First Results of Trump’s Miami Speech
By Iroel Sanchez
June 17, 2017
A CubaNews translation by Walter Lippmann.
By Iroel Sanchez
June 17, 2017
July 30 is a day of national mourning in Cuba. On that date, each year, the streets of Santiago de Cuba are filled with a spontaneous pilgrimage; rose petals fall from the balconies, and people walk in silence towards the cemetery.
This yearly pilgrimage is a remembrance of the popular reaction of the city in response, in 1957, to the murders of young Frank País and Raúl Pujol by the police of Fulgencio Batista. It is also a remembrance of all the many who were victims of similar actions.
It was the son of one of Frank and Josue’s murderers whom the US President Donald Trump chose for the storytelling in the speech he delivered in Miami June 17. A violin in the hands of the offspring played –out of tune– the notes of the US national anthem.
In a theater that bears the name of one of the invaders that –under the orders of the CIA– suffered an embarrassing defeat at Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs], a politician many consider a “loser”, promised more of the same the whole world –and even his predecessor in office– recognized as doomed to failure.
The audience –mostly elderly Miamians who have not set foot in Cuba in decades– shouted, “USA, USA,” while the president announced that citizens of “the land of the free” will continue to be banned from engaging in tourism in Cuba. If they travel to the island they must do so in a group and with a detailed and auditable logbook, so that Big Brother can adequately confirm if they fulfill the mission that their government has given them: to overthrow the “regime” that has made sure that crimes such as those of December 30, 1957, never happen again o n the island.
The same President, who signed a $100 billion contract for arms sales to the Saudi Arabian monarchy less than a month ago, signed another in the presence of people who practiced terrorism. The objective: to prevent a single US penny from reaching the Armed Forces of the Republic of Cuba. He also promised to prevent trade and investments that do not exist today.
With the balance of his campaign promises showing more debits than credits and threatened by a congressional investigation following his pressure on former FBI director James Comey, Mr. Trump seems to have found among the Cuban-American ultra-right in Miami a way to show he is true to his word and to be applauded.
But rhetoric cannot conceal a reality: 73% of Americans and 80% of Cuban-Americans support the end of the blockade of Cuba, and Trump’s announcements this Friday will only increase that rejection. Time will tell. The day before the speech, Trump managed to make the analysts of The Miami Herald agree with those of The New York Times.
South of the Florida straits we did not have long to wait. The first results of Trump’s show in Miami are already perceptible in Cuba: there is more talk about politics. In social networks many young people, who do not usually discuss these issues, express their indignation with the Miami speech of the American President. Since the kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez, Cubans had not seen such a clear image of the Jurassic Park that would be ruling Cuba if there was no Revolution.