Havana Cuba. – The issue of the referendum on the Family Code, called by the Castro regime for the coming year, continues to be news September 25th. This time the subject was addressed by the person who, due to his lofty positions, should be the supreme boss of our country, but who, by recognizing pre-eminence to the most prominent member of the Castro family with the unofficial title of “Leader of the Revolution”, has expressly agreed to occupy the background.
Mr. Miguel Díaz-Canel said: “The Code was not made to design a family or to assume a family construction that does not conform to the ethical or religious convictions of a person. Nor does it seek tolerance, but respect. And he emphasizes this last issue: “That is the key word: respect for the rights of people.”
Reading these last words, I couldn’t help but remember the wise saying: Tell me what you brag about and I’ll tell you what you lack. Because, gentlemen, let the official representative of a regime that openly tramples citizens boast of “respect for the rights of people”! That even punishes them for making use of human rights recognized and proclaimed worldwide , like that of free demonstration!…
In any case, the virulent reactions to what was written by the First Secretary of the only legal party and President of the Republic were immediate: Dennis Almaguer George affirms: “That’s a lie. Why are we not given the opportunity to educate our children at home, as it exists in other countries? This user concludes: “I vote Nope”.
On the government side there is a succession of choral praises for the legislative project. The regime seems to have reached a conclusion: Instead of reproducing statements by communist leaders, it is more profitable to transmit the praising concepts of well-known artists who lend themselves to repeating the commonplaces of official propaganda.
Almost daily, Cuban Television broadcasts a promo in which a homeless child is seen who finds himself in a house inhabited by a couple of runny drunks (his parents, as they want to be seen). The refrigerator is empty (something that is our daily bread in this Greater Antilles, but that the perpetrators of the agitational documentary want to present as something highly criticizable). At the door an old lady knocks (a grandmother of the minor, presumably), who protects him.
This clumsy piece of propaganda and other similar ones are repeated over and over again on our Island in the mass media, which never publish any contrary opinion. And for the record, I’m not just referring to those who are directly opposed to communism. Also other discrepant criteria (such as those just expressed by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Cuba) suffer the same adverse fate.
As a lawyer, I take this opportunity to clarify a confusion that has been revealed in various writings. I am referring to the concept according to which the Code, when approved by the National Assembly and published in the Official Gazette, would already have the status of law, even though the process of the referendum is still pending.
It is likely that this matter has been raised with the utmost clarity by my colleague Camila Acosta, in a journalistic work published in this same digital newspaper in the final days of last August. There, the colleague wonders: “What is the point of circulating it in the Gazette if it has not yet been approved in a referendum? And she comments: “With this a contradiction is generated because with the publication in the Official Gazette, the Family Code is promoted as law, regardless of the result of the referendum.”
I answer the friend Camila’s question: Publishing it officially makes all the sense in the world. It is precisely this publication that allows the voters, when voting “yes” or “no”, to know for sure what they are pronouncing on! It is only thanks to that publication that the last provision of said Law No. 156 (the Forty-fourth) makes sense: “This Code enters into force once it is ratified in the Popular Referendum to which it is submitted by constitutional mandate.” It is only due to this publication that, in case of approval, citizens and authorities will know which legal text is applicable.
In the meantime, there are the posts and comments from known opponents who state their purpose of not going to vote. I do not criticize them, but I do not share their opinions. By making this statement, I think they continue to think of the Castro regime as a monolithic bloc that remains impervious to any dissenting opinion.
That perception is not in line with reality, and even less so now, when the regime has entered its terminal phase, to the extent that there are more and more people who refer to Cuba as a “Failed state”! Within the communist system there are those who, although they do not express it, think differently; those who do not agree with what they swear and perjure in the Havana “Palace of the Revolution”.
Of course, the communist leaders can launch the slogan of completely supplanting the results of the elections if, as can be expected, they are adverse to them. Of course, that measure, from the outset, would leave those leaders in a very bad position, so addicted to the discourse of presenting themselves as the sole representatives of the people, who in turn “support the Revolution en masse.” With that decision it would become clear that all this rhetoric is nothing more than a lie and one more manipulation.
But, in addition, such an impersonation would have to be done with a certain order, since it is evident that the Central Committee of the party, beyond the mystifications that come to be perpetrated, would need to know what the real results of the popular vote are, to know what to expect
If all of the above is true, then those of us who exhort citizens to turn out to vote and do so for “no” or those who appeal “to the conscience and responsibility of all Cubans” (which, in basically, it comes to the same thing), as the Catholic bishops have just done in their message.
OPINION ARTICLE
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