President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio do not hide that they have the Castro regime in their sights.
https://www.cubanet.org/trump-afirma-que-nicolas-maduro-fue-capturado-y-sacado-de-venezuela/HAVANA.- Venezuela It is in the mouths of Cubans. There is no talk of anything else. I do not remember an issue of international politics that has generated as much confusion, speculation and expectations among my compatriots as the situation in that South American country after the events of January 3.
The perennial manipulation of information by the official press does not help to dispel doubts, but, on the contrary, confuses, disorients and stimulates speculation, many of which are absurd and others not so absurd.
It is enough to listen to what is said in the streets and on social networks.
A fairly widespread opinion, and one that is gaining more and more strength, is that there was a catch. The speed and relative ease with which the Americans captured Nicolás Maduro cannot be explained—in a country that had had its armed forces mobilized and on alert for weeks.
Even supporters of the regime suspect that there was betrayal in Maduro’s entourage, that they handed him over. There are those who think that “the kidnapping” was agreed upon with Maduro himself, that it was the way the beleaguered dictator found to escape from the Cuban military guarding him and who, by orders from Havana, would not have allowed him to leave Venezuela, even though they would have had to kill him and then present it as a suicide.
To those who thought this hypothesis was terrible, they may no longer consider it so after the death in combat became known. of 32 Cuban soldiers and several dozen injured. This, after the Castro regime, the same one that now decrees official mourning for the fallen, emphatically and repeatedly denied that there were FAR and MININT troops in Venezuela.
The bosses have lied so much that one more lie is not surprising, even if, like this one, it is extremely irresponsible and dangerous.
A few hours ago, on the television program Mesa Redonda they tried to convince us that the Chavistas were still united and determined to confront the Americans, and that with the swearing in of Delcy Rodriguez As acting president, the continuity of Chavismo and the institutionality of the State in the Bolivarian Republic was reaffirmed.
For now I have to agree with an old friend from high school days, now exiled, who in a message, disgusted – like many, like myself – by the marginalization by the Americans of Maria Corina Machado and of the president-elect Edmundo González, and skeptical, predicting the failure of the North American plan to negotiate with Delcy Rodríguez so that a power vacuum would not be created, he wrote to me in a message, comparing what happened in defeated Japan in 1945 with what could happen in Venezuela: “Apart from historical differences, neither Marco Rubio is McArthur nor Delcy Rodríguez is Hirohito.”
The Castro bosses must be more than worried, scared. Not so much because of the inter-Chavist quarrels as because of the possibility that Cuba is the next target. President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio do not hide that they have the Castro regime in their sights. But they do not consider that a military intervention is necessary: they believe that due to economic asphyxiation the fruit will rot and fall.
However, many believe that the United States will eventually intervene militarily to end the Castro dictatorship. Although there is no oil in Cuba, as many say.
And at this point in the intervention, the positions of my countrymen differ greatly. There is much fear of the terrible consequences of a war, even among those who fervently want the end of the dictatorship. There are even opponents who believe in a nineteenth-century jingoistic nationalism and, forgetting the sins of Chavismo, absolving them, they have taken to invoking sovereignty and international law, to the point that they seem to repeat the refrains of the communiqués that the so-called mass organizations are writing these days.
But there are those, like a neighbor who hates Castroism with all the strength of his heart, who I heard cry out “let the bombs fall now and let this shit end.” When his wife spoke to him about death and destruction, he replied: “Hey, whatever it is… It’s better to turn red just once…”
And there is also no shortage of snitches and unconditional supporters of Castroism who say—especially when their superiors hear them—that they are willing to die “in defense of the revolution.”
But one never ceases to be amazed by many compatriots who, because they have pretended so much, it is no longer known which side they are on or what they want. Like an old man from my neighborhood, a habitual drunk and who has been imprisoned twice for robbery, who at the bus stop I heard arguing heatedly with another old man in defense of “the revolution.” When he heard that Cuba would be a walk for the invaders, he shouted: “Let them dare to attack us, we are going to defeat them and our Migs will bomb Miami.” The other told him: “What Migs? If they must be obsolete, they are stubble like everything else.” There I entered the conversation and asked him: “Come here, Armando, why are you willing to fight and give your life? For the blackouts, for the daily bread from the supply book, for the hunger you are experiencing, for Sandro Castro’s Cristach beers?” He replied: “No shit, I’m not even from the CDR.”
Some believe that the end of the dictatorship is near. Others, taking into account his proven skills to survive in the most adverse circumstances, believe that the Castro doll still has enough power.
What there is total agreement on is that when oil stops coming from Venezuela everything will be much more difficult than it is today.
