RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Inter-American Institute for Democracy (IID) on Thursday held a colloquium in Florida entitled “Cuba’s Dictatorship and the Americas,” with the attendance of distinguished speakers such as ex-presidents Lenin Moreno (Ecuador) and Miguel Angel Rodriguez (Costa Rica); and Latin American leaders and journalists including Carlos Sanchez Berzain (Bolivia), Daniel Hadad (Argentina), Enrique Aristeguieta (Venezuela) and Jorge Castillo (Peru).
The event, which took place in person and online, also featured lectures by Cuban Iliana Labastida (journalist) and Félix Lerena (activist), and Nicaraguan Ariel Montoya (exiled journalist).
IID director and former Bolivian Minister Sánchez Berzain was the moderator during the colloquium’s one and a half hour, which had as its main speaker the ex-president of Ecuador.
“Lenin Moreno is the most significant example of what can and should be done to restore democracy in the Americas. He was handed a country in the midst of a 21st century socialist dictatorship after Rafael Correa’s long dictatorial mandate, and has delivered a country that today is the most stable in the region, regardless of personal sacrifice,” said the Bolivian attorney and politician to introduce the former Ecuadorian president’s speech.
Moreno, who considered himself “an enthusiast of freedom and democracy,” in his analysis of the Cuban dictatorship, and the other existing – and former – dictatorships in the region, particularly emphasized the notion of “myths.”
“The modern world, and I think the previous ones as well, is always expecting that something extraordinary is going to happen, something that resembles their dreams, their hopes, their illusions. We always try to assist in the creation of myths, of something special, something superior, that’s why we believe stories that tell us about visitors from other times, from the past, from the future, from other planets, other galaxies…,” he said.
He explained that these myths are built on promises “to the poorest, the most vulnerable, the most helpless.”
He also criticized Latin American dictators’ need for perpetuation in power: “Hitler had the idea of creating a Reich that would last 1,000 years, Rafael Correa in Ecuador said it would last 300 years, and the candidate who lost the elections in Ecuador said 30 years. Today we have dictator Maduro, heir of a fascist dictatorship, who remains in power.”
“The myth was created. And myths, said the excellent writer Mario Vargas Llosa, are very difficult to dispel. That is why there are myths that are permanently with us. The Greeks still think of Paris, Hector, Achilles, Agamemnon, etc… They still think of the gods that were part of their divine pantheon. They created the myth, and the myth was very difficult to dispel,” he said.
Regarding the Castro dictatorship, he recalled that in the 1950s, the revolution put an end to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista: “The world was fascinated by their presence because they bravely fought and triumphed, that was the idea behind it, to overthrow the tyrant Batista.”
However, he said Fidel Castro’s dictatorship proved to be much worse: “There are people in Cuba who despite living virtually in extreme poverty, still continue to support their dictators. Because it is not true that only the benefited defend them, there are also people from villages who continue to believe that the Revolution has been beneficial to them, despite not enjoying the benefits that those who are consistently with them do.”
“When they entered Havana people cheered them, because they thought, as did many, that a step had been taken towards Cuba’s liberation, but it was not true. People tend to maintain certain verbal parameters when referring to them, to these dictators,” he added.
Lenin Moreno also remarked that this type of revolutions, as soon as they become a reality, “begin what is called the settling of scores:” “And they begin to kill people, to hold summary trials and shoot people. The Cuban revolution did not take long to settle scores, arrests without any explanation, frequent executions, starting a period of terror. Even the military production support units appeared, which locked up homosexuals and enemies of the revolution.”
He said that “the cruelest thing that happened in those times was the indoctrination of children and young people so that they would denounce their relatives, their parents, as enemies of the revolution.”
The next step was “the export of their revolution” to virtually all countries in the Americas, but also to other parts of the world, such as Angola: “They managed to establish themselves by creating elite corps to support the dictators, as they have done in Venezuela, and tried to do in Ecuador.”
During his presentation, the ex-head of state acknowledged that the narrative generated by the Cuban regime itself was also widely diffused “and even promoted” by hundreds of media outlets in the free world, whom he described as “special allies.” “Some have openly spoken out in favor of the Venezuelan regime and the dictatorial Cuban and Nicaraguan regimes.”
“They have won the battle of discourse. It is difficult to compete with someone who offers paradise on earth, with those who offer to fix everything and for everyone. They take liberties with language, it is common to hear them call you an ‘imperialist, CIA agent, corrupt bourgeois, capitalist’. As soon as one speaks out against them, there is an international community of journalists, intellectuals and politicians who, blinded, begin to spew garbage,” he stated.
He also criticized the lack of action by the “timid” international community, and considered that “Cubans are the main protagonists of their fate: the slogan ‘Homeland and Life’ clearly defines the final goal.” According to him, “the battlefield is there,” on the island.
Sánchez Berzain added that the Castro dictatorship became “an important factor in terms of organized crime, drug trafficking and external political intervention.”
For his part, Argentine journalist Daniel Hadad considered that the massive demonstrations that began in Cuba on July 11 seem to “show an interesting change: mainly because of the profile of the people who took to the streets; they are very young people. And I think they have lost their fear.”
Regarding the role of the press in supporting these dictatorships, he said: “I think that for many years the press in general has been very complacent. Perhaps in some cases even complicit with the Cuban dictatorship. But I should also say that a change is noticeable. Even media outlets that until recently talked about the Cuban government, now undoubtedly headline the Cuban dictatorship, the same thing is happening in Venezuela. There is a change.”
“Cuba no longer has much to offer, it does not offer a dream, it offers a sample of enormous failure. People need a dream, and today Cuba represents more of a nightmare when one sees how its inhabitants live. That is why I allow myself to be optimistic that this movement, what we have seen with Cuban artists, what we have seen reborn on July 11, perhaps in a short time we will see much more pleasant images than the terrible and cumbersome dictatorship we see today on the island,” he added.
In his speech, Enrique Aristeguieta said that Cuba and Venezuela’s dictatorships are “ideological.” “They have been much more difficult to overcome than the dictatorships of those leaders. In Cuba they have been in place for over 60 years, and in Venezuela for over 20 years. Unfortunately, we were not prepared for this enemy. There was no dimension of the danger that Cuba represented.”
Former Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodriguez also addressed the concept of “myth.” “I believe that the myth has not only been Cuban. The myth was Latin American, in some moments with great support in Europe, Africa. Not only from the interests of Marxist groups, but also from young progressives, from people with a meritorious idealism who sought the triumph of human rights and thought that this was the way to fight inequalities. Unfortunately that myth has been very strong.”
Iliana Labastida, Cuban journalist of Diario de las Américas described what happened after July 11 in several Cuban cities as a “social uprising.” Despite the support expressed by the international community, she urged people to continue raising their voices about what is happening on the island, and denounced that at this moment there are over 165 women documented as “detained, or as mothers or wives of people imprisoned by the regime.”
Although the dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel denied any such arrests recently, the Cuban journalist maintained that there are still many people “incommunicado and missing.” Although she assured that “it is not enough that the people have taken to the streets,” she warned: “The uprising is not over.”
In this line, the young activist Felix Lerena assured that his “is a generation that they will not be able to convince.” “That manipulation that they have had in many generations of Cubans, in my generation they know they have lost it. The generational rupture on the island is a fact.”
Nicaraguan exiled journalist Ariel Montoya said that “in Latin America and the United States all roads lead to Cuba.” “Cuba is the mother of the staging of the political pandemic we are currently experiencing.”
“While the battle is in the streets of Havana, Managua, Lima, Caracas, all of Bolivia, I also believe that there must be support from the exile communities. It is not enough to demonstrate in consulates, or in the streets. More is also needed. I think it will be necessary to create new myths, to raise the flight of artists, so that every time democracy is defended, it is not only defended with civic tools, but also with the dream, the illusion and the creation of new myths,” he added.
Former Peruvian parliamentary Minister Jorge del Castillo cautioned about the influence of Castro-Chavismo during the new government of President Pedro Castillo. In this respect, he mentioned Vladimir Cerrón, whom he considered a “Cuban agent.” “He studied in Cuba, lived there for years, and now he is the one who manages President Castillo, dictating his Ministers, and has introduced in his cabinet Ministers linked to terrorism and money laundering.”
Lenin Moreno concluded with a quote by Mark Twain: “Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.” “These dictatorial governments have not deserved the support they have had from their people, with the argument that there is intervention. An argument that Hitler, and more than one dictator, also happened to use, that a foreign intervention is being prepared.”