Versión Español
There are emerging reports that Raúl Castro’s regime is sending Cuban soldiers to Venezuela to reinforce the Venezuelan military forces that are supporting Nicolás Maduro.
“Let the world know the truth of what is happening in Cuba, which has outraged and upset me: they are drafting young people, they are making them commit themselves, sign up, to go to Venezuela when necessary,” says a Cuban in a video published by journalist Yusnaby Pérez on March 6.
“They are young people who are not ready to go there. For what reason do you want these young people to go to Venezuela? No, no, no. To help the regime of Maduro, which is a dictatorship. That is wrong. And what about the people of Cuba? That are still dying of hunger?,” asks the Cuban in the video.
The renowned activist Rosa María Payá had the same complaint. On her Twitter account she published what she alleged to be a “forced recruitment form used in state companies in Cuba.”
“We are warned by desperate mothers: their children who are performing compulsory military service in Cuba, called them to say goodbye and tell them that ‘they are going to take them to Venezuela’,” Payá said.
Jóvenes cubanos denuncian que los han obligado a firmar un documento "por si hace falta ir a Venezuela" https://t.co/vjIrdmAZs6
— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) March 6, 2019
With regard to this information, the diplomat and former president of the Security Council of the United Nations, Diego Arria, said: “Definitely it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. It reaffirms what we have long known about the Cuban-Venezuelan relationship, and the cracking of the Armed Forces in the face of Maduro’s usurpation and the emergence of the government of Juan Guaidó.”
Hours before the developments of February 23, the journalist Francisco Poleo published a report in which he alleged that the regime of Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel had given the order to put up with Nicolás Maduro, at least until Monday, February 25, at whatever cost. The reason: the fraudulent referendum that was held in Cuba on February 24.
The relationship between Cuba and Venezuela is hierarchical. Perhaps it is the only case in the history of mankind in which one state, much poorer, weaker, and more miserable than another, subdues a richer and more powerful one.
With Venezuela, the Castro regime has managed to maintain the financial support that allows it to continue to brutalize and oppress the Cuban people. The longevity and permanence of the Chavista political project in power, in the end, becomes essential for the subsistence of the Castro regime.
The Cuban regime will use everything it has at its disposal so that the regime of the Bolivarian Revolution, which is going through its worst moment in history, can withstand the sieges of an opposition strengthened around President Juan Guaidó and an international community that has declared a diplomatic, economic, and political war against Maduro, to force him from power.
The Cuban writer and analyst, Carlos Alberto Montaner, has said that both Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel are “concerned” about the changes in the region. Already in Cuba you feel the transition in Venezuela.
In a column published in the newspaper El Nuevo Herald, Montaner says that “Cuban political operators based in Venezuela know that Nicolás Maduro is finished, and there is no remedy.”
“Raúl Castro does not know what to do. Resisting uselessly seems a bloody idiocy, but the whirlwind may drag him in, as happened to Cuba in Granada in 1983…It is possible that the end of Venezuelan tyranny will also affect Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba. These are the remnants of Socialism of the 21st century. Will Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel immolate themselves defending the lost cause of Nicolás Maduro?” asks Carlos Alberto Montaner. The latest reports from Rosa María Payá and Yusnaby Pérez suggest that they will.
