What Cubans say about Bin Laden’s death
By Jesús Arboleya Cervera
To my knowledge, no one in Cuba has mourned the reported death of Osama bin Laden. His historical connections with the CIA and the most reactionary sectors of the Arab world, the fundamentalism of his ideological positions and his ties to international terrorism always made him a pretty objectionable fellow in the eyes of Cubans.
As in many places, rather than shock, grief or joy, the news of his murder aroused suspicions and concerns in Cuba. The national media have publicized the inconsistencies of the American versions in this respect, as well as statements from foreign dignitaries questioning the veracity of this event, fueling a longstanding suspicion in Cuban society regarding Bin Laden and the manipulation that he has been subjected to by U.S. propaganda.
So many times did Bin Laden die or resurrected to serve as an excuse for the excesses of the “war on terrorism,” or to influence the American electoral contests, that it is natural that many people are wary of the certainty of the facts surrounding his death. Some even doubt that the body thrown into the sea was the famous terrorist.
In truth, the handling of the event by the U.S. authorities encourages such skepticism. In particular, the president’s refusal to display evidence has raised suspicions, as contrasted with how other cases were treated, most recently that of Saddam Hussein, who was displayed, dirty and disheveled, while being removed from the hole where he was hidden. Later, they distributed a photo that showed him dangling from a rope, attributing it to an individual who, violating basic standards of security, took them with his cell phone.
But even those who accept the official version of the United States about the death of Osama assume that it was not a “search-and-seizure” operation, as President Obama claimed, but that “American justice” only aimed at liquidating a man who knew a lot and could shatter the myths that have been woven around his figure, including his real participation in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This version was encouraged by a statement from a daughter, released by the Pakistanis, who says her father was captured alive and then killed on the spot.
Seen from this perspective, it is logical that the obvious weakness of the protection given to someone who was supposed to be the world’s most powerful terrorist is contradictory to many. It is fair then to assume that Osama had other guarantees or simply that he was an insignificant man who only had a handful of followers incapable of putting up the least resistance to the U.S. commandos who invaded the site in helicopters.
As I was told by a friend well versed in these issues, if Osama was not there with U.S. compliance, that fact calls into question the effectiveness of its intelligence, presumably incapable of detecting the world’s most wanted man, hidden for years in a place where the most sophisticated intelligence resources ever used are deployed. If this is the case, the man might have hidden in Washington and would have been safer.
Nevertheless, if we accept that bin Laden was so clever that he managed to outwit the Americans by using the tactic of going unnoticed – and this meant that he didn’t even go out in the sun – then how to explain the recurring threatening videos that contributed so much to Bush’s campaigns or his ability to lead a terrorist network able to put the United States itself on red alert every so often?
Either way, whatever was the reality of what happened, what worries the Cubans most, and likely much of the people in the world, is that, true or not, the U.S. version about his death does not conceal the conviction of the presumed U.S. right to intervene anywhere and do whatever it deems convenient to protect an alleged “national security” that knows no borders or ethical boundaries in its conduct, as Fidel Castro said.
It must worry us even more that such action will increase the popularity of American politicians, to the extent that a Nobel Peace Prize recipient feels compelled to do things like this to win an election. Let us not forget that the convenient death of Osama bin Laden has served, among other things, to overshadow the news of the murder of a son and several grandchildren of Muhammad al Qaddafi in Libya and to justify to the American public the abhorrent and outrageous torture of political prisoners, something that Obama himself criticized so often in his campaign.
The Cubans, moreover, cannot help comparing the death of Osama with that of another terrorist who, almost coincidentally, died in Miami under the protection of U.S. authorities. Orlando Bosch was not sought by any specialized commando, nor was his body thrown into the sea, where, incidentally, ended up the victims of the Cuban plane he arranged to destroy in midair. Instead, he was buried with full honors and even the chairwoman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the United States, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, declared herself his admirer and ruefully lamented his death.
Similar to what happened with the assassination of Bin Laden, the case of Orlando Bosch is full of inconsistencies that affect the credibility of the United States’ counterterrorism policy. But ultimately, the U.S. government does not feel obligated to convince the rest of the world of the rightness of its actions, just those who consider themselves masters of the planet and vote in elections. The rest of us must abide by fact that we are in the presence of an almost divine power, able to condemn or forgive sinners at their convenience and in their judgment.
