The Cuban president undertakes an international tour, with a stop at the Kremlin, despite possible concerns about Havana’s relationship with Washington
Cuban legend tells that Fidel Castro, on his historic trips to Moscow, protected himself from the fraternal kisses of his Soviet comrades with a Cohba cigar, the longer the better, which he even lit on the landing stairs of his plane when a few meters away he could see Leonidas Brezhnev or Andrei Gromyko. To the current president, Miguel Daz-Canel, He did not need a cigar inside the Kremlin during his international tour, which has taken him to Russia for the third time, after Algeria and before Turkey and China.
The risks it runs are more geopolitical than anything else, by once again demonstrating his closeness to Moscow in the midst of a rapprochement with Washington, which has sent US officials to Havana, and which has even certified the first agreements, up to now of little weight, on immigration matters. Even a bipartisan delegation from the United States Congress announced on Monday new meetings in Havana with farmers and local officials.
“We live in a complex world, under strong sanctions, and Cuba for us is a country with a lot of experience in these issues. The sanctions against Cuba and Russia cannot slow down economic cooperation between our countries and the ties between our parties”, summarized Dimitri Medvedev, vice president of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, during his meeting with Díaz-Canel, prior to the appointment with Vladimir Putin.
The strategic association between the two countries encompasses political, commercial, economic, investment, cultural and “humanitarian” agreements. And the best “supplies” they can provide Cuba today: hydrocarbons, wheat and fertilizers.
Despite the closeness between the two governments, the influence of the famous “bolos”, as the Cubans called the Soviets during the first decades of Castroism, does not reach the level of yesteryear, when Havana depended on the Muscovite umbilical cord. The rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev and the fall of the Berlin Wall provoked the first great crisis in Cuba, the Special Period, the aftershocks of which the Cuban people are currently enduring.
“This alliance is an example, among others, of transnational autocratic cooperation, which affects the human rights of the peoples of both nations, amplifies democratic erosion in Latin America and threatens global peace“, highlighted the historian Armando Chaguaceda, an expert in revolutions.
The man chosen by Ral Castro to remain at the forefront of the Castro revolution also embraced Guennadi Ziugnov, president of the Communist Party, on Monday and visited the facilities of Russian Today (RT), Putin’s television, whose contents both Havana and Caracas expand throughout the continent.
The Russian hosts have entertained the Cuban delegation since last Saturday, which will also participate in the inauguration of the monument to Fidel Castro in the square that bears his name, located in the Skol district. Something that would not be very funny to the supreme leader of the revolution, who prohibited, even with the force of law, that after his death statues be erected to him or that his name be imposed on squares and buildings on the island.
“Beyond all the attempts to get closer to Cuba by Washington and the differential treatment given by the European Union within the framework of the Cooperation Agreement, Cuba continues to decide which are its allies and He doesn’t mind paying the cost of being allied with someone so unpresentable today. Cuba is part of the very small group of countries, such as North Korea, Belarus, Syria, and Nicaragua that either vote with Russia at the UN or on rare occasions abstain. In the midst of a geopolitical dispute, of a war in Europe with an impact on international relations such as no war has had in the last 50 years, Cuba is on the aggressive side and openly defies not only the United States but also the EU, which has laying out a soft hand”, he stressed for EL MUNDO Chaguaceda.
“Double standards” or simple contradiction of the democratic countries, as Chaguaceda explains, when even the EU “attempts to recover ground in Latin America against Russia and China”.
Maduro lent the plane to Díaz-Canel
Nicols Maduro has lent his Cuban ally an Airbus 340 of the Venezuelan airline Conviasa to carry out his international tour, which will last for 11 days, which has provoked immediate protest from the opposition. “Who pays for those flights? Where are Conviasa’s public accounts? We don’t have money to fix public services but we have to finance trips for an autocrat,” complained Nicmer Evans, one of the pre-candidates for the opposition primaries and a former leader. chavista. Each hour of travel on the Airbus costs thousands of dollars, local media said.
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism