Poor child in Cuba looks through a fence at an old police car. By spanishforjorge @ Shutterstock.com
In the wake of unprecedented anti-government protests last week in Cuba, it is worth contemplating how the island’s rich ruling elite have cultivated a monstrous, merciless state-security structure for just such a moment. The Cuban government has unleashed an unprecedented wave of terror, reports Mary Anastasia O’Grady, who through the years has written much on issues in Latin America and Cuba in the WSJ.
Morally and Financially Bankrupt Elite
Watching the Interior Ministry and the military do their dirty work, it’s hard to believe regime collapse is imminent. Yet last week’s protests overwhelmed a network that is supposed to be airtight. The breadth of the uprising reveals a nation at the breaking point. Any lingering pretense of regime legitimacy has been shredded—at home and abroad.
Cuba’s internal security is constructed in concentric circles. Closest to home, there is the “committee to defend the revolution,” which has spies in every nook of life and rewards them for ratting out “counter-revolutionaries.” Next there are regime-controlled activists and “rapid response brigades” to meet and punish anyone who ventures outside to protest.
Stupid or Evil?
The corrupt former president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, is blaming the U.S. trade embargo for the events. That’s either stupid or evil. Cubans want liberty and justice.
The six-decade lie that the revolution produced well-being and equity has been laid bare. What Cubans—and the world—have seen cannot be unseen.
The Cuban government survives through terror and a monopoly on communications. Last week Cuba’s Communist government, effectively hiding its brutal from the world, shut down the Internet.
Despite Joe Biden saying his administration is considering “whether we have the technological ability to reinstate that access” in Cuba, the U.S. does have that ability, reports WSJ editors. Of course, there would be logistical challenges, but the bigger challenge is whether the Biden administration has the political will to do it.
Pandering to the Left
Mr. Biden may be wary of upsetting the left and its romance with the Cuban regime, but the 2020 election showed that’s a losing strategy in Florida. During the Cold War the U.S. used Voice of America to counter Soviet propaganda and broadcast behind the Iron Curtain. For decades the U.S. has used Radio Marti to beam radio signals into Cuba from Miami.
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