Our obese prisoners

By Varela

Among the freed Cuban prisoners recently flown to Spain were The Obese Prisoners – a litter unlike other oppositionists – some of whom impressed the media because they are the dissidents with the biggest belt size to leave Cuba since Raúl Rivero and arrived in Madrid from Havana looking chubby and healthy.

Their complaints have made an impression. They didn’t pay for their trans-Atlantic flight. They pay nothing for lodging or food. But, with the exception of two who seem to be the conciliators and the most intelligent in the group, most of them complain.

At the hostel where the Spanish government housed them, the toilet must be shared. At least one prisoner has diarrhea and it bothers him to have to wait until the loo is vacant.

They complain that they’re in a legal limbo because they have no documentation that says they’re free. They’ve been catalogued as emigrants and they are political refugees. That’s a step up, because in Cuba they were mercenaries and they know that the “political refugee” label works only in the United States.

They say they have not received – their own words – any money from any organization to cover everyday expenses in freedom for their children, spouses, in-laws and other relatives, on top of the food and roof over their heads, which they get for nothing.

Moreover, they don’t want to be relocated elsewhere in Spain. They want to remain in Madrid or Barcelona. (It appears they have soccer fixations or are being manipulated by professional oppositionists of the Spanish government.)

They say they didn’t expect a five-star hotel with room service, plasma TV, sauna and minibar, but at the very least they’d like air conditioning and no noise in the halls, as they want a minimum of comfort and privacy.

The reality is simple: they think they deserve a prize but they’re getting a favor. The cultural mentality is different because they’re dealing with two opposite worlds: the socialist paternalism of the Caribbean is running headlong into the crudest European capitalism.

Sharing the “Yoani Sánchez mentality,” these poor people think themselves sublime. They think the world hangs on their every word, buys every Internet tale and media propaganda that is critical of Cuba.

They thought they were going to be welcomed in Madrid like the national soccer team that won the World Cup in South Africa but they were received like Nigerians.

Putting aside the ignorance and natural naiveté of any newcomer (whose expectations are never met by the overseas reality), my question is this: Where is the money the USAID budgets for these people?

These are 52 of the 75 prisoners of the pompously called Black Spring of 2003. And it’s no secret that they were the inspiration for the USAID money machine for Cuban democracy back in the administration of Bush the Dummy.

Thanks to those 75 Cubans, many in Miami have become rich and some in Cuba have lived the good life with money from the American taxpayers. From the local Anti-Castro Industry to the Dollar-Dependent Journalists, the Rockers-Turned-Bloggers, and the Ladies Boutique with all its Support Maidens.

Yet a lot in Cuba receive just crumbs from the American taxpayer (compared to what a lot in Miami receive.)

In this city, the Center for a Free Cuba run by Frank “the Wig” Calzón, the Group of Support to Democracy run by Frank “the Wiseguy” Hernández Trujillo, the Cuban Democratic Directorate run by Orlando “Cross-eyed” Gutiérrez and Huber Matarife Mato’s Cuba Independent and Democratic, as well as other organizations support, create and bankroll opposition groups, along with Montaner the Good of the Cuban Liberal Union and Jaime “the Brains” Suchliki of the Cuban Studies Center of the University of Miami, who launch theories, recycle ideas and invent political fantasies like Cuba’s socialist racism to hoodwink Obama, loudly predicting that a “black rebellion” will explode on the island.

All of them receive and distribute the millions of USAID dollars for Cuba (20 million in all, and already 15 million have been thawed.) Silvia “Nice Hair” Iriondo and José “Brother to the Rescue” Basulto are getting their cuts.

Look. With just 10 percent of that enormous 15 million-dollar Political Lotto, $1.5 million could have been used to pay for at least one year’s lodging at a mediocre hotel in Madrid for the Obese Prisoners, not a $15-a-night hostel, paid for by the Spanish government, that is worse than the worst motels in Miami, which cost 30 bucks a night and have a bath and porno TV.

And there would be at least $5,000 in cash left for each Obese Prisoner (52 in all), as spending money for himself and his family.

Giving $5,000 to each Obese Prisoner would be a modest retribution – not a prize – and would eat up only a quarter or a million dollars. With the rest of the money they could buy the tickets so the Obese Prisoners and their families could come to the U.S. and reunite with their other relatives.

Let me make a clarification, before anyone argues the inarguable. That money should not – under any legal or moral circumstances – be invested in a luxurious apartment in Prague for Orlando Gutiérrez and his wife but in Madrid, in a hostel reserved for the Obese Prisoners, who motivated the U.S. government to give $3 million a year to the Cuban Democratic Directorate, among other anti-Castro organizations in Miami.

I mention the Cuban Democratic Directorate because it was the most combative, talking the mother of that suicide who starved himself to death in Cuba last February out of going to the bedside of her dying son and into giving a press conference for the media show demanded by the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

Inevitably, a doubt pops into my mind. Could it be that once the Dissidents leave, transformed (or mutated) into Obese Prisoners, they lose their importance to the defenders of democracy in Cuba, who then spend the money creating other Dissidents (Suicides and Invalids With Neck Braces) so they can continue pumping the centrifuge that produces the millions?

The most pathetic response to this drama of the Obese Prisoners in Spain was given by a Spanish government official who said: “At this time, we have 40 other immigrants who are not giving press conferences every day to demand papers or complain about the lodging, the bathrooms and the relocation – but they’re Africans.”