Another Latin betrayal of Cuba’s people — but who’s counting?

In an aggravated version of the recent failure by LASA (Latin American Studies Association) to unequivocally support the oppressed and abused people of Cuba, reported here, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), an association of over 700 academic centers, has publicly addressed the current crisis triggered by the July 11 protests. Although CLACSO officially champions human rights, social justice and democracy, its formal pronouncement on the situation (signed July 12, as if by reflex, and issued July 13) may as well have been written by the Cuban dictatorship (and explicitly had input from Cuban academic centers belonging to CLACSO, of which there are 34).

The CLACSO document speaks, nay, screams for itself. Unlike LASA’s relatively nuanced though clearly compromised statement, issued this May, the CLACSO missive is completely and categorically pro-regime, blaming the pandemic and especially the US “blockade” (an unmistakable dog whistle) for the protests, which are described as acts of vandalism and terrorism, and whose presentation abroad is classified as “fake news.” There is NO criticism, let alone condemnation, of the 62-year-old totalitarian tyranny which has turned the once prosperous and thriving Cuba into a dystopian third-world hellhole.

In response, a group of 84 academics in the field of Latin American studies have expressed their dismay and indignation in a bilingual petition to CLACSO to rectify its position, which they consider complicit with Cuba’s dictatorship, ideologically biased, hypocritical and a form of “moral hemiplegia.” Alas, this is the same sort of thing that happened with the LASA declaration, which was not rectified to my knowledge, and I seriously doubt CLACSO will change its even more rabidly leftist and toxic tune. 

While this is no great surprise, since Cubans victimized by Castro, Inc. have been stabbed in the back by their supposed Latin brothers countless times, it remains appalling and contemptible — a grotesque indecency. Speaking as a Cuban, whoever makes or supports a statement like this CLACSO one, faced with the enslaved and long-suffering Cuban people risking their lives to finally break free, is NOT my brother and not even of my species, but rather a perverse alien. To paraphrase a medieval text which Yale professor of religion Carlos Eire will recognize, my response to such a person is Vade retro me, Latine, sunt mala quae libas–get thee behind me, Latin; what you offer me is evil. 

P.S. The top official of CLACSO is its Executive Secretary, currently Karina Batthyány, a sociologist from Uruguay whose surname suggests she is of Central-Eastern European (!) extraction. CLACSO was founded in 1967 on the initiative of UNESCO, with which it remains associated. Fittingly enough, UNESCO put out a tweet last month essentially honoring the bloodthirsty and hateful fanatic Che Guevara on the anniversary of his birth, which brought to mind that the noted Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas referred to UNESCO as UNASCO.

Really, you can’t make any of this stuff up. Talk about miseria humana.