Now is the time to pay attention to events in Cuba.
Not to the pronouncements coming from dictator Raúl Castro or the ramblings from his decaying big brother. But to what is happening on the streets.
For that is where the dictatorship has the potential to do the most harm, especially to those on the front lines of the fight for liberty.
Some in the Cuban dissidence reportedly fear the dictatorship is preparing to launch a new wave of repression, similar to the "black spring" crackdown of March-April 2003 when 75 journalists, librarians, labor unionists, human rights and democracy activists and other dissidents were arrested and sentenced to prison terms of up to 28 years. Fifty-six of them remain in jail.
A key to the success of the crackdown — at least according to how the dictatorship gauges success — was that the world in the spring of 2003 was distracted by the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq. It was the perfect cover; the whole world was not watching, and by the time it noticed, the prisoners were locked away in the dungeons of the Castro gulag.
Now is the time to pay attention, so that it doesn't happen again.
As evidence of why they are fearful, dissidents point to increased harassment from the castroite police, like what happened recently to independent journalist and former political prisoner Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez and his family.
On May 21, two police officers, went to Guerra's home, where he lives with his godparents, Marta Inés Martínez Barrinat y José Avalo Pérez, and demanded to speak with the journalist, according to a report from independent journalist Álvaro Yero Felipe.
"The officers repeated their visits three times, which made Marta Inés, who is 78, and José Avalo very nervous," Guerra said.
Guerra said the officers threatened him with a return to prison. He was jailed from July 2005 to May 2007, after he was arrested during an anti-government protest.
According to Yero's report, Guerra implored the world — specifically, organizations that advocate for a free press — to closely monitor his situation.
Does Raúl Castro have so little public relations savvy that he would launch a crackdown just as he is getting good international press for his "let-them-have-cell-phones" reforms? As Forrest Gump might say, "a dictator is, as a dictator does," so a "black summer" for Cuba would not be a surprise — especially if castro thinks the world is looking elsewhere.
More than ever, now is the time to pay attention to Cuba.
(Cross-posted at Babalú.)
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