They Wanted to be Like Che… and They Are

They Wanted to be Like Che… and They Are / Luis Felipe Rojas

Luis Felipe Rojas, 31 August 2016 — Abusers, they beat women in the
street, participate in acts of repudiation, and monitor those who think
differently. They are the kids of the feared Rapid Response Brigade.

Now they are thirty-somethings. They graduated from Cuban universities,
but before they were wearing red bandanas in school, raising their hands
to say "We will be like Che"… and they are.

The Honorary Officials (OH) of State Security are a wildcard of
repression in the service of the Castro tyranny. They started by
betraying their classmates for making a politically tinted joke, or the
neighbor who sold rice in the black market, and now they recycle
themselves in monitoring posts in the neighborhoods where dissidents and
opponents of the Havana regime live.

When the military whistle sounds they turn to kicking women and men who
have no more defense than their shouts of "Freedom for the political
prisoners! Down with Fidel! Laura Pollan lives!"

They wear tight shirts, cheap knock-off gold-colored watches made in
China, and they always wear a frown. This is how they appear in the
photos of the most well-known press agencies in the world, such as AP,
EFE and REUTERS, but no one can hold them to account. The majority of
the western democracies are too focused on picking up the crumbs that
let them get a foothold with those who grant permission in Cuba: to site
a hotel chain, operate flights, whatever it might be, a little corner of
the cake raffled off by the honchos of the Cuban Revolution…

They have traveled the world not precisely to make war like the assassin
Che Guevara, but to say they are persecuted politicians, to get a visa
to stay or work, and to return with a handful of bills to show off to
their fellow countrymen.

They are the sons of communism. Their prize is to sit themselves down in
the first little neighborhood joint and raise a national beer, a plate
with half a pound of pork and in some cases rent a third-hand car.

They wanted to be like Che… and they are. The shamelessness of the human
being has no limits.

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