At his blog, Capitol Hill Cubans, Mauricio Claver-Carone has an item headed “Images: Three Ways Not to Promote ‘Change’ in Cuba.”
The first is, “Take an official picture in front of Castro’s secret police headquarters, emblazoned with Che’s image.” (I wrote a post about that yesterday.)
The second is, “Chat up Raul Castro’s dauphin, Col. Alejandro Castro, who oversees the regime’s security apparatus and is being groomed as heir to the family dictatorship.”
Recently, I wrote a book called “Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators.” I have a chapter on Castro — Fidel. But I touch on Raúl, as at the end of that chapter:
Other dictators have had their sons succeed them. [Fidel] Castro has had his brother succeed him. And after Raúl, if Cuban Communism persists? Guillermo Fariñas, a prominent Cuban dissident, has made a prediction: Either Raúl’s son Alejandro … or Fidel’s son Antonio, the doctor-businessman-sportsman-playboy, will rise to the top. The former is already close to the top, a heavy in state security.
Yup.
And No. 3: “Enthusiastically greet Gustavo Machin, a Cuban intelligence official expelled from the U.S. in 2002 as persona non grata, and a key conspirator in the murder of democracy leader Oswaldo Paya.”
I would have to wash my hand in acid after shaking the hand of such a man. Anyway, I want you to know about the late Payá’s daughter: Rosa María Payá, who is devoted to her father’s memory and, more, to the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba. Follow her on Twitter, for example.