HAVANA, Cuba.- This Tuesday They made almost simultaneous announcements that imply a certain approach in the positions that the governments of Cuba and the United States have been maintaining in recent years.
From Havana it was announced release gradual arrest of 553 prisoners “for the commission of various crimes.” For its part, Washington announced Cuba’s withdrawal from the “list of countries sponsoring terrorism”, the suspension of the application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act (which allows for the filing of lawsuits in US courts) and the exclusion of some Cuban companies from the list of entities that cannot do business with the United States.
The approach given on both sides to the various announcements reveals the purpose of preventing the only reasonable conclusion from being drawn from their coincidence in time: that it is an agreement between the governments of the two countries neighbors, regardless of whether there has been intervention by certain intermediaries (such as the Vatican) in the negotiations.
Public opinion
Despite these nitpicks, public opinion, by a large majority, has drawn the only logical consequence from these shameful announcements: the one raised in the preceding paragraph. As is evident, we are talking about the result which is precisely what both parties were trying to avoid.
The reactions to the announcements have not been long in coming. Attacks against the government headed by Mr. Joseph Biden have increased, some of them very virulent. To only mention the one that stands out the most due to the political importance of its issuers, I will mention that of the Cuban-American federal representatives (Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar and Carlos Giménez). It describes the measures as a “betrayal” of the security of the United States and the cause of freedom of the Cuban people. There have been other even more caustic demonstrations, which have been widely covered by the independent press and by the Cuban Exile media, including this same digital newspaper.
However, this writer prefers to focus on the reaction that has been observed on the part of the stirring apparatus. and propaganda of Castroism. Taking advantage of its virtual monopoly on print and television media, the Havana regime simultaneously presents information from its own government and that of Washington. He juxtaposes them, without explaining the links between them. Also, faithful to the triumphalist tone that characterizes him, he strives to present what happened as his new victory.
Castro’s propaganda
In the midst of this manipulation, of course they have to recognize obvious situations. One of these is a recognition that is bitter for them: that these measures have been adopted by Mr. Biden’s administration when he has less than a week left in power (and, consequently, when there is the same period of time left for him to take office in Washington). commanding a political team of a very different character)…
In light of this reality, in the press that criticizes Castroism there has been speculation about a possibility: that the new Donald Trump Administration will revoke all or part of the measures once the former president is installed again in the White House. I would not dare to affirm that this will necessarily happen, and even less that such a thing will happen immediately. If the sanctions reliefs ordered in Washington are revocable, the releases granted by Havana… It seems advisable to wait to see how events develop.
When referring to the captives who will be released, the regime has taken care to emphasize that the legal mechanisms that will be used do not include amnesty or pardon (which put an end to the sanction), but rather “early release benefits” (among them, conditional release and extra-penal license). This, in turn, implies that the unfair penalties imposed remain valid…
political prisoners
As far as I know, there is only one aspect of that concession (the release of half a thousand prisoners) that the Castro-communists have tried to challenge: I am referring to the “political” character of those captives. At least, that was what the chatterbox who has specialized in this type of matters, the ineffable Humberto López, emphasized. This, in a program dedicated to recent announcements, addressed the topic with one of his interviewees from the legal sector.
The same objective (that of masking the undoubtedly political nature of these arbitrary imprisonments) is what is pursued with the mention of various criminal types, which even includes crimes against property. For anyone who knows the dirty tricks that the Castro regime’s courts and prosecutors usually use, the latter is not a cause for surprise. Every time they have a pretext for it (and, sometimes, without using any pretext, but rather grossly manipulating the truth) they foist on their opponents some supposed “common crime.”
In the meantime, one cannot understand why fundamentals rational reasons (if any) the Castro-communist regime counts for its current triumphalism. The fact is that even the minority of clueless people who, at this point!, still believe that the catastrophic economic situation in today’s Cuba is due to discriminatory North American measures, what will they think when everything remains the same (or even worse)!
In a report from a medium as little suspected of anti-Castroism as the newspaper Granmait was recognized on the 9th of this year that “only six of the 14 planned plants are in operation, which has resulted in levels of ground cane that reach barely 25% of what was planned.” Do the communists believe that such a disaster in the former “Sugar Factory of the World” will ease in the coming weeks! Or that they will emerge from the terminal crisis in which they are mired! They would have to be crazy!
But yes, it must be recognized that the behavior they usually observe in the face of reality denotes that, in the ranks of the so-called “Continuity”, irrationality is always present.
