In the era of Castroism’s artificial achievements, their top leader used to make long rants about them. Such was his ideological drunkenness that he had no qualms about publicly stating that Cuba was the country that had the most cultured prostitutes on earth.
Another of his claims was that Cuba was the safest country on earth. A half-truth, bearing in mind that citizen security, as an inalienable value of every society, must always be guaranteed against the State, and in the event of a dispute with it, be able to compete before impartial authorities on an equal footing. That citizen security never existed in Cuba after 1959 because from then on the citizen was always subordinated to the interests of the State. Under these conditions, there can be no talk of citizen security, or at least of that which arises from trust in the impartial action of the institutions.
So the expression of which the commander boasted so much was restricted only to the tranquility that existed in the streets, even late at night, especially from the second half of the 1960s, when the democratic resistance had already been annihilated and Castro had been shot. imprisoned or forced into exile its members.
Although violent events never disappeared from our daily lives, it is true that they were exceptional. Still in the early years of the Castro dictatorship, the influence of the family, the Church and a large part of society – including the school – imposed on us respect for “good manners” – perhaps bourgeois, as the most radical revolutionaries liked to affirm – but good manners nonetheless, including respect for the elderly and for the property of others. Today the reality is different.
Last January ended with the first five femicides of the year. Despite the outcry of broad sectors of the population, the dictatorship continues to fail to offer a political, social and legal response to this tragedy. Keep in mind that 2023 ended with 88 femicides in Cuba, at a rate of 6.91 per month, according to the independent feminist platform Alas Tensas and the Femicide Observatory Yo si Te Creo in Cuba.
On January 7, Pedro Luis Frómeta, owner of a small business, was murdered in Holguín during a robbery in the early hours of the morning at his home. The house had adequate protection, which did not prevent the murder.
That same day, Yorjuelguey Bolaño Fernández, a 41-year-old Cuban living in the U.S., was reported missing. His body was found on January 9 in the vicinity of the Institute of Animal Science of San José de las Lajas, after his car was found totally looted. Several citizens allegedly linked to the crime were arrested.
Two days later, the 80-year-old man named Alcides Magdareaga Chacón was found dead in a cistern on the outskirts of Santiago de Cuba. To date, the cause of death has not been clarified.
On January 13, Walter Mulgado was murdered in a place known as El Rocío, Havana. The motive for his death was the theft of his motorcycle.
The banditry is such that not even the Churches are safe, as denounced by the Catholic priest Kenny Fernández Delgado on his Facebook account in the middle of last month, where he showed a video that recorded an armed robbery in a house and denounced that the four robberies perpetrated last year in the Churches of Madruga and Catalina de Güines, province of Mayabeque, continue to go unpunished.
Another Catholic priest, Father Alberto Reyes, from the province of Camagüey, referred in statements offered to the information system of Radio and Television Martí to the levels of violence that Cuban society suffers today due to the profound deterioration of civil and moral values caused by Castroism.
On January 21, poet Ian Rodríguez was assaulted and savagely beaten near the Santa Clara interprovincial bus station, and his backpack and cell phone were stolen.
In cities such as Havana and Santiago de Cuba, criminal gangs of young people are known to operate, many of them users of a drug known as “the Chemist.”
In Santiago de Cuba, a senior leader of the province’s Ministry of the Interior met with residents of the Abel Santamaría neighborhood to report the arrest of several young members of an armed gang, who cut off a citizen’s hand. In that meeting, the leader acknowledged that several criminal gangs operated in Santiago de Cuba that were dedicated to robbing, assaulting and sowing terror among the citizenry, according to Cubanet published on January 27.
The climate of citizen insecurity has reached such a high level of popular apprehension that many Cubans do not go out at night for fear of being killed.
In addition to this palpable feeling of lack of protection, there is another related to the impotence felt by citizens when they see the slow and often ineffective procedure of the police to clarify facts such as those narrated and arrest their perpetrators. And let it be known that the facts I have mentioned are only those that have been published in some places.
To make matters worse, as if we were not facing a profoundly dangerous phenomenon that seems to be metastasizing throughout the country and as if we were not satisfied with the indecent songs, youtubers and influencers that proliferate on the networks, a “singer” appears to us making an apology for violence. I am referring to the one known as “Chocolate” and his song “Abakuá namá”, whose promotional video shows an evident apology for the marginal violence that is irretrievably spreading through Cuban society.
In Cuba, democracy collapsed and then the economic, social, political, sporting and cultural “achievements” have disappeared. The economic crisis, with its aftermath of lack of medicines, transportation, water, electricity and adequate medical care, has been compounded for more than two decades by deep citizen insecurity.
What will become of Cuba, my God? How far will our beloved and extraordinary people have to suffer? Will this sequel of vulgarity, violence and marginal culture be the Trojan Horse that Castroism prepares for the inevitable Cuban democratic society? Will we need a Nayib Bukele then?
Roberto de Jesús Quiñones Haces
Harrisonburg, VA, February 2, 2024.
(Posted on my blog https://senderodelibertad.com/)
