14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 14 March 2024 — The most recent edition of the Cuban TV Con Filo* program has touched on “a slaughter” against Cuba’s ousted Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernandez. The most unpopular program on Cuban television began by quoting Che: “this counterrevolutionary must be persecuted and annihilated.” They then established a parallel, not at all subtle, with Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, major general and Hero of the Republic of Cuba, executed by firing squad on July 13, 1989. To top it all off, they cited a fragment of a speech by Fidel Castro, also related to the Ochoa case, where the bearded man shouted that, in the name of the martyrs, they were forced to be “severe.”
It must be remembered that the death penalty is still in force in the Cuban Penal Code. The new regulations raised to 24 the number of criminal offenses that could put a citizen before a firing squad. Despite the existing moratorium and the fact that the maximum penalty has not been applied since 2003, there are many enthusiasts who demand that this letter be dusted off and used as a lesson during the current political crisis.
Con Filo also made reference to an article by Luis Toledo Sande published in Cubaperiodistas. Under the title Corruption/corrosion, the ultra-Marxist writer compared Gil to a murderer, called him antisocial and an accomplice of the most bitter enemies of the Revolution.
The man became a magnet of hatred, disaster after disaster
The truth is that almost no one would bother to come out to defend Gil if they decided to put him to death. That the first vice minister knew nothing about economics… who is surprised by that? That he was corrupt… who is surprised by that? That is usually the norm, not the exception. The man became a magnet of hate, disaster after disaster. The regime now needs three things: someone to take all the blame; to demonstrate that their pulse does not tremble to annihilate whenever and wherever; and to throw a piece of meat
