US-Cuba Deal at One Year - Castros Stronger than Ever

US-Cuba Deal at One Year: Castros Stronger than Ever / Orlando Luis
Pardo Lazo
Posted on December 16, 2015

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Reykjavik, 15-December 2015 — A
non-interventionist US president, a Peronist Catholic pope, and a
right-wing military dictator exalted by the Latin American left was
bound to be a winning ticket.

And so it has been. One year after a new era in Cuba-US relations was
announced, it is evident that the Castro regime has secured political
stability, a large amount of foreign subsidies, and debt write-offs.
Even a dynastic succession is on track for 2018, when Raúl Castro will
hand over all the titles he inherited from his older brother Fidel in 2006.

Let us, then, be humble. The elder Castro was right when he decided to
impose his regime through violence. The Cuban Revolution was a
historical necessity; capitalism remains a fraud which is doomed to
failure; and Fidel Castro has been a visionary this whole time.

Let us also be fair with the Cuban people: we are too skeptical,
conformist, ungrateful, lazy, and evasive. We weren't up to the task of
being the chosen people to lead the socialist utopia. As soon as we
could, we betrayed the island's proletariat, those who control the means
of production, to seek refuge in air-conditioned Hialeah shops.

It is no coincidence that the US-Cuba rapprochement was announced on
Pope Francis's 79th birthday, December 17. Havana generals and Wall
Street bankers will pat themselves on the back since their secret deal
is close to fruition. The White House's ideological blindness has
enabled this pact to go forward in spite of recalcitrant critics'
insistence on calling tyranny by its name.

Both in Cuba and abroad, speaking of fundamental freedoms is
counterproductive at this point. Those of us who have lived 57 years
under a regime with no respect for human rights shouldn't be so
impatient when the transition toward post-Castroism is around the corner!

During the last year, the number of arbitrary detentions, beatings, and
imprisonments without charges or trials has increased exponentially.
Censorship in Cuba has become so blatant that the regime even targeted
officially recognized artists such as Tania Bruguera and Juan Carlos
Cremata.

Let's put things on a balance: both the United States and Cuba now have
embassies in each other's capital. Their doors have closed on Cuban
civil society and opposition groups, but this "milestone" has produced a
guilt-ridden hysteria among US academia and media-types.

Americans can also send instant messages and snail mail to Cuba (so that
the political police can more easily read it with impunity). Meanwhile,
Cuba's Computing and Communications Ministry refuses to offer private
internet services. They don't want users' money; they want the
submission of their thought.

Large cruise ships — Granma's of grand glamour — are soon to arrive in
Cuba, but the government still doesn't allow its citizens to enter their
own country by sea. That's our punishment as the proletariat's pariahs.
Nobody cares about the apartheid of a people ever in diaspora, men and
women forced to use the Cuban passport even when some hold dual
citizenship. And even with that document in hand we can't permanently
reside in our own country.

The new rules establish that no foreign investor can be of Cuban origin.
The Castro gerontocracy has always been motivated by contempt and
distrust rather than by profits.

But such details will be ironed out during the orchestrated transition
towards a "post-Castro" Cuba. The United States still has a lot to yield
to the Castros; Washington still hasn't turned over Ana Belén Montes,
the Cuban spy who infiltrated the Pentagon's higher echelons and is
serving a 25-year term. It should be a piece of cake, since Obama has
already released five of Havana's hit-men, some of them with life sentences.

The first anniversary of Cuba's deal with the United States signals a
new phase in the communist revolution. It leaves the world a wonderful
lesson: those who kill more, win; those who win, are legitimate; the
dead are just a myth made to fit into the mass-media's narrative; and
those whom Castro doesn't like, the totalitarian regime will destroy.

Source: US-Cuba Deal at One Year: Castros Stronger than Ever / Orlando
Luis Pardo Lazo | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/us-cuba-deal-at-one-year-castros-stronger-than-ever-orlando-luis-pardo-lazo/