Cuba does what it does best — snuff out freedom, this time on Moscow’s behalf | Opinion
As I sat in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, I dwelt on the essence of nationhood as I heard and felt the explosions rocking this ancient capital. Outisde, in what has become a dreadful nighttime ritual, Russian missiles and drones mercilessly fell on Ukraine. The Ukrainians stoically shoot most of them down and continue living, resisting and fighting.
Certainly, the self-awareness of nations has been one of the great driving forces of history. The only authentic way for this awareness to flourish is through self-determination. The basis of self-determination lies in legal recognition of God-given rights and the institutional limitations on government power in order to protect liberty.
Only then can a people freely express themselves, defining their present and deciding their future. Self-rule under rule of law is an ancient tradition because it reflects human nature. For example, the Old Testament Book of Exodus recounts how judges and courts constituted the first government of the Hebrew people.
Since its founding, the United States has been premised on this union of sovereignty, self-determination and the republican structures of freedom, what we now call democracy. America sought to distance itself from the endemic warfare of the autocratic multinational European empires. Democracies, real ones, at least, rarely go to war against each other.
After World War I, the new American proposal for world order contained in Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points expressed the universal desire of nations to rule themselves democratically. On the other hand, Communism and Nazism became the new incarnation of Westphalian imperialism. For different reasons, this autocratic imperial mindset survived the fall of the Soviet Union.
Neither Communism nor Nazism are nationalistic ideologies, however they use nationalism as a tool. The same for the new autocracies. As expressed by Vladimir Putin in a July 2021 article, in his view “I am confident that true sovereignty for Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia.” It is this creed, which completely represses Ukrainian self-determination, that Russia now seeks to impose on Ukraine.
The Ukrainians’ fight for personal freedom, self-determination and national sovereignty is centuries old. They have suffered tremendously for their dream of an independent nation.
There is a global consequence to what is happening in Ukraine. What America is, the values it stands for, the transformation of Europe and the world into a more prosperous, free planet, cannot survive in an Orwellian global structure, where autocratic super states take turns in endless conflicts with each other. In such a world, the United States would be like a frog in a jar filled with chloroform-soaked cotton, slowly asphyxiating, ceasing to be a republic, ceasing to be a democracy.
Why were we in Kyiv in those last days of August? Because, as a Cuban American, I know what happens when democracies play at being imperial powers. The 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle and the 1962 Kennedy-Khrushchev Agreement guaranteed the survival of Castro’s totalitarian state. Through the acquiescence to Soviet threats, thousands, if not millions of lives were ruined. This hemisphere, as well as Africa and Asia, has been plunged into bloody civil wars either instigated or abetted by Soviet-Castro Communist intervention.
We were in Kyiv because, once again, the diplomatic, political and military presence of the Cuban dictatorship is aiding Russia in its aggression against a sovereign nation. Faced by an overwhelming dearth of evidence that it cannot plausibly deny, the Cuban dictatorship has blamed the presence of its combatants in the aggression against Ukraine as the work of a criminal network.
This is not plausible. The movement of hundreds of men from Cuba to Russia in a tightly run police state, the regime’s public subordination to Russian interests and the extensive amount of information on its military involvement all constitute undeniable evidence.
The European Union funding for Cuba is fueling not only its repression at home, but also the export of repression around the world. It is clearly evident in Ukraine.
The self awareness of nations is a powerful thing. It will not flee meekly into the night. Thus, Ukrainians are resisting tooth and nail. The ultimate goal is to tear apart and re-order nations according to new imperial designs. Best not to forget that, in this endeavor, once again Moscow is assisted by an implacable enemy only 90 miles away from us.
Orlando Gutierrez Boronat Ph.D. is the author of “Cuba: the Doctrine of the Lie.” He is also the coordinator of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance.
