Cuban officials’ ‘obsession’ with nation’s image criticised

HAVANA - The “morbid obsession” and “paranoia” of some Cuban officials for censuring information and rejecting criticism by other officials in an attempt to maintain the image of the communist island or their own positions has been criticised in an article published in the official daily Juventud Rebelde.

“The morbid obsession with protecting ‘the image’ of the country, the ministry, the company or the territory… on occasion is paranoia about the fate of your position, your post and a few other trifles,” the article said Sunday.

The author of the piece, Jose Alejandro Rodriguez, says that it “is due to a widespread confusion that not just a few (people) have, perhaps without any bad intention: the problems must not be discussed publicly, because they devalue the real conquests of the Revolution.”

“For a long time, there was much resistance in accepting that in our society the larvae of corruption were incubating. That was a bad word, as if it condemned us,” said Rodriguez, who writes a daily column in that newspaper about the complaints of the public.

“Some have come to perceive the healthy exercise of criticism… as an admission of weakness; like giving weapons to the enemy,” he continued.

“What is certain is that the most dangerous missile we can offer to those who would like to dismantle a work of 50 years is silence, pretense, double standards, conformity, the deactivation of intransigence in the face of the evils that are incubating and developing before our eyes,” Rodriguez said.

The state controls all media outlets in Cuba, Latin America’s only communist-ruled country.

–EFE