The Cuban Regime Survives Thanks to Our Paranoia
It is paradoxical that activists who proclaim “freedom for political prisoners” quickly join defamatory campaigns.
By Yunior Garcia Aguilera (14ymedio)
HAVANA TIMES – In recent days, two Cuban political prisoners recently returned to exile—José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, and Luis Robles, sentenced to five years in prison for holding a sign with the word “freedom”—have been targeted. What is most disturbing is that many of these attacks come from sectors of the opposition itself.
It is paradoxical that activists who proclaim “freedom for all political prisoners” quickly join campaigns of insults, suspicion, and conspiracy theories against those who paid for their dissent with years in prison.
In Ferrer’s case, it was predictable that State Security would attempt to undermine his leadership and prevent him from forging a consensus in exile. With the younger Robles, they seek to demotivate him, damage his testimony, and warn other Cubans that the community demanding your freedom today may tomorrow call you a “traitor” without considering your sacrifices.
The regime survives, in large part, thanks to this mutual distrust. Paranoia demobilizes, discredits, isolates, and causes both Cubans on the island and international institutions to lose confidence in the opposition.
During my interrogations in Cuba, my interrogators almost never sought concrete information: they wanted to sow discord. They tried to alienate me from activists like Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Osorbo, Tania Bruguera, Manuel Cuesta Morua, and Ferrer, and I know they did the same with all the others.
In totalitarian contexts, mistrust reaches extreme levels, as the fear of infiltration by regime agents is real. Direct penetration by undercover agents is a constant and early practice, perfected by organizations such as the Soviet KGB and the Stasi in the German Democratic Republic. Beyond simple surveillance, these agents actively intervened in the internal dynamics of opposition groups, fostering rivalries, spreading rumors, and promoting tactics that compromised the organization with the repression.
It is true that in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, the Cheka even created fake opposition organizations to attract, identify, and neutralize genuine dissidents, as occurred in the famous Operation Trust. These strategies sought not only to infiltrate but also to fabricate a controlled opposition. However, over time, counterintelligence evolved toward less daring methods. The greatest risk of fabricating a fake opposition lies in the ”boomerang effect,” losing control of the organization and its leaders.
One of the most notable examples of this effect is the terrorist Osama Bin Laden. During the 1980s, the CIA supported the Afghan mujahideen to weaken the USSR, creating an environment that allowed Bin Laden to consolidate his position and later found Al Qaeda. This temporary alliance later transformed into a direct threat to the US, demonstrating that strategies based on manipulation or instrumentalization can produce enemies more dangerous than the original objective.
Cuban State Security, a disciple of the KGB and the Stasi, doesn’t usually take too many risks. Every time I read about the “fake change” theory, I wonder if we are aware of the stale conservatism of the Cuban leadership, the advanced age of its leaders, and their innate rejection of any change, even if it’s “fake.” We forget that this regime hasn’t even been able to mutate toward the Chinese or Vietnamese models, that Diaz-Canel chose the word “continuity” as his motto, and that the “replacement cadres” are particularly mediocre, lacking in originality, and dogmatic.
I don’t rule out that, in the future, they could plan something similar to a “fraudulent change.” But, so far, neither the official rhetoric nor international alliances point in that direction. The regime fears that, if it shifts even a millimeter in its position, the entire edifice could collapse. That’s also why it takes decades to implement even less daring economic reforms.
Cuban counterintelligence agencies have preferred more orthodox tactics. They have avoided the direct creation of groups or leaders, preferring to infiltrate, gather information, generate rumors, influence decisions, and dynamite organizations to destroy them from within. Even the level of repression varies capriciously from one opposition figure to another, fueling theories and suspicions. Their undercover agents have mostly been “people in the ranks,” whisperers, without much relevance or prominence, precisely to avoid the boomerang effect.
Although all democratic movements in totalitarian contexts suffered from the problem of division, there are some examples of successful organizations. The cases of Solidarity in Poland and Charter 77 and the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia demonstrated that alliances and consensus, regardless of political affiliation, can overcome the divisions fabricated by power.
These unifying agendas allowed ideological or social differences to take a backseat. The broadness of the coalition, combined with a nonviolent strategy and massive popular mobilization, largely neutralized the security apparatus’s ability to exploit internal fractures. Unity, in these cases, was not the product of deep ideological affinities, but of pragmatic negotiation around shared objectives.
The Cuban regime has studied these examples and is working to prevent us from putting them into practice. It has extended its strategy to social media, creating not only defenders of the system, but also fake “radicals” from anonymous profiles whose mission is to attack other opponents, promote conspiracy theories, and sabotage alliances.
After more than six decades of dictatorship, Cuban society faces enormous difficulties practicing tolerance, respect for differences, and consensus. And it does so in a world where extreme polarization threatens even consolidated democracies. It would be tragic if paranoia—that seed the regime cultivates with such precision—were to prevent us from achieving freedom in Cuba, before democracy, in other latitudes, begins to wither away.
Translated by Translating Cuba.