CubaDebate 73
Cubans Deported from Mexico
Fifth Flight with Cubans Deported from Mexico Arrives in Havana
April 17, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five deported flights. Photo: Talia Gonzalez/ Facebook.
A new group of Cuban citizens deported from Mexico arrived in Havana on Wednesday as part of the migration agreements between the two countries.
The Mexican Federal Police aircraft landed at José Martí International Airport with people who had left the island legally, but became irregular migrants on their way to Mexico.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five flights of the deported, many of them with anecdotes of vicissitudes and outrages suffered during their route through South and Central American countries bound for the United States.
As in previous cases, these human beings will return to their families after receiving the necessary attention, including health care, said immigration authorities, but said that those who left accounts pending with the legal system before leaving must face it.
The Cuban government took advantage of this situation to insist on its call for regular, orderly and safe emigration, in order to prevent people from becoming victims of criminal groups linked to human trafficking in the region.
The scenario has been complicated in recent months by the escalation in the aggressiveness of the U.S. government against the island, which includes the politicization of the flow of Cubans between both sides of the Florida Strait.
Recently, Washington reduced the period of validity of the B2 visa for Cubans from five years to three months, with only one entry, under the pretext of an alleged reciprocity with Cuba’s treatment of Americans.
Havana, through its Foreign Ministry, rejected the decision, describing it as ‘an additional obstacle to the exercise of the right of Cuban citizens to visit their relatives in that country’.
This measure adds to the closure of the services of the United States Consulate in Havana, to the unjustified interruption of the granting of visas to Cubans, forcing them to travel to third countries without any guarantee, and to the failure to comply with the visa quota established by the migratory agreements, he stressed.
In less than a month, approximately 300 Cubans arrived on the island in five deported flights. Photo: Talia Gonzalez/ Facebook.
With information from Prensa Latina.
Media silence on LGBTI march
What the media doesn’t say about the LGBTI march in Cuba
By Redacción Razones de Cuba
May 16, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
There are many images that swarm in social networks and in different international press media about the march that last May 11 which was called by some “independent activists” of the Cuban LGBTI community. In the vast majority of them, there is a morbid delight in showing the detention of four people who insisted on continuing the march, disregarding the considerations of the authorities who, in the absence of an official permit, urged the participants not to continue marching through traffic-filled streets.
In the video that Razones de Cuba shares with its readers, we see the exchange between a PNR official and several of the demonstrators, without any weapon whatsoever, in a tone of respect and logical argumentation. The media tends to silence these details, trying to show that the march was repressed in its entirety and not to give birth to these testimonies that the vast majority of the participants in the demonstration held a dialogue with the authorities, without outbursts or any desire to break with institutionality.
Respect, reason, and peace: cardinal points of citizen tranquility, for the search in Cuba of individual and general well-being under the rule of law.
Does Biden Have What It Takes?
Does Joe Biden Have What it Takes to be the Democratic Presidential Candidate?
By Fernando M. García Bielsa
(Specialist in North American issues. He has published in Cubadebate and other Cuban and foreign websites.)
April 26, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo taken from Diario público
Former Vice President Joseph Biden has just officially announced that he is running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the November 2020 presidential election in the United States.
Covered in a cloak of false moderate or center positions, Biden is willing to come to the rescue of the corporate political establishment at a time when, between the electorate and the base of that party, demands and positions of support for a popular agenda have Abecome predominant.
Joe Biden is of course the best-known figure at the national level – among more than fifteen other politicians who are in the running for the Democratic nomination – perhaps with the exception of social democrat Bernie Sanders, who was much admired after his successful grassroots campaign in 2016.
A few days ago, the NY Times reported that Democrats who are part of the “Stop Sanders” effort are distressed by the momentum of the effort. A headline in the Washington Post said, “Center Democrats fear that far-left positions will lead to defeat in 2020. So they are pushing for alternatives.
In addition to having a name that part of the public identifies, Biden adds other advantages such as the favor of the country’s political and financial elite. With it comes access to the coffers needed to wage a successful and costly electoral campaign, as well as the favor of the national machinery of the Democratic Party. Also, it is supposed, he would also be assured of favorable coverage by the big media and television networks.
However, this politician also has his disadvantages before a rather skeptical electorate with clear tendencies to reject the same elite of Washington and Wall Street and, in general, those who conduct politics in the U.S. capital, a trend that has become more marked in recent years.
Joe Biden is 76 years old; he has been a member of Congress for no less than 36 years and vice president of the country for another eight during the Obama Administration. He is undoubtedly the oldest and most skillful of those serving the country’s among those who have announced their presidential aspirations.
Although with an image of center positions, his alignment with corporate and financial interests is very broad. It has been part of the corresponding game with policies in favor of big business, banking, insurance companies and the unanimously-favored increase in military spending, financial deregulation, and so on.
Like almost all Democratic politicians and presidential hopefuls from the Clinton and Obama currents, which are the ones that have hegemony in the party, Biden has a good arrival and relations with established elites in the African-American sectors and the union world.This is not the same as saying that he has real acceptance or descent from the workers or the so-called black or Latino communities.
One should not underestimate the strong and already established attitude of rejection, mentioned above, which has shown a large part of the U.S. electorate has shown toward towards politicians and elites in general.
These are factors that conspire against Biden’s potential, even though he has the advantage of being close to the establishment, the holders of the money and the favor of the big media.
Another issue to consider is the apathy of voters, also a longstanding trend that particularly affects Democrats when counting votes. Part of the factors that led to the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 20l6 was that by forcing her nomination, favoring her with all kinds of manipulations, the structures and leadership of the Party, they frustrated the possibility of motivating and energizing its base, as independent Senator Bernie Sanders was doing.
It is considered that for this electoral cycle and in order to defeat the Republican candidate, who most likely is the current president Donald Trump, it will be necessary to mobilize and give new energy to the Democratic electorate and rescue part of the popular sectors that it took from them.
Although this is definitely a party of the system, it will have to moderate its neoliberal propensity to reconnect to some extent with its base, with the so-called middle classes, a good part of them workers, and with many people disappointed with politics, and with the neglect and deterioration of their living conditions.
That was part of what gave Trump in 2016 the opportunity to manipulate anger and deep dissatisfaction among Americans with the country’s dysfunctional political system. Particularly the games symbolized on Wall Street and in the federal capital, and by the disconnection of the political spheres from the common people.
Although with a less unpleasant figure than Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, with Joe Biden (who resembles her in many substantive respects), could run the risk of repeating her discouraging and failed campaign in the last election cycle.
Biden has a history of openly defending capitalism and an underhand evasion of class inequalities. A long record and sequel to his positions that could make him vulnerable to his opponents during the coming months of the campaign, and in the home stretch if he were nominated, a record that includes expressions of racist type, of marked support for war, of favoring the deregulation of the banks, etc.
Or the fact that he has shown himself to be harsh in the face of crime, even to the point of insensitivity, as when he said in a speech before the full Senate in 1993:
“It doesn’t matter whether or not they are people who have been in need or marginalized in their youth. It does not matter whether or not they had a past that allowed them to be part of the social fabric. It doesn’t matter whether or not they were victims of society. The end result is that they are about to beat my mother…, shoot my sister…”, etc.
He is pointed out as a firm acolyte of the Military Industrial Complex. From his powerful position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2003, Biden provided political cover for the massive military attack on Iraq authorized by Republican President George Bush. Some have said he did more than any other Democratic senator to get the green light for the invasion.
The forgetful citizenry may only have a nebulous image of this personality whose name is familiar to them, but much is the burden and complexity of his political record. For Biden to get the Democratic presidential nomination next year, it will depend largely on how many voters in the primaries would or would not have known about the background of this consummate politician; how much of his actual record will come to the fore in the coming months.
Although it’s too early to say, and even considering that money and the big media will pull the embers into their frying pan, I estimate that, in the long run, the Democratic Party structures, to some extent pushed by the rank and file, will favor a “new face” from among the dozen or more presidential hopefuls who have already thrown their had in the the ring for the Democratic nomination at the national convention to be held in July next year in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In photos: Lina Ruz, Fidel and Raúl’s mother
In photos:
Lina Ruz, Fidel and Raúl’s mother
By Equipo Editorial Fidel Soldado de las Ideas
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Lina Ruz in her house in Birán, in 1958. Source: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
On the occasion of Mother’s Day, Cubadebate and the site Fidel Soldado de las Ideas share images of Lina Ruz, Fidel’s mother, whose children “(…) treated her more naturally and confidently. She established order and schedules, wrapped them under the blanket at bedtime, bathed them and dressed them, guessed their spirits, and even ran after them or slapped them when they had gone too far in their mischief. But this happened if she managed to reach them, if she managed to capture them, because the boys, especially Ramon and Fidel, already knew her and escaped the slightest evidence or threat of punishment. All her kindness, Lina dumped in loving care and sleeplessness, without forgetting her obligations at the front of the house”.
Excerpt from the book Todo el tiempo de los cedros: Family landscape of Fidel Castro Ruz, by the author Katiuska Blanco Castiñeira.
Lina Ruz in Birán, 1925. Photo: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz. In the dedication of this photograph can be read: “My dear friends Paciano and Julia. With all the affection of her always friend. Lina de Castro Birán. 10-4-1926” (According to the date noted at the foot of the dedication, there were only about four months left for the birth of Fidel) / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz, dressed for Fidel’s graduation as a High School Graduate in Bethlehem, June 1945. Source: Book: “Fidel Castro Guerrillero del Tiempo” / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz during the visit to her son Raúl, in the Second Front, in 1958 / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
Lina Ruz in her house in Birán. Fountain: Oficina de Asuntos Históricos del Consejo de Estado / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas.
To learn more about the ideas of the leader of the Cuban Revolution, visit our site Fidel Soldado de las Ideas. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Winston Churchill in Cuba
Winston Churchill in Cuba
By Ciro Bianchi Ross
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Winston Churchill. Photo: Diners magazine.
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was given in Cuba, in 1946, the treatment of head of government, and the National Hotel reserved for him, of course, the Apartment of the Republic, which was intended for the most distinguished official guests. During the Second World War, the press had made his image of a good-natured and implacable grandfather habitual at the same time. He was an insatiable smoker of cigars. When he leaned out of the door of the Boeing 17 that brought him, he raised his right hand and with his index and middle fingers in the shape of a vee he greeted the crowd waiting for him at the Rancho Boyeros airport and applauded him enthusiastically: Sir Winston repeated for the Havana people the sign of victory, a gesture he coined throughout the war.
And there began the headaches for the Cuban protocol and the British legation in Havana, because the former premier did not respect timetables or formalities and was governed only by what the day had in store for him. He would get up at five in the morning and from that moment on he would put the entire hotel in check. One rainy day, annoyed because he could not take his usual dip in the pool, he suddenly ordered that they pack their bags to leave and asked them to get rid of them as soon as the sun came up. He spent his free time playing cards with anyone who wanted to join him. “He eats, drinks and smokes without restrictions of any kind. And in quantity,” wrote Enrique de la Osa in his report on the visit.
It was the second time Winston Churchill had visited our country. Many years ago, in 1895, he had celebrated his twenty-first birthday here. The then young officer of the fourth Regiment of Hussars came in his personal capacity to see the war that the Cubans were waging for their independence against Spain, and here the future Lord of the British Admiralty received his baptism of fire. At that time he also became fond of Cuban rum. He says so explicitly in his memoirs.
What was Winston Churchill looking for in 1895 in these lands? He said it clearly in his book: the adventure for the adventure itself. He was anxious to know what a war was like.
Young Winston Churchill. Photo: Archive.
Churchill came from Sancti Spiritus with a Spanish troop of three thousand men moving towards Arroyo Blanco. He marched on horseback for hours and made campaign life: he slept in a hammock, bivouacked with the troop, bathed in the rivers… Days passed and nothing happened, until one morning, at breakfast time, his group was surprised by a closed discharge coming out of the nearby forest and a horse that grazed peacefully next to Churchill received a fatal wound on the side.
The Spaniards rushed to where the shots came from and found no one. Churchill had already been warned that in Cuba the enemy was everywhere and nowhere… “When I witnessed all these operations I could not help but think that the bullet that had hit the horse had certainly passed one foot from my head. So, at least, it had been under fire. It was something,” says the former prime minister in his memoirs. He understood the situation: Spain would be ruined and bleed to death in front of a ragged army armed, above all, “with a terrible knife called a machete”. It was a weapon handled by soldiers for whom war “cost them nothing, apart from misery, dangers, and privations”. But even so, Churchill sympathized with Spain. Rather, he felt sorry for the Spaniards.
Winston Churchill with his wife during his stay at the National Hotel in Havana in February 1946.
Let’s go back to that Havana of February 1946. Churchill asked to be driven through the city in a convertible car and since Cuban protocol did not have a similar vehicle, the owner of the Partagás cigar factory offered his and he himself gladly served as a driver in exchange for the visitor reciprocating with a visit to his company, in which he was pleased. One of the traditional vitolas of the Romeo y Julieta brand bears the name of the British politician. Pinar del Río distinguished Churchill with the title of Favourite Son. He spent a whole afternoon locked up in the brothel of Marina, in Colón Street. His aide during his stay on the island was the then young lieutenant José Ramón Fernández.
Churchill’s lunch with President Grau San Martín, whose menu is still maintined, was tinged by the anecdote. Sir Winston left for the Presidential Palace with all the packing that the occasion required only to return to the hotel a few minutes later… I had forgotten the cigars. Then, another unplug: the retinue had to go round and round around the Palace for ten minutes so that the former premier and the president would meet at the scheduled time.
At the end of lunch, Grau forced Churchill to go out to the North Terrace before which many Havana citizens were waiting to greet him.
Churchill said: “I feel very pleased in this beautiful Island of Cuba where I have been so well received…”. And he continued, in Spanish: “I take the opportunity to say: Long live the Pearl of the Antilles!
At the end of his stay, he made another enthusiastic statement: “If I didn’t have to see President Truman, I would stay here for a month.
Churchill was an insatiable cigar smoker. Photo: Archive.
Coppelia will recess its services
Coppelia Ice Cream will recess its services from May 2 to June
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Coppelia ice-cream parlor. Photo: Joyme Cuan/ Tribuna de La Habana.
The Coppelia ice cream parlor, located in the central streets L and 23, in Havana’s Vedado, will close its services to the public for maintenance and repair work from next May 2 until June, and simultaneously will also cease production of the ice cream factory of the same name.
According to a note to our editorial staff, “the objective is to make technological improvements in the factory, improve the ice-cream production processes, and create the conditions for the definitive and stable production of Coppelia ice-cream.
“Taking advantage of this stop, improvements and maintenance actions will also be carried out in the ice-cream parlor, which will allow a better service to the population and the rescue of offers that have always characterized this emblematic site of the capital”.
We hope that the changes are not only structural, but that the reopening will lead to an improvement of the service, Achilles’ heel of the installation.
Congo-Brazzaville Repatriates Med Students
Congo-Brazzaville authorities decide to repatriate 142 scholarship holders from Cuba
May 8, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and his Congolese counterpart Jean Claude Gakosso. Photo: Cubaminrex.
The authorities of Congo-Brazzaville decided to repatriate 142 students from that country who attend universities in Cuba, for “having violently claimed their scholarships” or recorded “deficient academic results,” was reported Wednesday to the AFP.
On the list of expellees are 66 students who had violently claimed their scholarship arrears at the Congolese Embassy in Havana at the end of March.
“These students crossed the red line. They behaved in an unexemplary manner. Even on social networks we saw one of them fighting with a Cuban policeman,” said Jean-Claude Gakosso, Congolese foreign minister.
“The Cuban authorities no longer want them in their territory,” he added during a dialogue with the parents of these students on Tuesday.
The second group is made up of 76 other students who will also be repatriated, but in these cases “for having recorded a succession of (academic) failures, both in medicine and in learning the official language of Cuba (Spanish),” according to Bruno Jean-Richard Itua, the country’s minister of higher education.
Gakosso recently returned from Cuba, where he led a large delegation. In Havana, he spoke with Cuban authorities. No date has yet been set for the return of the students.
“The safety conditions of these young people who will return to the country will be guaranteed. They will be immediately made available to their parents,” said Interior Minister Raymond Zephirin Mbulu.
As of last March, Congolese students in Cuba had accumulated 27 months of scholarship arrears, according to Itua, who said they were paid 12 months after the demonstrations.
Helms-Burton: A Silenced Story (I)
Helms-Burton: A Silenced Story (I)
By: Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Ph.D in Philosophy and Literature, writer and Cuban politician. He was Ambassador to the UN and Cuban Foreign Minister. Presided over the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba (Parliament) for 20 years.
April 13, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Infographics: Edilberto Carmona
The Trap
Since the beginning of this year, the U.S. State Department has issued several announcements about the partial suspension of the application of some aspects of a chapter of the so-called Helms-Burton Act. It has done so in the deceitful, fraudulent style characteristic of the current rulers. Its clear intention is to create uncertainty and confusion, a purpose for which they have, as usual, the means that are supposed to be used for informing the public.
Above all, it must be said rigorously said that this is a secondary aspect of the Helms-Burton Law, a pseudo-juridical contraption that grossly violates International Law, whose illegality and aggressiveness does not change a bit whether or not the so-vaunted suspension is applied. It is a question of opening or not, now, the possibility of presenting lawsuits before North American courts for acts carried out outside their jurisdiction, in this case in the territory of the Republic of Cuba. Since such litigation could affect foreign companies with investments in the Island, the matter provoked rejection by other countries. It also led the European Union to present a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization in 1996. The matter was then sealed when Washington undertook to suspend the action before its courts, which Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, and even Trump, have consistently done every six months.
This was an exercise repeated for more than twenty years until, on January 16, [2019] it was announced that this time the suspension would be for only 45 days. When the deadline expired in March, they made it known that they would extend it for another 30 days, adding that, as of the 19th of that month, they would allow the filing of lawsuits before their courts against some 200 Cuban companies arbitrarily included in a list drawn up by Washington. Again, in April, they extended the deadline by two weeks, until May 1st, maintaining the exception against Cuban entities.
Already in 1996, Fidel Castro had anticipated that the suspension clause was a “hoax”. Since last January, twenty-three years later, Mr. Pompeo appears, in a doubtful pose, “shedding the daisy”, mocking everyone, especially his European allies, turning the commitment made to them into wet paper.
This game serves, above all, to divert attention from what is fundamental, to what is barely spoken of, and to what I would like to refer to, trusting in the benevolence of the readers of Por Esto!
The Helms-Burton Act has four Chapters or Titles. The first turns into Law, all the measures, which until then were executive decisions, that shape the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba, widens it, and tries to extend it all over the planet. The infamous policy, thus codified, could only be eliminated by a decision of both Houses of the U.S. Congress.
The Second describes, with a certain level of detail, what would happen with the hypothetical defeat of the Cuban Revolution as a consequence of the economic war. There would then be what they call a “transition period” during which all the institutions of Cuban society would be dismantled and the country would be under total U.S. domination. So that no one can doubt it, the process would be led by a U.S. official appointed by the President of the United States, whom the law discreetly calls Cuba Transition Coordinator. This true proconsul was actually appointed by W. Bush, although he never fulfilled his mandate on the island. He had to devote himself to promoting, outside Cuba, the Transition Plan that Bush, in compliance with the law, presented to Congress in 2004 and in an expanded version in 2006 and that no one has repealed.
Throughout Title II, there is a redundant insistence on the concept that for the elimination of the blockade and future relations with a supposed post-revolutionary Cuba, an indispensable condition will be the return of their properties to those who lost them on January 1, 1959 (to this subject I will have to return later).
So far, with Title I and Title II, Helms-Burton is a text that tramples on International Law from beginning to end. Its extra-territorial character is more than obvious since the Cuban archipelago is not part of the territory under Washington’s jurisdiction.
In addition to the above, Helms-Burton added a Title III that establishes the possibility of bringing legal actions before U.S. courts against companies or individuals who use, in any way, properties claimed by those who allegedly owned or inherited them. This Title includes an article that allows the US President to suspend the commencement of such actions for half-yearly periods, to which I devoted the initial part of this essay.
Finally, Title IV, which has already been applied on several occasions, denies visas to enter the United States to businesspeople and their families who use properties that are the subject of a lawsuit.
The Helms-Burton Act reminds us of the warning Carlos Manuel de Céspedes gave us very early on. The Father of the Cuban Homeland, in 1870, discovered that the “secret” of U.S. policy was to “seize Cuba.” Thanks to Helms and Burton, the designs of the Empire appear in the light of day. That they can make them a reality is, of course, something quite different. From Céspedes to Fidel, Cubans have shown that they will fight to the end and that they will never be anyone’s slaves again.
Special for Mexican daily Por Esto! Taken from Cubadebate.
“We Speak for Those Who Can’t Speak”
Cuba Against Animal Abuse:
“We Speak for Those Who Can’t Speak”
By Thalia Fuentes Puebla, Student of Journalism of the Department of Communication of the University of Havana. On Twitter: @ThalyFuentes and Ismael Francisco
April 7, 2019
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate
If we mention stories that touch the heart, we cannot forget Rinti, a dog that after his owner died, threw herself at the feet of her protector’s grave until she died, after refusing the food and water offered by the cemetery keepers.
This love was mutual, just a page from Jeannette Ryder’s work in defense of animals. Precisely under her motto: “We speak for those who cannot speak”, hundreds of people arrived this Sunday at her tomb in the Columbus Cemetery to make people aware of the importance of fighting animal abuse.
“Violence is one, it doesn’t matter against what,” quoted one of the many slogans that demanded sensitivity to protect animals. These were attached to orange ribbons, pets of different breeds and sizes along with their owners and posters and T-shirts with inscriptions such as: “Protection for our animals” and “Animal abuse is a crime.”
The animalists pledged to continue to promote pet adoptions, mass sterilizations and deworming. Waiting for a law, they must act in the order of conscience and appeal to civic, individual and social culture.
Jeannette Ryder was an American philanthropist who lived in Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century. She founded the humanitarian organization Sociedad Protectora de Niños, Animales y Plantas, also known as el Bando de Piedad.
She was buried in the Colón cemetery in Havana. Her pantheon is known as the tomb of loyalty. A commemorative sculpture depicts Rinti resting at the foot of the tomb.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
Cuba against animal mistreatment. Photo: Ismael Francisco/ Cubadebate.
The Most Difficult Time
The Most Difficult Time
By
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
In December I saw people looking for food in the garbage… but it wasn’t Venezuela, it was the United States, not Caracas, but Los Angeles.
It’s clear that Venezuela is having a hard time. The question is why do the international networks and the channels of my country only report these cases in the Caribbean country and do not say a single letter when it happens in the lands of Uncle Sam.
I know of a country that imprisons children with officials who sexually abuse them because they are immigrants; but it is not Venezuela, it is the United States.
When millions of Colombians were fleeing the internal war and the criminal regime of Álvaro Uribe, both Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador received them fraternally. In the reign of Donald Trump, in late February a complaint against his policy of separating immigrants from their children exposed the sexual abuse to which minors were subjected in captivity. Democrat Congressman Ted Deuch said 154 officials are accused of assaulting children in detention centers in the border area, where two children have already died. 4556 complaints from the Refugee Bureau supported his words.
I know of a country where the popular will is mocked and whoever gets to the presidency is not the most voted in the polls; but it is not Venezuela, it is the United States. Hillary Clinton got 2.8 million more votes than Donald Trump; but the incomprehensible American electoral system prevented her from occupying the White House. As former President Jimmy Carter put it, “The best electoral system in the world is that of Venezuela; the worst is that of the United States.
I also know of a country where one of its provinces has legalized work for 10-year-old children; but it is not Venezuela, the country is Argentina and the province of Jujuy.
I know of a country where there are thousands of opposition journalists persecuted, fired and harassed; but it is not Venezuela, but Argentina. The case of Uruguayan Víctor Hugo Morales, to whom the judges dependent on the Clarín Group and the macrismo fabricate causes left and right, is emblematic, but not unique. Among the most recent cases are those of the El Destape mobilist Lucas Martínez, beaten by the City Police, and the photographer of Página 12, Bernardino Ávila, who after portraying a woman taking a vegetable from the ground (during the so-called “Cuadernazo”) was detained along with other demonstrators for 11 hours.
I also know of a country where its president despises women, blacks, indigenous people and gay people; but it is not Venezuela, but Brazil. Recently, two members of the Landless Movement were assassinated, but neither Almagro nor Trump asked the government for explanations, nor did the large international chains of disinformation give them the space they would have given if they had occurred during the presidency of Nicolas Maduro.
I know of a country that is one of the most corrupt in the world; but it is not Venezuela, but Paraguay, with its eternal Colorado Party, a minimum wage of $370 dollars and an industry minister who boasts that half of Paraguayan workers earn less than that figure. As Oscar Andrade has pointed out, he did not say it with pain, but with pride and satisfaction. It should not be forgotten that the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay have been applauded by the Uruguayan opposition right-wing.
I know of a country where every four days a trade unionist is murdered, but it is not Venezuela, but Colombia. The denunciation was presented by the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores de Colombia before the International Labor Organization and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, but impunity prevails. Threats are focused against union leaders in the oil sector, teachers and agriculture. Neither CNN nor Almagro have shown themselves with their souls split in two for these crimes that already imply a blatant attempt to exterminate trade unionism on the part of the right-wing and the Colombian business community.
I know of a country where anyone who dares to criticize the ruler, who, on the other hand, holds power without ever having been endorsed by the ballot box, is punished with imprisonment; but it is not Venezuela, but Spain. It is incredible that in the 21st century the monarchy persists, a real attack against the intelligence of the peoples of Spain, England and Canada, among others; but it is even more incredible that such monarchies pretend to teach democracy to their former colonies.
And I also know of a people that neither sells nor gives up, that neither breaks nor surrenders, that neither fears nor trembles, in spite of the permanent harassment and the immense power of its adversaries… but it is not that of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Spain, Colombia or the United States…
It’s the one from Venezuela.
(Taken from the magazine Revista Caras y Caretas)