From Deep Down Within
By Pedro Pablo Morejon
HAVANA TIMES – I am disgusted, angry and feel helpless. Lots of emotions have been running through me, recently. It’s sometimes hard to bite your tongue when there’s so much manipulation, so much injustice… and so much insolence. So, you end up writing from deep down, out of decency and even if you’re afraid, because you can’t write in any other way.
The world needs to understand once and for all that this country has been kidnapped by a totalitarian power for 62 years, which has tried to take control of the Homeland, its symbols and history.
The amount of manipulation is disgusting when you have to listen to them say that this fake revolution is the Homeland, and that the people who want democratic change aren’t Cubans, but haters, mercenaries and annexionists on the Empire’s payroll.
In this case, US Imperialism, because Fascist and totalitarian governments always need an external enemy to justify the hardship and total absence of freedom that they give their people.
Well, the Castro press has recently aimed its canons at Yunior Garcia Aguilera and the other promoters of a protest that has been called for November 15th.
This brave young man is being presented as an unprinicipled man who serves the US, a mediocre playwright with delusions of grandeur. His ideas are supposedly annexionist and the protest that has been called by his group Archipielago is nothing more than an attempt to destabilize the country with the underhanded mission of justifying a military intervention in Cuba.
However, the regime hasn’t provided any proof whatsoever to support these claims. What’s more, this fake press that serves our oppressors wanted to interview him, in an unprecedented event, maybe so they could trap him in a corner but it went sideways for them.
Yunior answered the questions with transparency and the intellect of a simple Cuban who only longs for a future for this country. It’s going to be hard for them to take his word out of context and mislead public opinion, if that’s what they intended to do.
A country that has a long present of loss, without food, medicine and rights, nothing.
As we all know, authorization for the November 15th protest was denied, which was to be expected.
I always said it, today’s Constitution doesn’t recognize the exercise of civil rights. Article 56 stipulates the right to protest, but for lawful purposes. That is to say, in keeping with the Law, you are only able to protest to support this dictatorship. As a result, demanding your rights and a change in the system towards democracy that sees the end of the Communist Party’s time in power, which is stipulated in Article 5 of this Constitution, is illegal. Nor can you do anything against the irrevocable nature of the Stalinist socialism that the government upholds and is ingrained in the very fiber of our society.
On the other hand, I don’t think it’s apt to seek legal protections in the regime’s laws if we want to fight for change. To do so is to bestow legitimacy to this social order without rights. However, it has helped to prove to the world that the right to freedom of speech and peaceful protest do not exist in Cuba.
What can we expect to happen in the coming days? A lot of repression, harassment, blackmail and lies. They’re already doing it. The Attorney General’s Office has summoned the main promoters to threaten them with the legal consequences if they go through with the protest. They have also resorted to blackmail, targeting the family members of those who want to take to the streets on November 15th.
It would come as no surprise if they cut Internet acess and begin to arrest the main promoters in the lead up to the protest, nor can we rule out that they won’t organize a counter-protest for the same day.
I can’t see any good omens for this civic initiative. The regime is getting ready, it won’t be taken by surprise like it was on July 11th. It has the barbarian right of force, its undeniable expertise in repression and, of course, many people’s indifference.
Let’s hope I’m wrong.
Kudos to Pablo Morejon! He is a brave man, to be commended for expressing the true concerns of his fellow Cubans. It is not easy for a Cuban living in Cuba, to openly state the truth as he does! I deeply admire him.
“The world needs to understand once and for all that this country has been kidnapped by a totalitarian power for 62 years which has tried to take control of the Homeland its symbols and history.”
A Cuban in Cuba, saying that, takes real courage!
Remember, it was Plato, who said:
“They deem him their worst enemy, who only tells the truth.”