Havana, Cuba: The United States is not Miami, nor does the far-right Cuban-American mafia in that city control the diversity of criteria as they pretend, the former Cuban ambassador to Washington, José Ramón Cabañas, stressed today.
The current director of the International Policy Research Center located in this capital, emphasized that many in Miami have a public discourse and another at home, a distortion to be socially accepted in an opportunistic environment.
In the diplomat’s opinion, the extreme right uses the algorithms and communication strategies on social networks and digital platforms with repeated hateful messages, to convey the idea that there is a Cuban community with a uniform thought.
According to Cabañas, this is a reaction of this sector to that 2015-2017 period of bilateral rapprochement in which almost five million people traveled in both directions and there was a setback in the reactionary agenda.
«What we have seen above all from 2018-2019 to here is a distortion that is mainly due to the political polarization within the United States itself, it is not surprising then that the leaders of these trends are admirers of former President Donald Trump (2017- 2021)?, he pointed out.
But the United States is not Miami -he reiterated-, the coercion to which many Cuban artists are subjected to take a position against the Government of the island does not occur at all in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, which are capitals of culture.
Cabañas recalled that in 2017 Cuba was the main guest of the largest jazz festival in the United States and in 2018 more than 400 artists performed at the renowned Kennedy Center in Washington.
On the other hand, the diplomat considers that the right wing and its connections saw the Covid-19 pandemic as an event similar to the fall of the socialist camp, which is why they supported any extreme political action and the tightening of the blockade against Cuba.
“This is also connected with the internal crisis in the United States, the government in power does not have a strong coalition within the Democratic Party, all this makes the foreign policy of one Party differ very little from that of the other,” he said.
The specialist recalled that Washington’s policy towards Cuba belongs to the State, he has nothing to do with who is in the White House.
Cabañas recalled that in the case of President Barack Obama (209-2017), he advocated the same objectives with respect to the island but through an approach instead of sanctions.
The expert pointed out that the Cuban community has a varied vision on these issues and the majority, according to surveys and studies, have a common concern, which is the family agenda.
“For this reason, people in Miami are asking today for the reestablishment of trips, remittances, visas and other measures that allow them to help the family they have here,” he said.
In the expert’s opinion, those who maintain an extreme position are those who are connected to regime change programs, financed by organizations with a terrorist past and whose links with the promoters of subversion have already been demonstrated.
“This is a weak administration, incapable of understanding and approaching the Cuban phenomenon, which it is afraid of in some way, so the Republican Party has been occupying a group of spaces,” he stressed.
According to the former ambassador, it is not possible to believe that the Cuban vote defines the State of Florida, nor to think that the political color of that Cuban community is one.