Castro, the Mafia, the
polls
By Carlos Alberto Montaner,
www.firmaspress.com. Posted on Tue, Dec.
13, 2005 in The
Miami Herald.
U.S. diplomat Robert Blau was met by a
nauseating stench as he walked into his
residence in Havana. He soon learned that
security agents of the Cuban government
had entered his home surreptitiously and
filled it with excrement.
The authorization for that repugnant attack
had come from Felipe Pérez Roque,
the bellicose foreign minister, who was
determined to punish the American delegation
on the island for the oddest type of crime:
allowing a handful of opposition democrats
to gain access to the Internet for half
an hour, once a week.
It wasn't the first time something like
that had occurred. One of Blau's colleagues
found his mouthwash had been replaced with
urine. Others had their car tires slashed.
Offenses and assorted types of harassment
are committed almost daily. Diplomats are
deprived of electricity, telephone or water
at the authorities' whim.
To gain control
And those actions are directed not only
against the Americans. The Czechs, Spaniards
and Poles have been victims of similar acts.
The objective is simple: to mortify the
diplomats until they are neutralized and
recommend to their governments a total complicity
with Castro's policies.
It's a technique that the Mafia uses to
gain control and that sometimes works. Several
European embassies in Cuba have begged their
foreign ministries to go along uncomplainingly
with Havana's whims, just so the diplomats
accredited to the island can live in peace.
It's a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
The harassment has increased lately, and
there's a reason that may explain it: Fidel
Castro suspects that some embassies collaborated
with a survey that was carried out clandestinely
and that demonstrates the unpopularity of
his regime and the desire for change harbored
by the citizenry.
The poll was conducted between Oct. 8 and
Nov. 3. During that period, about 15 public-opinion
researchers, who arrived from Spain in the
guise of tourists, interviewed 541 persons
chosen at random, in almost all provinces,
posing questions from a questionnaire drafted
with the rigor demanded by the profession.
Along general lines, the poll's results
coincide with common sense. While half of
the Cubans surveyed believe that ''things
are going very badly or badly,'' barely
20 percent maintain that they ''are going
very well or well.'' While 50 percent adopt
a very critical attitude toward the economic
model and point out that the country's principal
problems are the shortages, the cost of
life, unemployment and the meager supply
of food, 25 percent blame the American ''blockade''
for the nation's ills.
Predictably, the intensity of the discrepancy
is markedly related to the age of the respondents.
More than half of Cubans 18 to 29 desire
a profound change that includes tolerance
toward the opposition. Among Cubans 60 and
older, that rejection of the system is reduced:
about 35 percent of the elderly people don't
want any kind of change. It's a minority,
but a significant one. Elderly people fear
change. Because they have no future and
no illusions, they're content with what
little they get. In the former Eastern bloc,
exactly the same happened.
In reality, the failure of the Cuban government
in material aspects is scandalous. In almost
50 years of government, Castro has not managed
to provide Cubans with even half of their
needs for electricity, telephone, potable
water, clothing, transportation, food or
housing.
Earning $10 a month
In modern history, no other government
has failed so grossly for so long. Everything
is rationed. Everything is scarce and of
poor quality. Society lives amid the worst
discomforts and penuries. To buy a simple
light bulb, a thermometer or a pair of scissors
is an almost unbelievable feat. Every month,
the supply of sanitary napkins for women
is enough for only 30 percent of the fertile
population. Families have to make do with
wages equivalent to $10 a month.
It is true that 7 percent of the population
have some college education, but there is
nothing sadder and more unfair than to see
a professional live under miserable conditions,
without the slightest hope of prospering,
because half a century of practical experience
has taught him or her that tomorrow will
always be the same as today, or worse --
unless a raft comes to the rescue.
That's the picture Castro is intent on
hiding under a thick cloak of strident propaganda.
But sometimes the spectacle cannot be concealed.
When that happens, the government reacts
with incredible vileness: It soils with
excrement the houses of foreign witnesses.
It's the Mafia's way.
©2005 Firmas Press
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