Anti-Cuban Conspiracy at the Heritage Foundation

Marco Rubio, U.S. Senator for Florida, acted like a celebrity guest star at an anti-Cuban media event organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation in conjunction with Google Ideas. The goal, in theory, was to find a magic formula with which to shape the future destiny of the Island. As usual, the junior senator proposed the dismantling of Cuban socialism as a springboard for the development of an idyllic technological revolution.

Those gathered there, recalcitrant enemies of Cuba such as Daniel Fisk, vice president of the Republican Institute and former deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State; Roger F. Noriega, fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and ex-senior policy advisor and alternate U.S. Representative at the U.S. Mission to the OAS; Mike Gonzalez, vice president of communications at the Heritage Foundation; Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC and Carlos Saladrigas, co-chairman, Cuba Study Group (among others), stressed the importance of the Internet as an instrument of media-manipulation as well as a method for the realization of political discourse for the internal counter-revolution, geared towards undermining today’s Cuban society. With a conspiratorial air, Marco Rubio made no effort to hide the fact that the main goal of the event was to obtain “a political opening of Cuba, one free from the filter of the Castro government and to debate about how to find the best way to achieve this objective.”*

Rubio, a fervent defender of the criminal embargo against Cuba, said that it would only end as a result of political change in the Caribbean nation. He argued for the benefits of a capitalist democracy for Cubans, attempting to sweep under the rug the crippling poverty and discrimination suffered up until 1959. For Rubio, the need for free elections amounts to nothing more than the need for an electoral puppet show dominated by influence peddling, widespread voter fraud and other dishonest practices that are not only commonplace but openly prevalent in other so-called democracies.

Both Marco Rubio and Roger Noriega have conspired with Voice of America to cast doubt on the actual role of the Catholic Church on the island, practically labeling the church as a government accomplice and espousing a non-existent repression of government opponents (counter-revolution mercenaries). In this way, they join forces with the media to delegitimize the importance of the Papal visit to Cuba.

And naturally, Carlos Garcia-Pérez, director of the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, couldn’t miss out on such a provocative encounter. He carried out a blistering defense of Radio Martí, which was recently ridiculed after broadcasting lies fabricated by their “mercenary island correspondents,” such as Yoani Sánchez, José Daniel Ferrer, Marta Beatriz Roque Cabello, Guillermo Fariñas and other similar species that make up their counter-revolutionary wildlife. Not only did Garcia-Pérez exalt Radio Martí, but he happened to do so at the exact moment that a false broadcast was reporting a shootout against a Venezuelan diplomat in Havana, a wild story concocted by Yoani Sánchez, who also appears briefly in the VOA news clip.

Garcia expounded upon the new methods used to spread the counter-revolutionaries’ anti-Cuban message. They use SMS text messaging via cell phones, proxy sites and Psiphon Notes as means to provide access to Radio Martí’s online newscasts as well as tempering their programming to the preferences of the supposed Cuban audience in order to obtain an increase in listenership. This does not rule out that Radio Martí is continuing to disseminate unconfirmed news stories regarding Cuban reality that match the reports sent by the internal counter-revolution movement.

On the whole, the conference was distinguished by a lot of fanciful speculation, and oddly enough it managed to do just that: merely speculate. These noisy gaggles, made up of thieves stealing taxpayers’ money, will never topple the revolution. No one knows better than the spider web covered microphones, where little Charlotte yawns daily, acquiescent and bored.

*Editor’s note: the original quote, while translated accurately, cannot be verified.