Havana, between the coconuts and the jineteras

By: Hugo Marcelo Balderrama - 12/03/2024

Guest columnist.
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Since the early 90s, Cubans often make a joke: "Coconuts and Cuban refrigerators have something in common, inside they are pure water." That same time, the advertising and marketing system of the longest dictatorship in America convinced its slaves that misery and hunger are the virtues of a "true" revolutionary.

But while Fidel Castro harangued against those miserable people who demanded breakfast, lunch and dinner, the figures of the world left, among them, Frei Betto and Gabriel García Márquez, constantly traveled to Cuba to hold meetings with the highest echelons of Castroism.

Obviously, in these criminal conclaves imported wines, the most exclusive whiskey and the highest cuisine could not be missing. Even the Vatican spokesperson who was in charge of organizing John Paul II's visit to Cuba, Joaquín Navarro Valls, recalled how the Caribbean tyrant received him with fine dishes, collectible Spanish wines and fruit of the highest quality, luxuries unthinkable for him. 99% of Cubans.

The decade of the 90s was also a period of adjustments in their strategies for Fidel and his dictatorship. First, they stopped persecuting homosexuals and transvestites, because it was time to sell themselves to the world as "tolerant" and "inclusive." Second, foreign investment was accepted, as long as it is for the "benefit" of the revolution, in simple words, money for Castro and his henchmen. Third, prostitution was tolerated, allowed and encouraged, since the jockeyras, as prostitutes are known in Cuba, forced horny tourists to spend their dollars in stores for foreigners, all of which were and are owned by the Castro family.

Regarding foreign policy, the tyranny did not abandon its plans to expand throughout America, but it found a more subtle and effective way than guerrilla groups: Cuban medical missions.

Evidently, not all Cuban doctors are subversive agents; many are, in reality, hostages forced to work for the dictatorship, since they must deliver 90% of their salary to Havana. Furthermore, those doctors who have children and a wife are forced to leave their family as collateral. But that does not exempt many from carrying out indoctrination work, as was demonstrated in Bolivia, Brazil and Ecuador. In this regard, the journalist Mamela Fiallo, in her article titled: Spies or slaves?, states the following:

The leaders of 21st century socialism seek to proclaim themselves heroes of humanity in order to cover up their abuses against the civilian population in their respective countries. In the case of Cuba it is even more outstanding. Well, in exchange for the doctors it exports, it obtains up to 500% more money than what the tourism industry produces. While the communist regime shows off its free service to the world, it raises millions of dollars and leaves Cubans in rural areas without medical care.

Additionally, Castro understood that he had to abandon his status as a parasite of the Soviet Union and exchange rubles for a much more profitable source of financing: narcodollars.

However, the biggest stroke of luck for Fidel Castro's plans was the arrival of Hugo Chávez to the presidency of Venezuela, as he first took Venezuelan oil and then the entire country. In this regard, Henrique Salas Römer, former Venezuelan presidential candidate, in his book: The Future Has Its History, emphasizes that:

At the time when Chávez created his own leadership, Fidel Castro was greatly diminished and Chávez, believing himself to be Fidel's heir and owner of 21st Century Socialism, intended to order and live from Venezuela, not from Cuba. Ergo, the revolution, either Fidel or Raúl decided to get rid of him to install a more docile, more manageable person. Chávez died not from his own illness, but from a caused illness.

Knowing Castro's narcissistic profile, in addition to his history of betrayal of his own comrades in arms, including Ernesto Guevara himself, the data presented by Salas Römer, at the very least, should be taken with a healthy doubt, but never with indifference.

Today, despite the misery of its inhabitants, Havana continues to be a danger to democracy and freedom in the West, since the criminal networks of 21st Century Socialism are directed from its ruins.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».