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Havana, Cuba After the War

Diaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro, but he is terrified of ending up like Ceausescu.

By Yunior García Aguilera (14ymedio)

HAVANA TIMES – Havana looks like a bombed-out city, even though no enemy has yet signed the order to attack. Buildings split open like broken ribs. Balconies hang over the sidewalks with the stubbornness of the hanged. The city, one of the most beautiful in the region, now looks like a mouth full of cavities. Almost every photo arriving from the capital seems taken by a war correspondent.

Smoke rises from several corners. Garbage piled up for days burns in the streets. Plastic burns, rotten food burns, and patience burns. The air seems to come from a sick factory. People walk through those toxic clouds dodging sewage water, loose wires, potholes, and rubble. Havana breathes with lungs full of ash.

But the bombs still haven’t fallen. The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. The entire country has been devastated by a regime more persistent than white phosphorus.

In that landscape, the external threat almost appears as a gift for those in power. The Trump Administration mixes sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and increasingly harsh warnings. But everything suggests, for now, that Washington prefers to force a negotiation rather than open fire. The regime’s strategists seem to have understood this. That is why they play for time, raise the rhetoric, exaggerate resistance, and shift—as always—the full weight of the crisis onto the shoulders of the people.

Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro. The former Venezuelan dictator, at least until today,........

© Havana Times