Cuba News

Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban five currently serving a life sentence, now claims that the Cuban Air Force shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996 in international airspace.  According to Hernandez, the two planes were not in Cuban airspace when its four passengers were killed as the Cuban government continues to insist. 

But now, spymaster Gerardo Hernandez, serving a life sentence, has made a startling about-face: In a last-ditch appeal, he suddenly agrees that the Feb. 24, 1996, MiG assaults on two Brothers to the Rescue planes happened over international waters.

With that argument, Hernandez is fundamentally contradicting the stand of the regime he has sworn his loyalty to, and which has declared him a modern-day hero of the revolution.

Honestly, I don't really understand why Hernandez's change of story is so "startling."  He must have concluded that at no point in the future would he be part of a prisoner exchange and that this change in his story was his last opportunity to avoid a life-sentence.

In other news, Cuban media publishing translated Wikileaks cables.  Cubadebate said that while only 62 Wikileaks cables relevant to Cuba (out of 2,080) have been published, the Cuban government will publish Spanish language translations of the released cables for those on the island to read for themselves. 

Apparently, seven cables have already been translated and released.  Several of the recently released Cuba documents deal with the US's take on dissident groups on the island (Opposition 'Needs to Reflect' on U.S. Criticisms Revealed by Wikileaks).   

In cables sent to the U.S. State Department, USINT chief of mission Jonathan Farrar does not so much disparage the Cuban dissidents as note their lack of influence on Cuban society, particularly young people, because their messages don't have much youth appeal.

The dispatches also indicate that the opposition groups waste energy "boycotting" each other, lack programmes for attracting a broad spectrum of Cuban society, and although they claim to represent thousands of citizens, USINT said it had seen little evidence of such support.

Another indictment in the cables is that "the greatest effort is directed at obtaining enough resources to keep the principal organisers and their key supporters living from day to day." Farrar cited the case of one who presented a USINT official with a budget to pay his group's salaries...

According to the diplomatic cables, Washington "should look elsewhere, including within the government itself, to spot likely successors to the Castro regime." They mention in particular that young people are disillusioned with the system, such as bloggers, musicians and artists, who take "much better" rebellious stances with a greater public impact.

The last sentence is pretty telling.  The US should probably look within the existing Cuban government "to spot likely successors to the Castro regime."  I would agree wholeheartedly and I probably would have agreed with that insight ten, twenty, maybe even thirty years ago.

However, if this is news to the US government, they need to find better analysts on the island.