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MARIO J. TORRES
Sports and Elections
(1) SPORTS
This field is very useful to Castro because he uses it to carry out
propaganda on the progress of Socialism against Capitalism. He wants to make
the world believe his athletes are the best without being professionals
because of the good condition, attention, care, and support the Socialist
government provides sportsmen in general.
First of all, the elite of the outstanding athletes with good, promising
potential are searched for in the whole island -- mainly in baseball,
boxing, volleyball, and track and field. This reduced group of high-yield
athletes are released from their jobs or schools and are taken to special
installations to be given special attention, training, food, medical care,
and specialized services to provide an outer sample of the country for
overseas competitions. These athletes compete, play, and train all year
round, so they are professionals; they do not work anywhere else, and they
are paid as if they had a job. The rest of the athletes who do not have such
outstanding performances do not have those conditions because they are not
part of the propaganda of the country, and they usually do not eat well.
They have few clothes, and they undergo the same misery as the rest of the
population.
One problem Castro is facing lately is that many athletes stay abroad and
ask for exile in the foreign countries where they go. Special measures have
been taken to prevent athletes from staying abroad such as:
(a) Threatening them with retaliation to their families.
(b) Keeping them under close watch.
(c) Not letting them move freely.
(d) Keeping them locked as though in a jail.
(e) Introducing informers or spies inside the team who will keep
surveillance
Basically, in baseball, in which many players who have stayed have made
successful careers and have even become millionaires, the situation is going
out of control because no good player wants to waste his life and quality
just knowing that by only crossing the ocean he can escape from his misery.
(2) ELECTIONS
Castro is afraid of free democratic elections because he is sure he will
lose. Instead, he has wanted to deceive the Cubans and the world by holding
a weird type of elections in which he does not take part! He is like the
unchangeable shogun, emperor, king or pharaoh who is the son of the sun and
cannot be touched.
What he does is to have the people elect local leaders or aldermen who will
be in charge of solving minor neighborhood affairs, such as fixing a house,
repairing a street (which most of the time is impossible because there are
no materials), or giving permission for construction. These elected
individuals will form a people's power assembly.
This election day is like any other one in any other country. The same
things are done, but the people know they are voting for nothing because
nothing is going to change. The person elected will be a puppet whom people
sometimes do not even know and who is designated by the system and will not
have the power of changing the situation or policy of the country, even
though he wanted to, because his powers are civilian.
Sometimes it is the very president of the CDR who represses people, the one
whom the people have to vote for. Everyone has to vote because on that day
repression is very intensive. Many people spoil their voting slips by
writing offensive things against the government or by simply not voting for
anybody.
But since these elections are a fake, the results are known from the
beginning. Finally, the elections were a success because one hundred percent
of the population voted, and the leaders Castro wanted have been elected.
These people elected do not represent the population because they have been
chosen by the state.
Here, the people have finished their job of voting but the game is not over
yet because the most important part of it will now begin. After this part of
the election is over, the government appoints and elects deputies of the so
called "Peoples' Power" who are practically the first secretaries of the
Communist Parties in every province and city. These deputies, who work like
mayors in free countries, were also previously designated as such by the
very Fidel Castro taking into account these people's political conditions
and faithfulness to the system.
These deputies appointed by Castro and the Central Committee of the
Communist Party are the ones who will have the great honor of re-electing
Castro and other members of the Political Bureau over and over again through
the years, with one hundred percent of the votes or by a unanimous applause
or hand raising in a theater in order to keep the dictator and his partners
in the top positions of the government.
So, this is a close-circuit game, a trap that no one can fail to fall into
even though he knows all is a fake.
This minority of people receive the benefits of the system, and that is why
they do each other the favor of keeping the power.
MARIO J TORRES
JANUARY 2004
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