Part 1 of The Empire's Pawns, an episode from Cuba's Reasons (Part Two below)
It is 10 December 2010 and the damas en blanco (Ladies in White) are holding a small protest outside the Combinado del Este jail in Cuba. Laura Pollán – de facto leader of the damas en blanco – is relaying a live commentary of events to Miami-based Radio República via mobile phone:
We have arrived without any problem at El Combinado. We are right at the entrance. Many guards are running at us.Pollán is being filmed by Carlos Serpa Maceira (right), spokesperson for various counter-revolutionary groups, reporter for Radio Marti and lynchpin of the dissident movement in Cuba. As Radio República’s listeners fear for her safety, Serpa pans to the prison’s entrance revealing the truth behind Pollán’s frightening report – there are no charging guards.
Despite this, Pollán’s words – without confirmation or verification – are reproduced ad infinitum by anti-Cuban media in Miami and the news spreads like wildfire throughout reputable Western media agencies – such as Reporters Without Borders. Within the click of a button, Pollán’s falsified account becomes uncorroborated fact. That’s how easy it is to organise a propaganda campaign against Cuba.
In Cuba’s Reasons, a fascinating five part series recently broadcast on Cuban television, however, Serpa – along with a number of other high-profile dissidents – is revealed as an undercover state operative collecting information on America’s insidious fabrication and manipulation of counter-revolutionary groups. Serpa’s secret filming at El Combinado is just one exposition of the lengths groups will go to manufacture lies to undermine the Cuban revolution. The series, Cuba’s Reasons, explores the dissident movement – sparsely populated by obsequious mercenaries – and illustrates that the United States’ strategy of subversion has evolved as the agitation for a post-Castro Cuba has been intensified.
