Havana, August 15- The article published in the newspaper "Granma", official publication of the Cuban Communist Party on August 14, signed by Mr. Nicanor Leon Cotayo, doesn't surprise anyone with it's offensive, disrespectful and profoundly aggressive rhetoric against the Cuban dissident movement. The old annexation argument is back in vogue in the editorial rooms of the official press in Cuba. It's like it is the only argument they have in their hands to prevent a confrontation of ideas.
The target this time was the humanitarian North American organization called "Freedom House" and its Washington Director, Mr. Frank Calzon. It attracts my attention the style that the official writer of this article uses to mix organizations that defend human rights in foreign countries, and those who defend within the island the futuristic idea of a change into democracy, in an indisoluble amalgam. And I say this considering that many in the opposition are barely aware of , or know about, what Freedom House does.
I include myself in this group of people, with the only diffrence that I know of the foundation created by Eleanor Roosevelt after WWII, through information from the past, but I have never been in its payroll or of any other foreign-based organization, and like me, other men and women in the island, in spite of the most terrible material need, perform their work without any other interest than their faith in the future.
It is interesting to see how, every day, they invent for us a new master, in spite of the fact that the thesis of annexation does not form part of the Cuban political thought. We have learned to value national independence, the sovereignity and respect to our citizens, and not to pretend to transform ourselves in apprentices of any other nation. Maybe impotence generates this tendency to lie and fantasize with the reality that dawns in Cuba. When I hear these arguments I can do nothing but to feel insulted. I am one of those who carries Cubanism in his heart, and in the ideas, and everything that I may do in favor of my own will always be inspired by the most strict respect of the concept of nationalism which may have been set aside some time ago by our current detractors.
I am proud of carrying the name Miguel, as castillian as my ancestors, of speaking the language of Cervantes, and of seeing the tricolor flag with the lone star fly. Maybe I will be saved from being called Boris, Vladimir or Ivan, from eating a soy-based meal at the Moscow restaurant, in the middle of the tropical summer, or from learning Pushkin's language being taught in radio programs. We now do not hear the slogan "we will live under the red flags of communism" repeated ad nauseam, like in those times when the flag of Narciso Lopez, and the images of Maceo and Marti were relegated to second place so that everyone would know Marx, Engels and Lenin. Any student can infer these phenomena as real annexionist tendencies, which were imposed, as society until socialism dissappeared from the political spectrum.
I have said many times that truth, brandished without affectation in this totalitarian Havana, involves a risk and a place in this life. And one of those dangers is that they pretend to convert us, unjustly, in front of the national and international public opinion, into enemies of our own people, and guilty of treason. I doubt the effectiveness of the "silk glove" politics, which according to Mr. Leon Cotayo, are used by foreign powers against Cuba, and which were also employed by the soviets and the european socialist countries. I am convinced by the phrase that Fidel Castro has used in his speeches, which says that nations do not make mistakes, demonstrating to millions of people that after knowing democracy, the countries of Eastern Europe reject emphatically a return to the communist past.
It is enough to compare, according to the assertions of the official Cuban editor, that 50% of the Russian population is apparently constituted by traitors. Those who reject dogma and totalitarianism as a form of power will be offended. The same happens in Cuba, when those who dream with a more independent, democratic, and soverign life are called traitors.
In Cuba we want peace for everyone, which can only be reached by the political operatives who keep bleeding the country. If that is a high aspiration, let it not leave any room for treason and surrender.
Annexionists no: patriots. That's what Cubans who have a dream are.