We’ve seen this movie before
There is an excellent article on Foreign Policy magazine's website by Stephen Johnson regarding the latest attempts by the Castro regime to clean up its image and secure its stranglehold on power. It is a tactic used on numerous occasions by the slave masters in Havana, and if the media were not so historically challenged and ignorant of Cuban history, they would have recognized this latest scene as the same one played out in previous movies produced by the dictatorship.
Cuba: No lifeline to a dying regime
When in a bind, Cuba's Castro brothers sometimes ease their repressive grip on the island's population. Case in point: during the current economic crunch, President Raúl Castro has released some two dozen political prisoners, revived a lapsed self-employment experiment, and allowed foreigners to lease land for 99 years. Impressive, except we've seen this movie before.
And to remove any doubt about its meaning, President Raúl Castro reportedly told his National Assembly that it does not signal a change in the 50-year-old anti-American police state. Which is why the United States should not significantly alter its equally long-lived trade embargo. The tougher it gets for the regime, the more likely that a few small freedoms will last longer -- hopefully until the two brothers go to the great commune in the sky.
It may be useful to remember that the harshest periods of the brothers' rule were when their coffers were flush and the revolution was strong. That's when the Soviet Union supported it with subsidies worth up to $6 billion a year as a regional arms trafficking and subversion hub. During that time, the regime reportedly held as many as 60,000 political prisoners, according to some estimates.
Yet in 1980, when outside help wasn't enough to pay the bills and thousands of Cubans took to the streets, then-president Fidel Castro allowed nearly 125,000 citizens -- some from prisons and mental hospitals -- a one-time good deal to flee to the United States. It was either appear magnanimous or lose control.
This article is today's must read and you can read it in its entirety HERE.
I think it's a lose-lose proposition for the regime. One the one hand, if they let tens of thousands flee it ill only highlight the extreme dissatisfaction with the regime; on the other, if they clamp down (as they have been, only worse), the resistance will increase, only to reach a breaking point. I think the end is closer than we think. My words to God's ears...
It's as I have been saying here, the more publicity that can be gotten to some media of the truth about these prisoner releases and the repression, the more it hurts the evil doers.
Should you be right, George, and I hope you are, I am glad Castro is not dead yet. I would love to know that he lived to see his downfall and the island becoming free.