Cuba USA

Who wants to sabotage the visit to Cuba of Pope Francisco?

by: Iroel Sánchez

source La Pupila Insomne
translation Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity

The visit of Pope Francisco is awaited on September 19. The altars are almost ready in the Revolution Plaza of Havana and Holguín and other sites such as the Félix Varela Cultural Center, the Cathedral of Havana and National Sanctuary of the Virgin of Charity of el Cobre are decked out for the occasion.

Francisco is the third Pope to visit Cuba in about 16 years a privilege only awarded to Brazil, in Latin America, the population with most Catholics in the world. The predecessors of Francisco, Juan

Pablo II and Benedicto XVI, were respectfully received by the Cuban government and people. Their presence served to progressively improve relations between the Catholic Church and the Cuban state; both condemned the blockade by the United States against the Island and challenged pressures from Washington and Miami to prevent the visits.

For the visit of Benedicto XVI in 2012 the Cuban Democratic Directorate (CDD), an organized financed by US federal funds but with very clear ties with terrorism sent emissaries to the Island to cause disturbances. These emissaries – of Mexican nationality – had the task to present on Cuban television and identify their bosses in Miami of the “peaceful dissidents” they should contact in Cuba

In an attempt to occupy the church by members of the so called Cuban Republican Party, based in Miami, that ended with the ridicule and rejection of the Catholic hierarchy of the Island and a provocateur took advantage of a minute of silence during the religious ceremony of Santiago de Cuba to violated the perimeter of security of the Pope that ended up being awarded with a visa as a price by the US government to reside in that country was the only thing the saboteurs achieved after so much money spent and declarations in the Miami press.

Francisco, due to his Latin American origin, his specific positions in defense of the environment, his strong criticism for the exclusion and poverty caused by capitalism and his successful gesture in favor of a rapprochement between Washington and Havana and for an exchange or prisoners that promoted the liberation of the Cuban Five jailed in the US that the people of Cuba demanded for more than fifteen years, is awaited in the Island with much sympathy.

Both Francisco as the Cuban cardinal Jaime Ortega and the Catholic Church in general have been attacked by extremist opponents to relations between Cuba and the United States that paradoxically

receive money from the US government. On that side is Alen Lauzán, the caricaturist of USAID hired to write the messages of the sadly celebrated ZunZuneo has gone so far as to portray the Catholic virgin in the role of a prostitute (see http://alen-lauzan.blogspot.com/2012/03/cuba-fumando-espera.html). Lauzán is a paid collaborator of the publication, Diario de Cuba, also

funded by the US government.

The Diario de Cuba stirred up the attack against Cardinal Ortega when he was surrounded by “dissidents” in a reception last July 4th in the residence of the then head of the Interest Section of the United States in Cuba. Former prisoners criticized him for his declarations in a reception organized by the US and the cardinal answered with “threats” and attacks of the ‘prensa de la gusanera – press of the counterrevolutionaries called worms), he lied then about the publication financed by the National Endowment for Democracy, fabricating declarations in which the Church denied and tried to present to the attention of the Pope of a list of “political prisoners” in which they include those noted for acts of terrorism that has cost the lives of Cubans and foreigners.

After the events of December 17 of 2014 and the beginning of the process of normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States of sectors that have lived on the hostility between both

countries. They have not stopped planning provocations to prevent the approach. From Miami, Congress persons Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Díaz Balart representative to Congress Lincoln Díaz Balart tried to create a violent situation that would prevent Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama of attending the Summit of the Americas in Panama, sending a known CIA agent, participant in the assassination of Commandant Che Guevara, Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía.

Although the policy of the United States aimed more towards the structure of a political “center” that they believe is more useful under the new circumstances, have not gotten rid of a sector that is very linked to the Miami extreme right and that – under its service – is trying constantly to torpedo relations between both countries. Infact, several of these “dissidents” were invited and warmly but

briefly received in the reception given by the US Secretary of State, John Kerry shortly before concluding his visit to Cuba leaving inaugurated the United States embassy in Havana and some, obeying instructions from their bosses in Havana, did not attend.

As they tried confronted by the visit of Benedicto XVI and more recently the visit to the island of Kerry, the admirer of Fulgencio Batista – who according to her is “a golden gem” – Berta Soler and friend of John McCain and her revolutions of color, Antonio Rodiles were prepared to fulfill the orders of the Miami extreme right:

sabotage the visit of Pope Francisco. Once more they face ridicule.

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