Other theorists have also referred to this concept, according to Elio Perera Pena, a researcher at the Center for International Policy Research (CIPI).

Speaking at the Round Table, the expert pointed out that the United States conceptualized this type of war through the terminology dictionary of the Department of Defense, in 1990, a conceptualization that continued to develop until today.

“Unconventional warfare is when there is a condition of a resistance movement in a target country and a completely worn-out population.”

According to Perera Pena, this concept began to be located for analysis in US governing documents, including Training Directive 1801 of the US Special Operations Forces.

According to that text, for unconventional warfare to occur, there must be at least two essential conditions:

Convenience: The war will go ahead if the resistance movement is going to serve US interests.
Feasibility: When the resistance movement is really strong, has the power, and the population is worn out, dissatisfied and diverted from their attention.
Regarding hybrid warfare, the CIPI researcher clarified that it refers to when regular and non-regular methods are used.

The former include first generation wars (since ancient times, with the use of uniforms), second generation wars (for example, the one applied in the First World War, where there are battle fronts with trenches) and third generation wars. , used in World War II, where there are flank maneuvers, by the rear, light and heavy weapons, and a further increase in the maneuverability of aviation.

The latter include fourth and fifth generation warfare. In both, it is proposed that physical space, digital space and cyberspace will be used.

“The new computerization and communications technologies change the meaning of generations of wars, because what it is about are battles where apparently no shots are fired, although in governing documents of the United States it is said that there could be armed confrontations ”, commented Perera Pena.

However, he reiterated, the fundamental thing is the destabilizing message using the new information and communication technologies.

“It is said that in the fourth generation of war the frequency of destabilizing messages increases and in the fifth the intensity increases, causing irreversible neuronal damage.

“What it is about is working on the subconscious of the individual, achieving that in the cognitive process the objective that, from the think tanks and information centers, they try when they launch a war is fulfilled: influence, persuasion and conviction in the subconscious of the individual.

“They put this guy in a glass capsule, so he’s in one physical space but his mind is somewhere else,” she argued.

The researcher noted that they take advantage of real situations in a given country to launch this type of attack.

Pedro Etcheverry Vázquez, deputy director of the State Security Historical Research Center, referred to the doctrine of the so-called soft coup, recalling that it was conceived by US neoconservatives and exposed for the first time in July 1982 by President Ronald Reagan, before the European Parliament, through the so-called democracy programme.

In 1983, the Alberto Einstein Institution Foundation was created in Boston, with resources from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and directed by the anti-communist ideologue Gene Sharp.

Etcheverry Vázquez said that the soft coup doctrine was present in the events that occurred in the European socialist camp, in 1989, and in the Soviet Union, in 1991.

According to the deputy director of the State Security Historical Research Center, the book From dictatorship to democracy (1993), by Gene Sharp, founded hundreds of methods of internal destabilization, beginning with a first phase with the use of protest actions through symbolic acts, assemblies, rallies and marches, supported by extensive media coverage.

He added that later the organizers of the protests move on to other forms of civil disobedience and non-cooperation that are a little more advanced. Later they resort to the so-called non-violent intervention, which has to do with the obstruction of streets, the “peaceful” occupation of official offices and institutions, disrespecting the country’s authorities.

“Many of these street demonstrations are geared towards a higher degree of aggressiveness, while others protest peacefully. However, in other places there can be events involving common criminals who go beyond the limits, heating up the atmosphere, with the closure of large avenues, the burning of vehicles and violent acts against police forces.

Etcheverry Vázquez pointed out that without media support, all of this “would remain mute,” “without the possibility of confusing the masses.”

The film images where the repression is observed cause contradictory visions in sectors of the population, which gives rise to large media campaigns against violence and the alleged violation of human rights.

“These international media transform the images and put audio on them that confuse the viewer. And this situation, repeated many times, projects an image of chaos with the purpose of questioning even the governability of a country. The so-called failed state.

In 1996, Gene Sharp had contacts with anti-Cuban groups in Miami, gave lectures at Florida International University and gave interviews for Radio Martí.

“Shortly afterwards, terrorist organizations such as Brothers to the Rescue, Democracy Movement and the Cuban Democratic Directorate, which had nothing to do with democracy, are illegally introducing Sharp publications into Cuba as if they were sports or religious literature.”

“So there could be a person in a park reading a Cuba Socialista magazine while the text indicated how to carry out sabotage, or open a supply book in a public place when what was inside was instructions,” the manager added.

According to Etcheverry Vázquez, during 2001 and 2002 different sectors of the counterrevolution carried out provocative acts and acts of public disorder, as well as called for alleged hunger strikes, commemorative marches and conferences before the foreign press that provoked the repudiation of the people, because “It was known that there was a show behind it to earn money.”

On January 28, 2009, USAID produced a document entitled Support for Cuban Civil Society, another “pleasing” title for the ear. “This document constitutes irrefutable proof of the seditious and interfering nature of the projects designed against Cuba.”

In December of that year, when working for USAID as a contractor, the North American Allan Gross was alerted in Havana, who illegally introduced -what was demonstrated in the trial- means of infocommunications with which he supplied and trained independent internal networks to guarantee a future interaction between the small cells created and free satellite access to the Internet, in the same style as the espionage network of the 1960s.

“That is why we say that it is nothing new, but that it is changing as science introduces development in the different techniques.”

Gross was charged in 2010 and convicted in 2011 of acts against the integrity and independence of the Cuban state.

The manager also referred to the ZunZuneo operation, which ran from 2009 to 2011, masked in a social messaging network. “Behind all this is the actions of US intelligence officers.”

“They have been doing everything for 60 years and everything has failed due to the action of the people,” he stressed.

Constructive chaos theory and the concept of failed state
The CIPI investigator added that these strategies have been “duly organized.” He added that one of the United States Security advisers compiled all the materials related to the so-called soft coup, giving rise to what would later be called Constructive Chaos Theory to overthrow governments under the color revolution formula.

“The first of these paradigms is the soft blow. This is based on the economic, political, military and all kinds of blockade; location of that attacked country on blacklists; the obstruction of economic and commercial relations, as well as the wear and tear of the population through all possible tactics”.

He added that the second paradigm of the Constructive Chaos Theory is carrying out a discrediting campaign, especially on issues such as human rights, freedom of the press and freedom of expression.

“The third paradigm is street demonstrations that would start out as peaceful but whose goal of destabilization is for them to become violent. For these demonstrations, they would use psychological tactics such as placing women and children in the first positions and then, through the media, show that the police were the ones who attacked the people and not the provocative core of the protests”, he maintained.

The expert explained that the next step is to request the resignation of the president and the fall of the government has passed.

Referring to the conceptualization of the so-called failed state, Perera Pena commented that a precedent is what happened in the National Assembly of Venezuela in 2015, where an attempt was made to overthrow Nicolás Maduro based on the judicialization of politics through the state decree failed.

“We have seen these types of elements later in Bolivia, in Ecuador, in Brazil, Argentina. What it is about is that from the previous study of the judicial system of those countries a supposed internal movement is generated to propitiate a coup d’état since the president is not the one who agrees”.

He also explained that the concept of a failed state has already been used by the United States on other occasions throughout history to sacrifice “a partner”, such as in Panama, Argentina, Colombia.

Apply more pressure to the boiler

Cuban police cars that were overturned by protesters on a street in Havana. Photo: AFP

For his part, Pedro Etcheverry Vázquez elaborated that what happened on July 11, 2021 revealed that the design of the subversive program of the United States government and its intelligence services attempts to cover up the inability of the US government to destroy the Revolution.

“The propaganda influence against a society overwhelmed by the scarcity of basic products, inflation, the lack of public transportation and blackouts will continue to be used to motivate new destabilization attempts against Cuba.”

He added that both the CIA and the NED continue with a strong campaign to generate tensions “to put more pressure on the cauldron.”

“Influence programs on disaffected and dissatisfied groups and on youth sectors constitute a wear that worsens the internal situation in Cuba, trying to escalate to more shocking situations of provocation such as those denounced by our government.”

He warned that after a year of the riots of July 11, the enemies have not ceased to encourage acts of vandalism against the country, “because we are in the presence of an operation directed by the intelligence services of the United States with millionaire budgets of the USAID and the NED and the complicity of the Cuban American right”.

He also said that digital media has long promoted media terrorism, which instigates acts of vandalism by fringe groups with the aim of provoking a police response and putting on a media show. “False news was spread with the aim of promoting an opinion matrix about the apparent ungovernability in Cuba.”

The United States, social networks and double standards “à la carte”

Illustrative image.

Later, commenting on the use of digital social networks in the strategy of subversion, Elío Perera Pena, CIPI researcher, said that the United States handles them with double standards. “The United States is the main instigator, not ruling out other European powers that we know of.”

He also referred to how Agnotology is intended to be implemented, which is the study of deliberate acts to sow confusion and deception in the American educational system. “Those who went to Afghanistan were gallant soldiers in defense of the nation.”

As part of this double standard, said the expert, in 24 American states what can be said on social networks is regulated, and for some of these publications, citizens are taken to court.

He also said that Europe also has regulatory laws on networks.

Attorney General’s Office: “One of the purposes of the State is to protect national sovereignty”
Speaking at the Round Table this Tuesday, the chief prosecutor of the Directorate of Information and Analysis of the Attorney General’s Office, Ana Hernández Mur, pointed out that Cuba, like all States, has the right to defend itself in the framework of established regulatory systems.

Cuba is a State of law and social justice, she stressed and added that within this framework the country and the people have the purpose of defending the nation. She stressed that one of the purposes of the State is to protect national sovereignty.

“The Attorney General of the Republic’s fundamental mission is to exercise control over criminal investigations and the exercise of public criminal action before the courts on behalf of the State, in addition to the general control of legality,” he recalled, citing the Constitution of the Republic.

On the other hand, Hernández Mur pointed out that facts that constitute a crime are investigated, such as setting fire to facilities. “As a result of the investigations, decisions are made and, where appropriate, people are brought before the courts.”

Other facts that are being investigated are related to obstructing public roads, impeding vehicular traffic:

“There have been acts of aggression against the authorities, and we are not only talking about law enforcement, but also officials who were in those places.”

The prosecutor referred to the use of minors in situations of this type. In this sense, she stressed that families have a duty to protect minors. “Are we then going to reach danger or some situation with our minors?”

On this, she said that the Penal Code has answers for, once the investigation is concluded, make decisions and take the authors to court in this case.

“The Prosecutor’s Office will continue to defend the State and the interests of all citizens of our country,” she concluded.

(By: Randy Alonso Falcón, Oscar Figueredo Reinaldo, Edilberto Carmona Tamayo, Lissett Izquierdo Ferrer, Andy Jorge Blanco/ Cubadebate)

Although every hostile U.S. government act against Cuba adds to the imperial power’s record of aggression, the news of another request for more funds to finance subversion in our country is neither unusual nor surprising.

Maintaining an appearance of indifference, the State Department has said that Cuba is not much of a priority in its foreign policy, but, once again, the administration is showing that it will dig into the pockets of the nation’s taxpayers to pay for its desperate attacks on the Revolution, this time to the tune of 20 million dollars for subversion, in addition to turning screws to further tighten the blockade and sink our economy.

To justify the new expenditures, they resort to standard euphemisms about programs to “promote democracy” in Cuba.

The most recent revelation by the Cuba Money Project, conducted by journalist Tracey Eaton, is that a budget line item dedicated to the business of subversion on the island is included in the Biden administration’s 2022 request: a total of 58.5 billion dollars for the State Department and the misnamed United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a 10% increase over this year’s budget.

It is even more astonishing that, in spite of their historical failures, the White House cited among recipients of funds the infamous Radio and TV Marti.

The announced “financial courtesy,” which is now being celebrated by its usual beneficiaries, makes it very easy to understand what is, and is not, a priority for the United States.

What remains to be seen, on our side, is also known. There is no amount of money that can break the resistance and determination of the Cuban people, who have long been convinced that freedom, sovereignty and decency are priceless.

(Taken from Granma)

Most of the CIA’s covert operations in Latin America during the 1960s were directed against the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. “No more Cubas”, was the agency’s slogan at the time.

The Agency created a division in New York City, called Foreign Publications Inc. (Foreign Publications Incorporated), to subsidize various anti-Cuban publications, many coming from Miami. The United States Information Agency (USIA) was also used for this purpose.

In 1996, the CIA launched the magazine Encuentro, directed by Cuban writer Jesús Díaz in Madrid, with funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In 2002, the Plaza Mayor Publishing House was created in Puerto Rico, under the direction of Patricia Gutiérrez-Menoyo, also sponsored by the NED.

Plaza Mayor intended to publish books by Cuban authors, in an apparently “apolitical” and cultural project called Colección Cultura Cubana.

In 2004, as a prelude to what would become the Genesis project, the CIA created, in Havana, the Online Literary Agency (Aló) to represent writers from the island, promote their work abroad and other related activities. Aló would be sponsored by the Pan American Foundation for Development (Fupad).

Thus, the CIA had a complete set-up to work with writers: a literary agency, a magazine and a publishing house, all independent of Cuban institutions.

Next, a web page was created to promote the authors, and it was strongly suggested that any politicization should be avoided. The backers went so far as to recommend that a phrase of Fidel’s should be used in publicity to promote the site. The CIA was convinced that, within a short period of time, they would have control of a good part of the country’s literary creators. Economic and institutional autonomy would allow them to disagree with government policies, without problem, and would be committed to their new sponsors.

Gatherings, events, contests and activities were organized with other artists, painters, actors, musicians, in order to gradually interest them in the agency, which could become an artistic endeavor, not only literary.

The name Aló, Agencia Literaria Online, was chosen to take advantage of the popularity in Cuba of Hugo Chávez’s Aló Presidente program, which, they calculated, would allow a quick positioning of the website.

By 2006, Aló became an agency that would not only represent writers. It expanded to management of actors, musicians, plastic artists, etc.

According to the CIA’s projections, working in this manner, that is, creating agencies or using those already existing in Miami, they could attempt, unsuccessfully, to separate artists and writers from Cuban cultural institutions, which would allow them to exercise control over these individuals and use them against the Revolution.

(Taken from Granma)

Here is just one sample of what was said about that film, at the time, in this case by Spanish critic Beatriz Maldivia: “The film is, in short, a string of endless dialogues, poorly written, totally unrelated, and with no other purpose other than allowing Andy Garcia and Cabrera Infante to disseminate a kind of dissertation on Cuba that would be rejected by any children’s magazine. It is cinematically – not only ideologically – null and void.”

After a huge publicity campaign during its preparation, and the announcement that it would be the most expensive film by a Cuban exile (read counterrevolutionary), Plantados, directed by Lilo Vilaplana, with a screenplay by Ángel Santiesteban, Juan Manuel Cao and the director himself, was released in Miami.

The plan was to fictionally recreate “the nobility and endurance of Cuban political prisoners in the 1960s and 1970s in the face of the atrocities of the Castro-Communist prison regime.”

Within 24 hours, the film was posted on social networks, something unusual for an expensive premiere, films that are customarily presented at festivals around the world first, to be make money and allow the investment to be recovered, as was unsuccessfully attempted with The Lost City, rejected here and there, as no good.

Someone on social media noted this strange decision to launch the film on the fly without recovering a penny, asking, “But why are they doing this and not trying to make a profit?

There are two obvious reasons for this hasty gamble. First, to support the current subversive campaign against Cuba, presenting a propagandistic, one-dimensional image of the subject they address, making no reference to the context, like the fact that more than of a few of the prisoners portrayed were criminals, and secondly, the filmmakers’ vacuous illusion that they have produced a masterpiece, capable of responding – as they expressly state – to what was exposed in The Wasp Network (Olivier Assayas, 2019), a film that outraged them for violating the empire’s instructions and presenting real heroes, as opposed to the “heroes” they now attempt to resurrect from the past as a “message of rebellion,” addressed to generations that did not live those days.

The ploy of rewriting history and leaving out inconvenient facts is an old trick: the United States lost the war in Vietnam, but years later Rambo appeared, capable of winning another vengeful invasion on his own, and comforting those longing for a past that never existed.

The counterrevolution lost more than 60 years ago, despite its efforts to re-conquer Cuba by blood, fire and maneuvers of all kinds, and now resorts to the standard deceptions of a fictional film to sentimentally reconstruct the facts, at its convenience.

In the artistic field – as professional critics will undoubtedly note, if they pay any attention at all to the film – Plantados makes clear the negative consequences of a lousy melodrama that confuses the time setting, divides the protagonists into very good guys and bloodthirsty bad guys, with rambling dialogues in which every expression has a premeditated purpose, a repetitive script full of arguments timeworn to the point of exhaustion, sappy music and scenes of beatings and murders in prisons and labor camps that fill a good part of its almost two hours of footage. Long segments are marked by tear-jerking grandiloquence regarding the conflicts, and no skills of the trade are evident in the development of a contemporary act of vengeance, which owes much to the worst of Hollywood, despite the film’s multi-million dollar budget.

Some clear-headed minds at the Miami Film Festival, where the film premiered a few days ago, must have realized that Plantados would bomb and, although they accepted it, the film was not given the importance it deserved, according to director Lilo Vilaplana.

He complained on his Facebook page, that the Festival had given the film “fifth-rate treatment,” failing to promote it “not in advertising, nowhere. It is a film made in exile, by artists living here; it should have been given another kind of importance.”

Indignantly – perhaps anticipating the artistic failure so painful for any creator – he raised the political stakes: “The Miami Film Festival’s disrespect for the historic exile and its complicity with the Castro dictatorship is shameful.”

And to make sure there would be no doubt as to the intentions of the film, Vilaplana asserts that the Festival organization does not care for films like Plantados, since they “like those that build bridges, that say we must unite, but with the dictatorship, we do not negotiate.”

And Vilaplana goes further: “Those films that invite people to go to Cuba are complicit with the dictatorship, and that regime must be overthrown, because it has done much harm to Cubans… They (the Festival directors) did not want the film to be present, and I felt it even in the people who were attending the Festival, they were upset that the film was there.”

The film will find an audience among the exile community’s fanatics and there will be many who will promote it as a “revealing work,” without acknowledging the manipulation of emotions it employs, as a basic principle of counterrevolutionary propaganda serving a subversive plan that does not rest.

But hatred and art never go hand in hand. Good luck artistically next time, director, and get over this one.

(Taken from Granma)

“And it is best to say so without boasting, as those who are truly determined to do what is promised.

“May those who, lacking the most elementary common sense, dare to consider as possible any kind of invasion of our soil, understand the monstrosity of their mistake, because we could save ourselves many sacrifices. But, should this happen, unfortunately, above all given the misfortune of those who might attack us, let there be no doubt that here, in this land called Cuba, here in the midst of this people called Cuban, they will be obliged to fight us as long as we have a drop of blood left, they will be obliged to fight t us as long as we have an atom of life left.

“We will never attack anyone, no one will ever have any reason to fear us, but whoever cares to attack us must know, without fear of being mistaken, that Cubans of today are not in the year 1898 or 1899, we are not at the beginning of the century, that we are not in the decade of 1910 or 1920 or 1930, with Cubans of this decade, with Cubans of this generation, with Cubans of this era – not because we are better, but because we have had the good fortune to see more clearly, because we have had the good fortune to receive the example and the lessons of history; the lessons that cost so much sacrifice to our ancestors, the lessons that cost so much humiliation and so much pain to past generations, because we have been fortunate enough to receive that lesson – with this generation they will have to fight, if they attack us, until the last drop of blood….

“And unintimidated by the threats, unintimidated by the maneuvers, remembering that one day we were only 12 men and that, comparing our strength with the strength of the dictatorship, our strength was so minute and so insignificant that no one would have believed it possible to resist; but, we believed that we could resist then, as we believe today that we resist any aggression. And not only that we will be able to resist any aggression, but that we will be able to defeat any aggression, and that once again we have no other choice than the one with which we began the revolutionary struggle: that of freedom or death. Only now freedom means more: freedom means homeland. And our dilemma is homeland or death”.

Excerpts from speech delivered by Comandante en jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, March 5, 1960, during the funeral ceremony for victims killed in the explosion of the La Coubre ship in Havana Bay, a terrorist act committed by the United States.

(Taken from Granma)

The necessary clarification of the facts surrounding these cases has been demanded, along with laws to punish anyone causing harm to the species with which we share the planet, including those that accompany us in our immediate environments – about which positive reports have appeared recently in official media, indicating forthcoming implementation of new legislation.

Several of articles published following these events, including one in Granma, made clear that allegations that State Security is “responsible for the death of dogs, as retaliation for the activism of their owners,” are widely rejected.

We must continue to ask ourselves where this thesis came from, no matter how far-fetched it may seem, since it has been widely disseminated by the private media system financed by the United States, with a long track record of fake news and distortions about Cuba.

The Internet allows us to determine the first time something is said about a given issue: if you search Twitter, you will find that it was U.S. Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, a member of the anti-Cuban mafia in that country, who on February 2, when no one had launched the theory blaming Cuban authorities for the poisoning of pets. She quoted a tweet from the owner of a private U.S. funded media outlet that regularly contributes to smear campaigns against Cuba, who gave her the scoop on this opportunistic slander.

Nothing unusual. A quick look at Ms. Salazar’s profile features repeated calls for more blockade against Cuba and opposition to the new President’s removal of our country from the spurious, absurd list of state sponsors of terrorism, something that harms all of us who live on the island, regardless of our political positions. “I strongly reject any attempt by this administration to remove the murderous regime of Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism,” she stated, just a few days ago.

On February 6, following a second case of poisoning, the same author of the tweet that María Elvira Salazar quoted, took up her thesis, which was re-tweeted by none other than Frank Calzón, who has a long history of participation in CIA-sponsored terrorist organizations, like Alpha 66 and Abdala. He has reappeared in “human rights struggles” financed by the U.S. government through USAID, directing an anti-Cuban propaganda project from Freedom House, an entity Washington has used for decades to attack countries and organizations not to its liking.

In the wake of the poisonings, more than a few people have asked themselves who would be interested in disrupting the dialogue underway between state institutions and animal protection groups in Cuba, when an important step is about to be taken: the entering into effect of desired animal welfare legislation. The answer is obvious: individuals like Calzon and Salazar, the same people who have no qualms about lying, as long as it adds grist to the mill attempting to produce unrest and division among Cubans.

I sincerely hope that this type of brutal behavior toward animals that deserve our affection and solidarity will cease, once and for all, that regulations will be established and that a culture will be promoted to prevent it, but these changes will not come from people like María Elvira Salazar or Frank Calzón, true peddlers of poison. Solidarity is the opposite of hate. Justice and truth will never be advanced by those who call for more blockade and endlessly fabricate lies to justify their dream of a Cuba bloodied by violence.

(Taken from Granma)

Disguised in multiple trappings, through agencies, companies and organizations, which rarely offer public information on the management of their funds, the financing of actions intended to undermine the Revolution have exceeded 249.5 million dollars, over the last two decades.

This has been investigated and published by the Cuba Money Project, a website devoted to covering stories on U.S. government programs and projects related to the island.

In 2020 alone, a report based on public information found on the digital portals of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), estimates the total allocated to finance subversive initiatives at 2.5 million.

This is only a partial figure since, “Some programs are so secret that the recipients of funds are never disclosed,” explains journalist Tracey Eaton, in an article for the Cuba Money Project, entitled “The democracy business in Cuba is bustling.”

Eaton reports that at least 54 groups have operated programs on the island with money from USAID and NED since 2017, when Donald Trump assumed the Presidency.

“A sprawling network of U.S. government-financed groups sends cash to thousands of Cuban democracy activists, journalists and dissidents each year,” he wrote.

Recently, after the provocation at the Ministry of Culture, a reporter for the ADN-Cuba website – one of the foreign-run outlets that regularly distorts the country’s reality – acknowledged in a video circulating on social networks having received between 150 and 200 dollars to cover the event.

Other publications with an anti-Cuban agenda, describing themselves as practitioners of “independent” journalism, have also admitted having ties to U.S. agencies.

This, however, is only the visible face of an extremely lucrative business, since the State Department, USAID and NED report having “undisclosed” contractors, who receive an unknown portion of the funds directed toward changing our country’s political system.

It is impossible to know exactly how much of U.S. money ends up in Cuba and how many individuals are paid, Eaton concludes. What is very clear is that the millions invested have not been enough for the empire to subjugate a people determined to defend our sovereignty at any cost.

(Taken from Granma)

These Trump-fanciers born in Cuba are “deserters that ask for arms in the armies of North America, who drown their Indigenous peoples (and Black people) in blood and who go from bad to worse!” in the words of José Martí. After more than 150 years of struggles, does anyone doubt that U.S. imperialism wants something other than the freedom or the well-being of Cuba?

There exists a controversial historical figure, La Malinche, a Nahuatl slave woman who was the lover and translator for Cortez, and with her advice contributed to the conquest of Mexico. According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, Malinche or malinchista today refers to any “person, institution or movement that commits treason” regardless of whether man or woman. The so-called San Isidro Movement is an episode from the reality show that Trump has made of his presidency. Those gathered there are called colleagues in a tweet by the officer in charge of the Embassy of the United States in Cuba.

I am not avoiding the facts. A uniformed police officer delivered a citation to Cuban citizen Denis Solis. Solis insulted him, using words I cannot repeat here, and threatened him. The police did not handcuff him nor hit him, nor place his knee on Solis’s neck. There is a video, taken by the supposed victim, which proves this. Denis was detained for contempt. He had already previously received several administrative fines for disturbing the peace and two official warnings for harassing tourists. The crime of contempt is provided by law in Article 144.1 of the Penal Code. Denis accepted the charges and did not appeal. But before this, he yelled that Trump is his president and he became a “dissident.” The San Isisdro strikers demand his release. They then declared a hunger and thirst strike, but on the seventh day Alcantara, the leader of the provocation, who has dishonored the national flag in other episodes of this strange theatrical play, appeared in a video taken by his colleagues (to use the same term as the imperialist diplomat) impetuously blocking the functioning of the health authorities, rather than prostrate in his bed, as medical logic would indicate should be the case after a lack of food.

There will always be gullible people and those sincerely concerned for the health of the “strikers.” And also those who suggest that it does not suit us to let them die, as if the Revolution does not fight daily and hourly for the lives of all our citizens, whether or not they are with the Revolution, in the face of the attempts of the empire to defeat them with hunger and disease. If Denis is a prisoner, and not hospitalized or dead, it is because in Cuba there are no disappeared people, and the police, who keep order as they should, do not kill or torture.

Protest is so unthreatening – for Cubans, as I have said – that there are many people who are “neither for one side nor the other. “I’m not in agreement with those of San Isidro, but I’m not for what the government is doing either,” they say. If we are serious about this analysis, we should leave Denis (the pretext) aside for a moment and look for the real reasons. Here I shall pass over any suppositions about money – although Denis confessed to receiving money from a person associated with attacks carried out in Cuba – but I prefer to discuss ideas. And I do not know the motives of the writer-journalist who had to pass through the United States in order to go from Mexico to Cuba. But our actions give clues about who we really are; this is not about a decree or a decision that they claim to be mistaken, and, in their declarations, all are mixed up together and if the government decides something else tomorrow they will just add this to their sack of complaints. This is not about freedom of speech, much less freedom of artistic expression, but rather of the creation of a political opposition clearly already sponsored by imperialism, about the restoration of a bourgeois democracy and the death of any trace of people’s democracy. Although perhaps many of those making these demands do not know it, the true purpose of all this is the restoration of a neocolonial Cuba. So that no doubt remains, high officials of the Trump government have immediately rushed to defend their supporting actors. They know they are on the way out and they have to inflict as many knife wounds as they go.

This is why it is so outrageous to read some articles by mercenaries who compare the heroic combatants of the clandestine struggle during the Batista dictatorship with these deserters who are asking for rifles in the invading army, to paraphrase Martí. Yes, some voices of certain trans-national media outlets are joining in this, attentive to the last Trump death-rattle. They say that we are living in the post-truth era, “a situation in which objective facts have less influence than emotions or beliefs when it comes to defining public opinion” according to one dictionary But the Cuban Revolution is not accustomed to lie or to disguise the truth. To never lie is what we were taught by Fidel, who lives on in every revolutionary Cuban.

(Taken from Cuba)

“Those who designed the San Isidro farce were in the wrong country; they got the history wrong; and the armed forces wrong. We do not tolerate interference, provocation or manipulation. Our people have all the courage and the moral authority needed to sustain a fight for the heart of Cuba.” With this statement on Twitter, President of the Republic Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez made clear the nation’s position regarding the latest political provocation financed by the United States government.

In several tweets, posting articles from the revolutionary press and Cuban intellectuals, the President denounced U.S. insistence on efforts to hurt our country, especially this year, marked by the pandemic and the tightening of the blockade.

He also shared the most recent press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrex), accompanied by the comment, “This will always be our response to any perverse plan against the island.”

In its publication, the Ministry refers to a communiqué sent by Carlos Fernandez de Cossío, Minrex director for the United States, to Timothy Zuñiga-Brown, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Havana, which stated, “”Cuba does not allow the United States, or any state whatsoever, to interfere in the internal affairs of our country.”

Díaz-Canel had also shared a message, November 28, denouncing the Trump administration’s support for the most recent actions taken in Cuba to generate political instability. “Some are bent on starring in media shows attacking the Revolution, poisoning and lying on social media. The revolutionary Cuban people will fight back,” he wrote.

(Taken from Granma)

In the most recent escalation of this hostility – which began more than six decades ago and has been reinforced by the current administration with almost 200 measures – on November 23, at 6:00 pm, the delivery of remittances from the U.S. to Cuba via Western Union ceased, for which the United States government bears the sole, exclusive responsibility.

Cimex Financial, S.A. (Fincimex), authorized by the Central Bank of Cuba to carry out intermediation operations for the process of transferring funds to Cuban families, published on its official Facebook page that, as a result of measures taken by the U.S. government to damage the Cuban economy, services at Western Union’s 407 payment offices on the island would be suspended.

Thus, safe, official channels to send remittances from the United States to Cuba have been closed to those who cannot travel regularly to offer their loved ones financial support, and those who do not wish to depend on third parties.

This move once again accentuates the magnitude of U.S. efforts to directly impact Cuban families, taking deliberate action in times of economic crisis aggravated by COVID-19 and obsessively tightening the blockade.

In June of this year, Fincimex was added to the U.S. State Department’s list of restricted entities. This includes the ministries of the Armed Forces and the Interior, and the National Revolutionary Police, as well as enterprises, corporations, the Mariel Special Development Zone, and the Mariel and Havana container terminals ‘ – making clear the intention to persist in attacks against Cuban institutions that guarantee our national sovereignty, to economically asphyxiate the people.

On October 23, the Treasury Department announced modifications to regulations for the control of Cuban assets, which would prevent remittances to Cuba through U.S. companies with general licenses.

To avoid responsibility for this low blow, the U.S. administration argued that remittances would not be interrupted if Cuba accepted U.S. government demands for a different payment network, to be in place within less than 30 days, by the effective date set for the new OFAC regulations.

But 20 years of equipment, professional preparation and completion of the communications infrastructure to achieve a payment network capable of sustaining the high operational volume of international remittances is not something that can be remodeled overnight – beyond the fact that it is a constitutional right of our people to have economic, diplomatic and political relations in any other state without being obliged to negotiate under threats of aggression or coercion.

Cuba has the sovereign right to make our own decisions without the imposition of conditions.

Fincimex notes, in one of its publications, that its platform features processes that are highly integrated technologically and logistically at a national level. Both of these aspects are well understood by “those who designed the measures” – the company denounces – revealing the clear intention of disrupting remittances. Seeking to mask this obvious objective, “They need to lie to the public, as usual,” Fincimex states.

Without the participation of Fincimex as Western Union’s representative in Cuba, offices would be obliged to close, the enterprise continues, once again highlighting the irrelevance of the “open door” left by the U.S. since “it is widely known that 70% of the network of payment offices is composed of companies included in the list of restricted entities.”

Beginning in 1998, when Fincimex signed a contract with Western Union, remittances were paid in dollars and the level of operations was low, though 2010. That year, the U.S. company was able to acquire a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to pay in legal Cuban currency (CUC), and a high volume of remittances has been maintained since that time.

In October of 2019, when retail sales in freely convertible currency began, demand for these currencies within the population increased, and Fincimex offered all remittance companies the option of directing funds to bank accounts. Western Union was working on this modality, which was to be implemented in January, but the plan was interrupted by the arbitrary White House decision.

It cannot be ignored that the measure could encourage illegal operations, since families may seek informal, irregular means to help their loved ones, exposing themselves to the risk of scams, despite the fact that Cuba has remittance services which have proven to be trustworthy and effective.

Fincimex has 25 years of experience securely facilitating remittances, with transparency in its procedures and guaranteeing orderly and safe financial transfers. The company is recognized internationally for the seriousness of its work, playing a key role on behalf of the Cuban financial system.

The use of psychological warfare has been central to U.S. aggression against Cuba, a weapon deployed to promote economic damage and political destabilization. The attack on remittances is just one more example.

In the 1960s, the United States sowed terror with Operation Peter Pan. As a result, more than 14,000 children were taken away from their parents. In the eyes of U.S. citizens, and the world, these were sad stories of Cubans “fleeing repression,” when in reality families were victimized in one of the most painful chapters of the inhumane U.S. war against Cuba.

Before the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, U.S. companies owned nearly 40% of Cuban sugarcane plantations, 90% of mines, 80% of service providers… and practically the entire oil industry. They supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s imports. These frustrated interests have motivated their position of ruthless hatred.

The constant stream of lies has not stopped. The fabricated “acoustic attacks” on U.S. diplomats in Havana were debunked by scientists and the FBI, after months of investigations and four trips to the island. Day after day, the Trump administration continues its internationally rejected campaign accusing Cuba of “enslaving” doctors serving on our medical collaboration and solidarity missions around the world.

The constant encouragement of subversion has been a regular feature of U.S. efforts to force surrender on the Cuban people, with millions allocated to provoke political destabilization, while fiercely applying economic, commercial and financial measures that last year cost the Cuban economy losses of more than 5 billion dollars, with no respite in the context of the pandemic, a reality that Cuba has denounced in the United Nations, where an end to the blockade is supported by the vast majority of the world’s nations.

Among the many distortions used in attempts to justify the move to prevent the delivery of remittances from the United States through Western Union, is that Cuba lives off remittances. In fact, data from the World Bank shows that Cuba is not among the top ten countries with the greatest volume in Latin America and the Caribbean. This ranking includes Mexico, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti and Brazil, but not Cuba.

Recent research by the Center for U.S. and Hemispheric Studies at the University of Havana confirms that, between 2001 and 2020, the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Cuba suggests a pattern of intensified hostile actions during election and pre-election periods. The highest number of anti-Cuban regulations adopted was noted in the pre-election year of 2019, when new sanctions were imposed every month, except January, and on several occasions, more than one sanction per month was adopted.

This increase in regulatory attacks in 2019 followed the defeat of the Republican Party in the 2018 mid-term elections, which changed the composition of Congress and, perhaps more importantly, seemed to put Donald Trump’s re-election at risk. Trump’s political machine seems to have interpreted this loss as requiring an even more aggressive stance against Cuba, for the President to win Florida in the November elections of 2020.

In fact, in an interview which took place before this year’s elections, the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s director for the United States, Carlos Fernandez de Cossío, told Granma that surveys conducted in the U.S. in recent years show that, among Cuban-American voters, the issue of relations with Cuba was not as important as several others, including health, employment, citizen security and housing. It is hard to believe that most Cubans would support a campaign committed to disrupting relations with their families.

(Taken from Granma)