El Nuevo Herald, February 2, 1997
MADRID.- Towards the end of the last century, the two Houses of the American Parliament, with the goal of support of supporting the Cuban patriots and to make clear, as a by-product, the intentions of the government, approved what is now called a joint resolution in which they established that Cuba had the right to be free and independent. Shortly thereafter, after the war of 98, this simple declaration, which in its time was considered a simple rhetorical exercise without much importance, served as a point of contention to a few Cubans and Americans who,at the time, supported the anacronic idea of annexation of the island to the United States. This joint resolution was, in fact, and in some measure de jure, the linking pact between Washington and the emerging Republic which was painfully being built.
This precedent comes to mind because the formidable document called Support for a Democratic Transition in Cuba, which was issued last week by the White House, far from being a rehash of the famous Platt Amendment, what partially brings to mind is the joint resolution. Aside from the generous offer of $8,000 million destined to consolidate a transition at the time which it occurs, it contains the same key elements: the moral support to those who struggle for freedom and democracy, on one hand, and on the other, the compromise to respect Cuban sovereignty at the time of change, including the offer to return the control over Guantanamo Bay to the government which emerges from the free elections.
The American government, simply, doesn't wish or pretend that Cuba turns into another Puerto Rico. What it wishes for is for there to be, 90 miles from its shores, a prosperous and peaceful neighbor with which to have good relations and with which to undertake mutually satisfactory economic transactions. Nothing more. And, as can be gleaned from the document, the paranoic suspicion which assigns to the United States some imperial intentions over Cuba, or those mysterious plans of economic absortion at the hands of predatory multinationals which secretly control the powers that be in Washington, have little to do with reality. It is only part of an understanding of history anchored in errors, simplifications and the crassest propaganda.
Great. After this document came out, Cubans have a reasonable possibility to look at the future with much hope. Everyone can see that the change of regime and of the system--- if this is decided at the polls--- as something possitive which will lead to personal gain, without a doubt. Exactly the contrary of what the Castro regime has been telling them ever since the fall of the Berlin wall. In effect: Castro's propaganda strategy, developed by the specialists at DOR (Department of Revolutionary Orientation of the Central Committee), is not based on the defense of the virtues of communism, but rather on the discredit of any other option. For Cubans, Latin America is not the forward moving Chile, with 13 years of uninterrupted growth at above 7 percent, but rather the children of the Brazilean favelas, murdered at the hands of police thugs.
But even worse was the situation of the countries which abandoned communism. The news broadcasted by the Cuban press hid the incredible success of Slovenia--- 9 percent growth in 1996--, they said nothing of the recovery of the Chekoslovakian republic or of Poland. All that Cubans would see would be the civil wars, poverty or mafias. They were told that the end of the system would imply their loss of job, the expulsion from their homes and the beginning of a period in which they would be treated as pariahs in their own country at the hands of some heartless people who would return from exile to humilliate them and to deprive them of what little they owned.
The truth is that this poisoned message was successful. A substantial segment of Cuban society is capable of thinking that the system in which they lived was some repugnant nightmare, but simultaneously can believe that any change would bring about even more misery. Many were convinced ot the perversity of communism, but any other political option was equally repugnant because Castro, in his slow agony, has succeeded in spoiling all political discourse.
This document brings to an end all the strategies with which Castroism justified its inmobility, but, it also places each member of the power structure at an important juncture: in the name of a primary loyalty, based on a combination of fear and superstitions which are falsely nationalistic, he continues supporting a stubborn person who wishes to maintain a system which is inevitably destined to disappear, at the price of destroying, even more, the moral and material pillars of the Cuban society, or they decide to promote a change, look towards the future and try to get the country out of the pit in which they've put it.
It is now known, in writing, that the American offer is not for vengeance, but for reconciliation, and we can assert that the alleged danger of the "end of the Cuban nationality" brandished a thousand times as the last trench of the mindless, is nothing more than a ridiculous mask used to hide the selfishness of a ruling class who doesn't give a damn for the destiny of the Cuban people. Now we know that there's a clear path towards the future. Not to attempt to travel it, more than a crime, would be an unforgivable act of cowardice.
Firmas Press.