As everyone knows by now, last February 24 two planes of Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based organization engaged in helping rafters trying to escape from Cuba, were downed by Cuban MiGs. The four young men aboard the planes, all US residents, were killed.
We've all heard the speeches claiming that Brothers to the Rescue is really a terrorist organization bent on taking Cuban lives. It' s the same old story with a few new twists. This time there was a superspy turned revolutionary hero: Juan Pablo Roque, an FBI informant who had infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue, now back in Cuba, proclaimed before the TV cameras that the organization had as its goal the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Meanwhile, on Cuban TV we see the same tired faces of people who have been shouting the same slogans for 30-some years. Yet support for the government is lukewarm at best. There are no passionate shouts to be heard this time around. The truth is that nobody believes in this confrontation in which the Cuban people will be the ultimate losers. The implication is that Cuba prepared the stage for this show. It is also implied that President Clinton is taking advantage of the situation to further his own political ambitions.
Yet in the midst of this warm Cuban winter, the people of Havana are more concerned with survival. They have to endure countless trips all over the city in order to then stand in line to buy food.
For 37 years, Cubans have been trained to call for war against any enemies, preferably the Americans. But it is a tired tactic. Young Cubans risks their lives on rafts in search of a better life elsewhere. The ones who stay behind make the most of the situation, prostituting themselves or hustling tourists. The more courageous among them form dissident groups that openly call for democratization.
Last February 24, most of those dissidents were persecuted and imprisoned. More than one thousand of them languish in Cuban prisons, yet no one speaks up for them. The whole country is part of this conspiracy.
Jose Rivero Garcia
Translated to English by Mireya L. Novo
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