They should all be returned. From the ex-pilot, the ex-judge and the ex-leader to the most insignificant repentant communist.
HAVANA.- With the case of the pilot and former officer of the Cuban Air Force, Luis Raúl González-Pardo Rodríguez, linked to a criminal action like that of February 1996, it is no longer possible to continue thinking that the presence of accomplices and repressors of Castroism in the United States is a consequence of a previous, relaxed and reckless immigration policy or of a mass exodus that made visible the fractures within the Communist Party of Cuba and the Armed Forces.
There are too many and at the same time so “naïve” the “fragments” that jump from these fractures – and that they do so precisely in the direction where they should not – not to suspect that there was a political opportunity to a certain extent agreed between governments – although what was agreed upon was simply “turning a blind eye” – or at least taken advantage of by the Cuban regime to do something that it had needed for a long time. They needed to renew and strengthen their influence groups, especially in Florida, where, on the one hand, it would reinforce the fiction that there is no political migration, but rather an economic one, and on the other, it would increase their networks of espionage and front men to the lucrative business of shipping to Cuba and remittances.
But, whatever it is, the most recent case, like the others, manufactured or not by Cuban intelligence, forces us to think about how deep and lethal the crisis that the Cuban regime is going through is either for this serious type of desertions and ruptures to occur or for them, out of desperation, to resort to this strategy of “silent invasion.” Well, it implies internally sending a message that can be interpreted as weakness, as a breakdown of power, but above all, a shortage of servile and faithful people.
Much more dangerous externally because a score of roosters uncovered in less than a year, having all entered the United States almost at the same time, is almost like a declaration of war.
It is more worrying when such revelations, such as that of the former pilot, the former secretaries of the PCC, the former leaders of the UJC and other revelations, arise around the process against the former vice prime minister. Alejandro Giland the rest of the dismissals—more or less serious—that have as a common denominator disloyalty, betrayal more than corruption, which is only the pretext to disguise what is only a matter of political and ideological “discrepancies.”
Nothing has been said or known clearly beyond what happens behind closed doors in the court, but I do not doubt—because the rumors are too strong among some officials and foreign businessmen on the Island—that behind the accusation of “espionage” against Alejandro Gil there is hardly a history of disagreement with the methods and strategies to revive the Cuban economy and, in that sense, of great naivety on the part of the former Minister of Economy, in his idea that it was possible to deploy his own initiatives—some suggested as “to help” by some of these businessmen, most of them Spanish, Canadian and even Cuban-American—and that later, if they were successful, they would recognize the merit.
Or not. But Gil, with his good relationships and better initiatives, was content with becoming as essential as he was Ricardo Cabrisasor as Manuel Marrero Cruz continues to be, who largely owes his long survival to his extensive network of personal relationships with foreign businessmen. The one that knew how to weave first from GAESA and then from the Ministry of Tourism, but what is it that, having done almost exactly the same thing, makes one essential and the other a spy?: the permission to do it, and take it on as a mission, never as an initiative.
Personal initiatives, wherever they come from, for the Cuban dictatorship are treason, and these are never tolerated, and very rarely are they achieved, and one of the best examples is that of the former foreign minister Roberto Robaina, that like the others who have saved their skin, he understood the rules of the game and, therefore, that it was healthier not to blab. That when they tell you “you’re out” the only thing left to do is leave with your tail between your legs.
For the Castro regime, the one they decide to add as a piece to their game, especially when it is among the main pieces on the board, does so accepting that there is no room for “initiatives”, that there is a script and that everything consists of following it to the letter. That no one agrees, declares, thinks, profits or emigrates, no one “betrays” unless it is as an entrusted mission, and that every violating action carries a condemnatory reaction.
Thus, for example, if the deposed Otto Rivero makes a direct statement about the poor service at Galerías de Paseo, it is not on his “initiative,” but because someone has given him permission to do so; Not even that former pilot, even without having dried the blood of that other mission, arrived in Miami if one of his bosses in Cuba did not allow him to leave beforehand, perhaps even knowing that they would let him in.
If it had been a personal initiative, none of those uncovered today would have managed to escape from Cuba, nor have any of them left “without permission” who should not be there if it were not because there are ulterior motives here. Neither father’s children, nor grandfather’s grandsons and granddaughters, nor the friend of the royal drone who too quickly became a businessman nor anyone who says that only now, when it is too late, has he discovered that Castroism is a big lie because he will surely be pretending, because it is the best they know how to do.
They should all be returned. From the ex-pilot, the ex-judge and the ex-leader to the most insignificant repentant communist. Because they are part of a desperate and opportunistic strategy of penetration by the “enemy” or a true rupture within the regime, both possibilities show that the dictatorship is falling apart, and if that rotting corpse should fall on anyone’s heads, it is on those who fed it in life.
