Saving a Cuban Soldier
Caridad
HAVANA TIMES — I have never been interested in seeing the film Saving Private Ryan, but a week ago I must have felt something similar to what was experienced by those who were involved in the rescue of that soldier.
It’s not that I’ve been involved in a G2 mission to help one of the many members of this ¿group? that now walk the streets of Caracas.
The journey began around sunset. Two hours before my friend – who has been living in Monagas for two years, in one of the little houses where Cubans lending health services in Venezuela are crowded – called me on her cell phone.
This can’t wait until morning… yesterday one of my Brigade left, and this is going to get really bad.
The instant translation of my friend’s statement:
Several months ago she had decided not to return to Cuba. Although the situation in Venezuela is deteriorating day by day, not only economically, but also politically, socially, and in any other category that one can imagine, Venezuela is very bad; but still not like Cuba.
Despite this, and how difficult it is for Cuban “deserters” to get legal status here, my friend didn’t take much time thinking about that, only about when would be the right moment. Now the fact that someone else in “her Brigade” got the jump on her, abandoned the Mission before her, might have disagreeable repercussions for her. The excessive and habitual surveillance over the members of the Cuban medical brigades increases every time one of them “deserts”.
My girlfriend and I headed to the nearest bus terminal.
There were no tickets until a bus the following day. Bad idea.
We went to two more terminals. Nothing available for that day.
We had no other choice but to go by taxi to the Eastern Terminal, at the entrance to Petare, the infamous neighborhood that all Venezuelans (who don’t live there) do anything possible to avoid.
Night was falling when the ticket vender sold us a pair of seats -only one way- for Monagas. We had to wait 3 hours for the bus to leave.
Three long hours in an enormous, ill-lit place, with dozens of food vendors, restrooms, a lot of seats and many more opportunities to be assaulted.
The assault wasn’t long in coming, only it wasn’t an assault, more like a forced robbery, but without firearms, which are common here.
The Cuban saints, Venezuelan orishas, and all the spirits that wander around there, helped ensure that the theft of my purse failed. With this experience, we decided to not sit down anywhere and instead keep walking around the more lighted areas with more people.
When we when boarded the bus, we asked the driver how long it would take to reach the eastern state. The driver, neither friendly nor unfriendly, clarified that in Venezuelan-when travelling by road- you know when you leave, but not when you will arrive.
The instant translation of the driver’s statement:
The majority of the roads in the country are in bad shape. In addition, many of the buses are too. It is not unusual to get stranded somewhere on long trips. And on top of all that are the assaults.
As if our question had cursed us, at just two hours into our trip, the bus stopped in the middle of a long and dark highway.
There was 30 minutes of tension.
What was happening?
Is it broke down or did someone order it to stop?
If it is just broke down, will “someone” happen along and to take advantage of the opportunity?
Immediately – once again thanks to the multitude of spirits and saints – another bus of the same line appeared and helped resolve the matter.
The rest of the trip was slow and uneventful.
With the first bird songs, we entered Monagas, but our journey did not end there, because of course, our friend did not live in the city, but in one of the small towns way out in the countryside.
We found a taxi driver willing to make the round trip for a reasonable price. What was important was to make it to the town’s main plaza – where we would find our friend – and get away from there in the same car; staying there and looking for another taxi would have been a bad idea.
We arrived at the plaza, but no sign of my friend. We suddenly received a text message.
I can’t leave. There are people in the living room.
Despite her few belongings, there’s always something to carry, and to walk out with luggage on a Sunday morning might have been somewhat suspicious…if not too suspicious, taking into account that for our compatriots, everything can and should be viewed suspiciously.
The taxi driver was fine with waiting for a half hour more. Luckily he was a friendly and talkative fellow who was pleasant to travel with.
My friend delayed for longer than was reasonable for our nerves. The taxi driver asked why she was taking so long if we had given her plenty of notice.
We had no choice but to tell him the truth.
My friend sent nervous messages.
Finally, she asked us to bring the taxi to the house.
The second that those who had been watching TV left the living room, she grabbed her suitcase and ran as fast as her legs would go.
She jumped in the taxi sweating and red.
The taxi driver hit the accelerator smiling, having fun, without mentioning the sciatic pain he was complaining about earlier. Hardly a greeting after a couple of years without seeing each other, we just stared out the back window to see if anyone came out of the house alerted by the squeal of the tires.
Nothing. As if they were deaf or hypnotized.
The taxi driver got us as far as the next state so we didn’t have to wait in the bus terminal of Monagas: who knows what would come after us.
But nobody came. They just confirmed her departure the next day, when my friend was already walking the streets of Caracas with eyes frightened by her new freedom.
In other words, as long as the “democratically elected government” invites the foreign agents, their interventionist role is legitimate. Is that your opinion? In that case, you need to review that list of “interventions” that you boorishly continue to accuse the US to have committed.
I made no such proclamation. I pointed out that the Cuban intelligence agency, G2, has many agents in Venezuela.
You contradict yourself. In many posts you have declared that multi-party elections are all fraudulent and non-democratic. You can’t turn around and declare the election of Maduro as democratic just because you like him.
Furthermore, you don’t understand the difference between a valid democratic election held according to the rule of law, and an authoritarian party using any means or trick to “win” a rigged election held in violation of the constitution. The former is a democratic republic, the latter is the tyranny of the mob.
In fact, the Venezuelan election was a fraud. Hugo Chavez did not properly assume office after he was elected, given that he was sworn into office while laying in a Cuban hospital bed. It was obvious that he was on no condition to assume the responsibilities of office. Chavez’s hand-picked judges who swore him in violated the Venezuelan constitution in doing so. After Chavez died, (and there is no independent evidence of exactly when that was), the subsequent election which elevated Maduro to the role of Cuba’s puppet was arranged contrary to the Venezuelan constitution. The Venezuelan voter roles were processed by a Cuban government office in the Ministry of the Interior, rendering the voter roles invalid. There were numerous reports of electoral fraud, intimidation and obstruction.
The Bolivarian National Guard are brutally repressing the Venezuelan people. Cuban trained Colectivos militias have been shooting at protesters. The Maduro regime has shut down opposition media. Opposition politicians have been arrested and violently attacked by government goons. That is not the behaviour of a democracy.
The real irony is that your blind support for the Maduro government is based on the misapprehension that it represents some sort of socialist program working to better the lives of Venezuela’s poor. On the contrary, the clique of military officers, corrupt bureaucrats and venal businessmen who support the Maduro government have been gorging themselves on the wealth of the country while the Venezuelan economy is being driven into collapse by the insane economic policies. The poor will be left to suffer in the wreckage inflicted by Chavez & his socialist dystopia.
Cuban agents are there, not to defend a Bolivarian democracy, but to keep the vital Venezuelan oil spigot open. Without cheap oil from Caracas, the Castro regime will be finished. That is why the Cuban army is willing to fight to the last Venezuelan to keep their puppet Maduro in power.
Good point Griffin. I am struck that in 2014, the reality still exists that innocent people still feel the need to “escape” from their government. This is a Soviet-era concept that lingers on for countries like North Korea and Cuba. Whether you are ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ Castro, it must give one pause to consider that human beings must flee their government in secret. This is a reality that probably plays out for Cuban doctors all the time and it still seems very sad.
Griffin, you know as well as I that Cuban security forces are there in Venezuela to train and protect the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government from attempts to overthrow it. They are there at the request of the DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED government and have every right to be there .
In fact they have a moral and an international duty to be there and help save one more democracy from the predations of the American Empire.
Don’t even THINK of denying that the U.S. is involved in creating unrest in Venezuela.
Venezuela is jut another in a very long line of Latin American and Caribbean countries into which the U.S. has intervened .
For you to proclaim Venezuela immune or exempt from a very long standing U.S. foreign policy would be just foolish
What an interesting report! Mentioned incidentally at the beginning, it seems an open secret that Cuba’s G2, the Intelligence Directorate has many agents at work in Venezuela. Why would Cuba have intelligence agents at work in Venezuela, presumably an independent, sovereign country with their own police & intelligence agency?
And why would her friend, a Cuban medical worker stationed in Venezuela, want to run away? From whom is she running? Where will she run to? Will all those G2 agents working in Caracas help her or are they the ones she is running from?