José Antonio Fornaris, Cuba-Verdad
HAVANA, June - The latest "fabrication" of the imperialists is the
"colossal injustice" committed against five Cuban "patriots"
by a federal court in Miami, who found them guilty of espionage in recent weeks.
All the media in the island are participating in a propaganda campaign led
by Fidel Castro himself. The gist of this new crusade is that the five "patriots"
are innocent because they were not in the United States to spy on that country,
but rather on the activities of the Cuban-American mafia.
Evidently, this constitutes peculiar reasoning. The message seems to be
directed to other spies and collaborators that still remain in United States
territory. The sentences imposed on the five are stiff, and could dissuade those
remaining from continuing their labors. There is little indication that the
political regime in the United States is about to fade away, so the possibility
that the five will get out of jail is remote. Fidel Castro's promise that they
will return to Cuba is, at best, distant.
Let's accept, for the sake of argument, that the "patriots" are in
the United States to frustrate the aggressive actions of the counterrevolution
based in Miami. Let's accept, even, that some hard-line exiles have to be
watched to prevent and neutralize their actions. But why try to destroy the
pacifist internal opposition? Why introduce "patriots" into
independent groups and organizations to destabilize them, slander them, and even
prevent their members from placing flowers under a founding father's monument?
Why jail dissidents under any pretext, such as was done with Vladimiro Roca and
Oscar Elías Biscet?
The government's childish arguments have not taken root in the streets.
Comments in the streets are running more along the lines of: "What do you
know, they are not spies, they are patriots."
What has taken hold of the public's imagination is the fainting spell
sustained by the "invincible comandante" Saturday. The comments in the
streets are running thus:
"He fainted like any old man in the bus." [Havana's buses are not
air-conditioned and crowded. Fainting in them from the heat is not unusual.]
"In spite of how well he eats!"
"But if Fidel has the best doctors and the best medicines, how could
that happen to him?"
"They got a scare."
"I don't know why Felipito (Cuban Foreign Relations Minister Felipe Pérez
Roque) had to grab the microphone when Almeida and Ramiro [presumably higher
ranking members of the inner circle] were present.
"Looks like this is the beginning of the end."
There is no doubt that the spies' affair is going to continue holding sway
in the official agenda, but people's thinking is running along different lines.
The comments in the streets about Castro's fainting spell (which doesn't appear
to be an imperialist fabrication) point that way.
Versión
original en español
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