The “Crisis of the Sugar Missiles”

The "Crisis of the Sugar Missiles" / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on July 17, 2013

The Congress of the Journalists Union of Cuba (UPEC) has just been
contradicted. Barely a few days after that meeting of official
reporters, reality has put them to the test … and they failed.
Yesterday, the news that a freighter flying under the North Korean flag,
coming from Havana and found with missiles and other military equipment
in its hold, jumped to the first page of much of the world's press. In
Panama, where the arms were detected, the president of the country
himself sent out a report via Twitter about what happened. Knowing that
in this day and age it's almost impossible to censor — from the national
public — an event of such scope, we awoke this morning to a brief note
from the Ministry of Foreign Relations. In an authoritarian tone it
explained that the "obsolete" — but functional — armaments were being
sent to the Korean peninsula for repairs. It did not clarify, however,
why it was necessary to hide them in a cargo of sugar.

At a time when newspapers are offering lessons that governments can't
get away with secrecy, the conformist role of the official Cuban press
is, at the very least, painful. Meanwhile, in Spain several newspapers
have challenged the governing party by publishing the declarations of
its former treasurer; in the United States the Snowden case fills the
headlines which demand explanations from the White House about the
invasion of privacy of so many citizens. It is inconceivable that, this
morning, Cuba's Ministry of the Armed Forces and its colleagues in
Foreign Relations are not being questioned by reporters calling them to
account. Where are the journalists? Where are these professionals of the
news and of words who should force governments to declare themselves,
force politicians not to deceive us, force the military not to behave
toward citizens as if we were children who can be constantly lied to?

Where are the resolutions of the UPEC Congress, with their calls to
remove obstacles, abolish silence, and engage in an informative labor
more tied to reality? A brief note, clearly plagued with falsehoods, is
not sufficient to explain the act of sending — secretly — arms to a
country that the United Nations itself has warned others not to support
with the technology of war. They will not convince us of their innocence
by appealing to the antiquity of the armaments; things that produce
horror never entirely expire. But, as journalists, the most important
lesson to come out of this "crisis of the sugar missiles" is that we
cannot settle for institutions that explain themselves in brief press
releases, that cannot be questioned. They have to speak, they have to
explain… a lot.

17 July 2013

Source: "The "Crisis of the Sugar Missiles" / Yoani Sanchez |
Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/the-crisis-of-the-sugar-missiles-yoani-sanchez/