ThisTime

Media outlets are reporting the US government’s demand that Miguel Díaz-Canel step down to negotiate economic freedoms with the Castros. Although I know better than trusting the media outlets, as an American citizen of Cuban origin, I can’t help but worry about the slightest chance of the US negotiating with the Castros. It must not happen!

Over sixty-seven years of history are more than sufficient proof of the untrustworthiness of the Castro dictators. While they always find a way to mutate and survive, the common people in Cuba suffer the consequences of someone else’s trust in their plan, thinking that negotiating with the Castros will lead to substantial economic changes and eventually to freedom. It doesn’t!. It’s not 1985 anymore, and the Cuban regime has proven to be resilient, chameleonic, and treacherous. Biding time, apparently playing the game until Trump is no longer in the Oval Office, is just one of their many survival strategies.

Opening up to US investors and Cubans living abroad is proof of their despair and a weak attempt to entice those with the power to save them from collapse. But we must not fall for it! Those who have been called upon to save the regime are also victims of that regime. People who had their businesses and homes expropriated by the dictators, people who had to flee their country to avoid incarceration, torture, and death. People who had to leave their families behind are at risk of never hugging them again. On top of that, the Cuban dictators have often shared loudly and clearly their disdain for those who have fled the country. For them, we are worms, bastards, wretches, who hate everyone in the island, just to mention a few of their extensive list of pejorative terms and lies they use to describe us. Oh, the irony! Seating on the oppressors’ lap is not a strategy; it’s treason! And it’s not an option!

Negotiating with the Cuban regime is not in the best interests of the Cubans inside the island, nor in the best interests of Cuban-Americans in the US. More than six decades of murder, repression, intimidation, harassment, corruption, stolen land, expropriated businesses, and horrors are not forgotten or forgiven just because they are now out of breath and kicking. The only negotiation with the Castros must lead to their unconditional surrender and total relinquish of power, and that’s being polite. Cubans inside and outside the island are fed up with the regime. I’m sure the US government has the ability to guide any Cuban who’s up for the task of rebuilding the country while keeping its citizens under control, anyone but the current murderers in power.

Allowing the rookie mistake of falling for the sudden openness of the regime would be catastrophic, not only for the people on the island but also for American voters of Cuban descent who have an unwavering trust in the Trump administration.

Having said that, I hope that the media outlets spreading such announcements are, as usual, just lying. I hope the Trump administration understands the repercussions of falling for such a fallacy and that they have an actual plan to strip the Castro-Canel regime of power, forever! Viva Cuba libre!

Yara Felipe