The analyst recalled the elements that were handled in the first audio, a classic model of manipulation and use of information dissemination techniques so that the users themselves become their disseminators. The idea is to attack the government’s strategy, any step that it announces or puts into practice, trying to generate protests and refusal to execute it. For that, the presentation of the owner of the nameless voice, scientific titles are credited. In the end, the order is one: how to disseminate that (mis)information. We are going to hear that again in recent audios, which seek to terrify people about monkeypox and a non-existent epidemic of fulminating cholera that does not exist in Cuba.
The voices of the three audios are similar. Will it be the same COVID biologist? asked Barbara Betancourt, recently released from rest forced by dengue fever aggravated by numerous cormobilities and chose to tell her experiences as a patient, highlighting the way in which the early warning and protection system works for people that distinguish the work of MINSAP, in a strategy that already includes television ads during prime time.
If anything has been transparently monitored in the country, it is epidemiological issues. Every day a meeting of the working groups created to deal with COVID, which have remained activated (one for the epidemic and another for experts) in the face of the growth in dengue cases, for example. In Cuba, many resources and medicines may be and are lacking, but information and primary care are guaranteed. But to be up-to-date, you really have to search for and contrast the information in the Cuban public media.
A last alarmist audio, not related to health, but to the state of mind of the population, served as the closing of the analysis.
Created as soon as the country’s presidency and the directors of MINEM reported how they had decided to face the problem of energy generation, there the elements that seek to give credibility to the hoax, make the lie seem like the truth, are heard again. It is an old but very functional technique, even more so in the stormy sea of the internet, where anything goes and almost everything is believed. By identifying the voice as that of someone expert, giving apparently real locations, a degree of credibility is obtained in which to support the main message: “don’t believe what you have been told. There is no solution”.
In reality, we live in hard times of uncertainty and the objectivity of the problems, specifically the blackout, create the conditions for anyone to believe in anything. But there is a job, a serious, consecrated and professional job, that expects and deserves trust.
I have seen some post in the last few hours, stating that the changes in the direction of the UNE and the MINEM will solve everything at a stroke. Beware of over-enthusiasm. The official notes on the changes are clear in terms of recognizing the merits of the substituted teammates and those that those who assume these tasks will have to face. We should not expect miracles. Perhaps we should wait for a change in strategy, tactics, innovations.
The pressures under which you have worked so far have an impact on the valued colleagues who will take on other tasks. But we must not forget that the problem is not only Cuban. Many other countries, without a blockade and with unfenced finances, are also suffering from energy crises.
As was said when announcing the changes, work continues under tension, but the purpose of overcoming the current deficits as soon as possible remains. There is no exact date yet. There is a commitment. And the few resources available based on those efforts.
(By: Arleen Rodríguez Derivet/Cubadebate)