HAVANA, Cuba.- In recent months, the world has been watching situations that, due to their possible consequences, generate a lot of anxiety: the elections in the United States and the possibility of war escalations with unpredictable consequences in the Middle East around Gaza, and in Ukrainefor fear that Putin, desperate and humiliated, will resort to nuclear weapons. But since July 28, it is the situation in Venezuela which keeps Cubans in suspense. I cannot recall another international event that has generated so many expectations in Cuba.
Even before the elections, there was a lot of anxiety among Cubans about what would happen. Now it is even greater. And it is logical that this should happen. The fall of Chavismo would mean a very hard blow for the Castro regime, which would be deprived of the oil and money that Venezuela has been providing it since the time of Hugo ChavezAnd not only that: it would show Cubans, fed up with 65 years of misery and oppression under Castroism, that, however difficult it may be, it is possible to defeat a tyranny.
Only a few die-hard Castro supporters have been convinced by the lies of the official press and Telesur. The rest do not doubt the scandal. electoral fraud committed by Nicolás Maduro and his henchmen and puppets of the National Electoral Council and the Supreme Court of Justice.
People comment, with admiration, on the bravery of Maria Corina Machado and of the thousands of his followers who respond to his calls to respect the electoral results and the will of the majority of Venezuelans, despite the brutal repression unleashed by the regime.
But Cubans are divided on how events in Venezuela might develop.
There are many who believe that Ripe He will win because his opponents will become exhausted, and by avoiding international pressure and subjecting Venezuelans to terror, he will manage to stay in power.
I have heard several compatriots, imbued with defeatism and lack of self-esteem, pure induced helplessness, say that if the Venezuelans, who have shown their courage at the polls and in the streets, with a leader of the caliber of María Corina Machado, have not been able to defeat the Maduro dictatorship, what can we Cubans expect, with fear, stunned by six decades of communist tyranny and without an opposition leadership capable of channeling popular discontent and mobilizing us in the fight for freedom.
Those convinced of Castro’s invincibility assure that Maduro’s Cuban mentors, those who trained him at the PCC’s Ñico López School and imposed him on Chávez as his successor to pimp out Venezuelan oil, will do whatever it takes to prevent the triumph of the democratic opposition.
“When there is another social upheaval in Cuba, the Castro bosses, given how well the instructions in their manual worked in Venezuela, will tighten their grip even more with repression, convinced that the international repercussions will not go beyond a few complaints and scandal,” a neighbor told me.
There are also, although fewer, those who believe that the international pressure and the resistance of the Venezuelan opposition will finally succeed in bringing down Maduro’s dictatorship. Some make wild assumptions about what that end will be like: that Vladimir Padrino, the Minister of Defense, will decide to carry out a military coup against Maduro; that the United States will intervene as they did in Panama in 1989 to capture Noriega; that the DEA will launch an operation to kidnap Maduro and Diosdado Cabello; that the Aragua Train will happen; that Maduro will get scared and run off with his millions to Turkey, etc.
“This movie is not over yet,” a friend tells me. “We’ll see what happens between now and January 10.”
