Birds of Prey in Cuba Politics
Armando Chaguaceda
HAVANA TIMES, 27 ene — News agencies echoed the bitter statements Reina Luisa Tamayo – the mother of the late Orlando Zapata, who died in Cuba on a hunger strike in 2010.
In her Spanish language interview on Miami television, she exposes the neglect and deprivation that she and her family are suffering after a seven-month stay in the US.
Sparing no details, she decries the promises made with such great fanfare about the “abundant resources” that — supposedly — were available to her as a newcomer to the United States, at least according to spokespeople of the Miami-based Cuban exile community.
When one watches this interview, it’s hard not to recall the hugs, photos and fiery speeches made by so many illustrious beneficiaries of the “anti-Castro” industry in their attempts to rack up points and profits at the expense of Reina Louise’s suffering.
The understandable pain, bewilderment and anger of the wounded mother — whose political stance was more that of the daughter of tragic circumstances than of any sophisticated ideological choice — were convenient kindling for those who manipulate the propaganda machine.
They are a political elite whose success and influence is directly proportional to the maintaining in power of the government in Havana.
Now, once these people feel they’ve squeezed all of the media juice out of the Tamayo family, they’re preparing to leave the scene with a kind of “Wham! Bam! Thank you ma’am” attitude.
Such a frame of mind is indicative of certain cheap politics and activism of the sun-blemished factions that meet in closed back rooms along Miami’s calle 8, heirs to the worst traditions of pre-revolutionary Cuba.
This is the living legacy of those who promise bridges to villages without rivers, who exchange hospital beds for electoral registration cards, who launch into corny and bombastic speeches — no matter what the cause — with unfailing evocations of the “Republic” and the “fathers of the nation.”
These are the same people who talk about honor and democracy while profiting from the funds allocated to the “cause” and who have allied themselves, for half a century, with the most despicable figures in Latin American politics – including dictators like Trujillo, Somoza and Pinochet.
Representatives of this species exert hegemony over all politics in that Florida city by using their rhetoric and interests, which are increasingly alien to the new waves of immigrants and are a false alternative to the political regime on the island.
They demonstrate their inability to feel the pain of others; instead they reveal their love for the show, for lies and for their thinly veiled interests in perpetuating a state of affairs in our country that contributes — in a direct manner — to the maintenance of their special status within American politics. In short, these beings are becoming less and less human.
They are a strain of vultures, birds of prey that should have no place in democratic politics of the present or future Cuba.
The tragic development surrounding Reina Luisa Tamayo is not unique in Miami, where hordes of Cuba Haters are constantly in search of individuals, who for whatever reasons can be enlisted, turned into a standard bearer of their anti-Cuba cause.
Just like Reina Luisa, years ago it was Paula Valiente, another black woman, encouraged to walk the streets of Havana with her Virgen of Regla and sending reports back to Radio Mambi 710 AM in Miami and the Voice of America. Finally, she arrived to a similar triumphal reception at Miami International Airport with all the leaders of many counterrevolutionary groups, who paraded her to Washington, New York and other places, denouncing the monstrous government of Cuba.
As Reina Luisa today, Paula Valiente was ostracized, left on her own, suffered all sorts of human deprivations in Miami, dropped out of sight and some have assured she returned to Cuba.
This is just a sample of the cruel, wicked and opportunist principles that govern the anti-Cuba Maffia in the US, who is solely interested in whatever or whoever, can further their decrepit and moribund hate cause.
Hundreds of physicians, dentists, educators and other professionals have been lured away from their humanitarian services around the world, where they went to help the poorest of the poor, by a cruel attack on innocent victims by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who in macabre conspiracy, have offered all Cubans working abroad, -with our without relatives in the US-, the opportunity to apply for US asylum under the Cuban Adjustment Act, which enable them immediate entry into the US.
Sadly, just as Reina Luisa, Paula and others, once they hit the US soil, they are on their own, without all of the glee and glamour that was offered to them and today, most can be found driving a truck, serving food at Rey Pizza, Sedano’s or Presidente Supermarkets, Navarro Pharmacy or worst, peddling bottle water, fruits or tamales on 49th Street in Hialeah, where many are frequently hit, run over and killed, by moving traffic.
Will those destroying careers, lives and families for their narrow interest, every be held accountable for such crimes?