Columbia, the burning furnaces of horror that no one talks about

How the media betrays the Cuban people. Flawless Today’s article from the Wall Street Journal

Brave Cuban protesters are taking to the streets again but there is a lack of solidarity from the outside. write it today Wall Street Journal. When hundreds of peaceful protesters took to the streets of the Cuban city of Caimanera on May 6, the regime sent the notorious “black hats” to beat and arrest them, along with their families. The scene recalls the island’s uprising on July 11, 2021 that ended with ruthless repression by the dictatorship. The thing is, Caimanera is located next to the US military base in Guantanamo. Reuters hilariously describes it as a “fishing village” – in a country where it is illegal to own a boat – but it is above all the first line of national defense in Havana. There is a strong Cuban military presence in the area. The city is home to many retired Cuban military personnel.

The Cuban journalist writes about last week’s protests Yoni Sanchez Caimanera has been called “one of the most guarded cities in Cuba”. This implies that the population sympathizes with the police state or, at least, fears anti-government demonstrations. The protest took place anyway and the dictatorship moved quickly to contain a repeat of the two summers of “black hats” and immediately shut down the internet across the island to prevent the news from spreading. The regime knows that it is sitting on a box of popular discontent. Its survival has always been based on the mental isolation of each Cuban. If the islanders felt entitled to criticize the regime openly, everything would collapse. Totalitarianism fears the word. Ideas are powerful but dissidents need solidarity from the outside and don’t understand why. While the Revolution has destroyed almost everything it has touched in its 64 years, its propaganda machine remains remarkably successful.

Many journalists are anti-American in nature, and the regime controls foreign press offices on the island. a report The New York Times For the Cuban Covid vaccine, it was absurd. There is a shortage of toilet paper in socialist paradise, but in february 2021, it is times He hailed the propaganda line in Havana that a turning point was on the horizon. The vaccine intended for the final phase of the trial is called Sovrana 2, a reference to the island’s pride in its independence, despite decades of hostility from its northern neighbor. Cuba has already begun to float the idea of ​​luring tourists to its coasts with an irresistible cocktail of sun, sand and a small glass of Sovrana 2. “. Many Cubans have been given a chance, but who knows what’s in it. In August 2022, The Economist Recorded data on excess deaths on the island to estimate the number of deaths per capita from Covid-19. It found that Cuba’s rate is “among the 20 worst countries in the world and well above the region’s average”.

The Cuban Revolutionary Pact stated that the regime would guarantee food and medicine, and in return Cubans would give up their freedom. Now that they have none of the above, they are very angry. In Caimanera, hunger led to mass mobilization two weeks ago. But videos circulating on social media show many of those on the street, including women with children, chanting the familiar “Libertad” and singing the dissident’s Grammy-winning song “Patria y Vida.” Nowadays, it is very clear that some stories of oppression are hidden, such as that of Walter Durante The New York Times Stalin hid the Ukrainian hunger of the 1930s. The spontaneous popular uprising in Cuba in 2021 was one such story. Protesters used their mobile phones to record hours of videos showing their disgust with the regime. And the world’s media had to cover it.

However, the system had good reason not to give up, and rightly so. More than a thousand political prisoners in Cuba, most of whom were arrested after July 11, 2021, have disappeared from the news. This includes celebrities such as artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and musician Michael Osorbo. It’s like it never happened. in the meantime The Biden administration continues to legalize criminal government. Cuba is on the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, but earlier this year, under the guise of the US International Port Security Program, the administration decided to tour to Wilmington, North Carolina, for port facilities with the Cuban Departments of the Interior, Transportation, and Interior Ministry. Foreign affairs. Nora Gamez-Torres of the Miami Herald reported that congressional Republicans opposed the tour but that an abridged version was eventually introduced “due to concerns” by the Department of Homeland Security “that suspending the entire visit could lead to retaliation by Cuban authorities.” With the freest and most powerful country in the world feared by the gangsters in Havana and the media always looking for excuses to cover up oppression, long-suffering Cubans face an uphill struggle.”

Horror burning furnaces in Colombia

Former Commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC, Salvatore MancusoHe said cremation ovens were used to hide hundreds of people while the remains of other victims lie in mass graves on the Venezuelan side of the border. The former paramilitary commander appeared via link from Georgia this week at a judicial hearing as he seeks to use the special jurisdiction system for peace, a transitional court of justice created under the agreement between the state and the FARC, to be pardoned when and if He was extradited to Colombia from the United States, where he was released from prison in March 2020 after serving 12 years of his 15-year sentence.

Mancuso reiterated that the paramilitary groups arose under the protection and support of the Colombian army, with which they carried out joint operations and participated in massacres on the orders of the army. He said, “They gave us lists of people’s names and then we went and killed them because they told us they were fighters.” Colombia has more than 6,000 victims of so-called “false positives,” that is, civilians who died as guerrillas killed by the military in combat, and an incentive system with awards, promotions, and passes. But more importantly, he detailed the use of hand-made cremation ovens built with bricks and sugarcane juice for cremation. He explained that they resorted to this method when the judicial system began to take action against the paramilitary forces. And when the ovens stopped working, they ended up burying the bodies in mass graves across the border: “In Venezuela, there are at least 200 missing people killed because of the blockade I ordered.”

Paolo Manzo, May 15, 2023

All about Latin America and its impact on the economy and politics of the old continent. Subscribe for free to the Paolo Manzo newsletter http://paolomanzo.substack.com. After a week, if you want a €30 per year subscription, you will be entitled to exclusive webinars and surveys as well as the newsletter.