Tell Us, General, What’s Plan B?

Tell Us, General, What's Plan B?

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 20 April 2017 — The Venezuela of "XXI
Century Socialism" is wavering and threatening to collapse. It's only a
matter of time, soon, perhaps, as to when it will tumble. And since the
economic and political crisis of the country has slipped from the
government's grasp, President Nicolás Maduro, in another irrefutable
demonstration of his proverbial sagacity, under the advice of his
mentors of Havana, has opted for the most coherent path with the nature
of the regime: increase repression and "arm the people."

Such a strategy cannot end well, especially when thousands of street
protesters are not only motivated by the defense of democracy, but also
by the reluctance to accept the imposition of forced present and future
poverty for a nation that should be one of the richest on the planet.
Decent Venezuelans will not accept the imposition of the Castro-style
dictatorship that is trying to slip in their country.

Thus, "Maduro-phobia" has become viral, people have taken to the streets
and will make sure that they will stand in protest until their demands
are met, which involve the return of the country to the constitutional
thread, to legality, to the rule of law, that is to say, without Maduro.

As the Venezuelan crisis increases in its polarization, Nicolás Maduro,
allegedly elected by the popular vote, continues to accelerate his
presidential metamorphosis into a person of the purest traditional Latin
American style, capable of launching the army and hundreds of thousands
of armed criminals against their (un)governed compatriots who have
decided to exercise their right to peaceful demonstration.

So if it is true that the terrible decisions of the Venezuelan
government are guided by and directed from the Havana's Palace of the
Revolution, the intentions of the Cuban leadership are, at least, very
suspicious. Such recommendations from the Cuba's high command would drag
the Chávez-Maduro regime directly down an abyss, and Venezuela toward
the greatest chaos.

That is to say, if the Castro clan really ordered Maduro to radicalize a
dictatorship and to cling to power against the will of the majority of
Venezuelans, by applying repression and force to achieve it, even though
this would mean the end of the "socialist" regime in Venezuela -with the
consequent total loss of petroleum subsidies for the olive green cupula,
as well as the income capital sources from health professionals
services- would be a challenge to logic.

Such a strange move, in addition to Raúl Castro's significant absence at
the recent ALBA political meeting held in Havana as a show of support
for the Venezuelan government, the official reluctance to directly
accuse the US government of the popular expressions of rejection against
the regime of Nicolás Maduro inside and outside Venezuela, the
suspicious silence or minimization of the facts on the part of the Cuban
official press about what happens in Venezuela, and the unusually
circumscribed condemnation pronouncements "to the regional rightist
coup" – which, in any case, have stemmed from the Cuban government's
political and mass organizations and other non-governmental
organizations, and not directly from it –we can only speculate about the
possible existence of secret second intentions on Cuba's part.

It would be childish to assume that the Cuban government does not know
the magnitude of the crisis of its South American ally, given that – as
it has been transcended by testimonies from authorized sources in
various media over the years – both the army and the repressive and
intelligence Venezuelan bodies are widely infiltrated by Castro's
agents, so it may be assumed that the regime's political strategists
have some idea of a solution, at least in what concerns Cuba.

One example is the case of Cuba's aid workers, which are in Venezuela in
the tens of thousands. We cannot ignore the serious danger faced by
Cuban professionals in the health sector and in other services, who work
in Venezuela as "collaborators" in ALBA programs, in the very probable
case of a violent chaos in that country. How, then, would one explain
the folly of advising, or at least supporting, the violent actions of
the Venezuelan regime? Why don't the official media offer more accurate
information, specifically about the safety of our countrymen in
Venezuela? What is the contingency plan to safeguard the lives of these
Cuban civilians in case the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis is aggravated
by the violence incited from power?

Cuba's past history is disastrous. It is not wise to forget that the
same person who occupies the power throne in Cuba today is the same
subject that commanded the Armed Forces when thousands of Cubans were
sent to fight (and to die) in Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Bolivia and
other remote points of the world's geography. Fidel Castro, who was
never in a real war, was the one who had – at least de jure, not de
facto – the actions of the Cuban army when, in 1983, civilian workers
were ordered to participate in the construction of an airport on the
Island of Grenada who fought back the US Marines during the invasion of
that small Caribbean country.

When one speaks of the profits of the Castro regime, one usually thinks
in terms of money. However, the harvests of innocent martyrs have always
brought the Cuban regime valuable political returns and allowed for a
temporary respite. Now, when the glory years of the "revolution" have
passed, when just a few naive ones believe in the discourse of the olive
green big shots, and the predominant feelings of Cubans are
disappointment, apathy and uncertainty, and when the very "socialist
model "is only a sad compendium of failures and promises of infinite
poverty, it would not be surprising that the Castrocracy is considering
the possibility of nourishing its moral capital at the expense of the
sacrifice of the helpless professionals who lend their services in
Venezuela.

It would be particularly easy for the government to take advantage of
several dozen Cuban doctors and technicians – the numbers are not
important for the government leadership, as long as the people provide
the corpses – that turn out victims of the violence of "the stateless
ones who sold out to the empire" in Venezuela, to try to ignite some
spark of the quasi withered Cuban nationalist and patriotic feeling and
to gain some time, which has been the main goal of the power summit in
Cuba in recent years.

It would not be unreasonable to consider this possibility, especially in
a population that mostly suffers from a lack of information, which makes
it susceptible to all sensory manipulation. It's true that times have
changed, and that, to some extent the penetration of a few information
spaces -spread by the precarious access to technology – makes the
consecration of the deception on a massive scale difficult. It no longer
seems possible to mobilize the Cubans as in the days of the gigantic
marches for "the boy Elian," to cite the most conspicuous example, but
neither should we underestimate the regime's histrionic capacity and
social control. Suffice it to recall the tearful and blaring spectacle
displayed during Fidel Castro's funeral novena.

In any case, and since the strategy of harvesting victims has often been
applied successfully, perhaps the caciques are considering the
possibility of taking advantage of the wreck of the Castro-Chavez ship.
That's how warped they are. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the
narco-elite from Miraflores and their cohorts have made a pact with the
Cuban honchos to escape to Havana in case they find it impossible to
keep the scepter.

For now, it is a fact that the Cuban-Venezuelan soap opera is
experiencing a truly dramatic escalation these days and nobody knows
what the outcome will be. But in the midst of so much uncertainty, one
thing seems irrefutable: what is currently being played out in Venezuela
is not only the future of that nation, beyond the adversities of Nicolás
Maduro and his cronies, buy the course of the next steps of the Cuban
regime, which continues to be the absolute owner of the Island's
destinies. So, tell us, General Castro, what is Plan B?

Translated by Norma Whiting

Source: Tell Us, General, What's Plan B? – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/tell-us-general-whats-plan-b/