Jet Ski Invasion, Syncretism, and a Brazen Attitude
By Francisco Acevedo
HAVANA TIMES – Last week, the Cuban National Television News made a big deal about the dismantling of an alleged plan to overthrow the government of our beloved Miguel Diaz-Canel, involving a citizen who traveled on a Jet Ski from the United States to recruit anyone willing to join destabilizing actions.
No one should overlook that this “revelation” happened on the eve of the third anniversary of the July 11, 2021 protests and although he was arrested in November 2023 in the northern area of Matanzas province, it was only these days that his supposed collaborators were detained, without names or new information provided.
Ardenys García, the name of the new freedom champion, was found with a .45 caliber pistol and ammunition.
Garcia, 40, and originally from Cienfuegos, had been sanctioned for speculation and theft with force and left the island in 2014, but was also wanted in the United States for human trafficking.
He was recruited through social networks because his situation was evidently desperate and he clung to a burning nail, serving as a guinea pig, a smokescreen to try to sell an alleged grand plan to invade Cuba. At the time, we talked about the absurdity of this idea, but since Humberto Lopez and his people on TV have now revisited it, we must do so again.
As always, in Havana, it is said that everything was financed by the US government, when the citizen himself said that they sent him a link to buy uniforms and weapons, nothing to do with the established methodology if it were something even remotely serious. The New Cuban Nation in Arms, as the “organization” he belonged to is called, had no more than 10 people, but it serves as a smokescreen for everything else.
Coincidentally, the investigative process concluded in time to be disclosed on July 10th, but the most interesting part is that the group denied any connection with the current prisoner.
“We have not conducted any operations in Cuba, and we do not know of any operations or anything they are talking about,” said Willy Gonzalez, its director.
In short, this doesn’t seem so clear, but meanwhile, it serves to dissuade some from raising their voices against the dictatorship, because even if it seems crazy, there are still people who believe what they are told on the National Television News.
Cleansing rituals
The folkloric note was given by none other than the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in Santiago de Cuba, that is, the one who has the most power there.
It turns out that Mrs. Beatriz Johnson, who you may remember from climbing onto a rooftop and listening to how her fellow citizens insulted her when she tried to appease the popular discontent over the failure to deliver rationed products, wanted to perform a cleansing ritual in the middle of the street.
Ridiculous, not to use a stronger word, is that the destinies of hundreds of thousands of people are in the hands of someone with so little scruples. I won’t delve into religious matters because everyone practices the faith they want, but putting on a show like that in a public place is, at the very least, inappropriate.
I don’t know if her saints will help her, but if they are just, they should be aware of her repressive role and turn their backs on her. I will not refer to those who physically participated in this shameful farce, who are the most miserable, the ones with the fewest resources, and who are paying homage to the main system responsible for their miseries.
I don’t know if I should talk about immorality, cowardice, shamelessness, complicity, or ignorance, because praising those who repress you and make you suffer power outages of 12 to 15 hours a day is something of another level.
Some of those who blessed her will curse her at any moment, when they try to do something “illegal” to survive, or when a relative goes to prison for thinking differently, but that is a matter of time.
Che’s daughter has the answer
Nevertheless, the height of brazen attitude was again set by Aleida Guevara, Che’s daughter, who increasingly gets tangled in what she says because she doesn’t know how to explain the disaster surrounding her.
“Some say that if prices are controlled, the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises would stop importing; well, let them stop importing, because in the Special Period crisis of the ‘90s we lived without those imports,” says the lady, who has never known what it is to go hungry or not have milk for her children’s breakfast.
According to her, we lived better at that time because we all had shortages. Seriously? Is the solution to be increasingly poorer? With her 500 pounds, is she going to tell me she suffered during the Special Period? Well, it must be that she didn’t have her favorite flavor of yogurt or didn’t have enough gas to go to Varadero every weekend or couldn’t have the air conditioning on all day. Please!
Laughing to the point of tears, she mocks economists for wanting to leave Cuba with only one currency after eliminating the CUC, and openly admits that with her salary she can’t buy a pound of cheese, which she says costs seven thousand pesos. Evidently, she is talking about Gouda cheese, not the one consumed by the majority of the population, which is over 600 pesos in national currency and is of lower quality. But of course, she talks about her miseries, not those of others.
“Do I eat eggs or do something else?” she asks. Yes, do something else, better shut up and stop talking nonsense, you don’t live off the rations or your salary.
I don’t think the now ex-Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil finds these comments funny, as he no longer enjoys anything she continues to enjoy. Her demands are not to improve the situation but to maintain the dictatorship without inequality, with everyone poor, knowing that she will never reach this stage.
For those who follow the Cuban context, nothing is surprising anymore, but if the background were not so serious, this week’s events would be laughable.