Casañola Quintanaformer first secretary of that party in the Isle of Youth, a political force that works with the objective of consolidating the purposes of the dictatorship within this country. I have not been the first nor the only one to warn about this possibility from these pages.
When I think about how easy it has been for this type of “political refugees” or “family reunions” to settle in this country, I cannot help but think with pain about the situation that the Protestant pastor couple formed by Ramon Rigal and Ayda Exposito along with their children, worthy Cubans who have not been able to obtain the support of a sponsor or a humanitarian visa from the State Department, despite the fact that they have been and continue to be politically persecuted and were declared prisoners of conscience by international human rights organizations.
I find it very worrying that at this point in the game, despite the cases of Ana Belen Montesthe Wasp Network and Victor Manuel Rochablunders like this happen. That a repressor like Manuel Menéndez Castellanos was able to successfully pass an interview at the US embassy in Havana, hiding his past as a high-ranking leader of the dictatorship, can only reflect two situations: that the Immigration Service of the United States of America needs to strengthen its verification mechanisms or, simply, that there is complicity on the part of some decision-makers of this administration with the Cuban dictatorship. Both situations demonstrate how fragile the protection of the security of this country is in the face of dangers such as that represented by the arrival of individuals of unquestionable communist affiliation such as that of this Castro errand boy.
On days like these I would like to be in Florida, Kentucky or Texas and follow closely in the footsteps of cowards like those mentioned. The least they deserve is an act of constant repudiation from the Cuban community, which is truly committed to the values on which our heroes founded our nation. The least they deserve is peace, that good so precious to every human being and that they have always denied to Cubans who are not like them.
OPINION ARTICLE
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