BBC whitewashes robbery and hijacking in Cuba
Can you imagine that two Syrian or Moroccan migrants
steal an aircraft and land in British or Spanish territory?
There is no doubt about it: the mainstream press would tell us
about thieves and pirates and the expulsion order would be automatic.
But if the economic migrants are two Cuban pilots
who arrive in Miami on a stolen hang glider,
how the story changes! The US grants them political asylum
and the international press justifies the theft and the act of piracy.
Also which is presented as “serious press”.
This is the case of BBC (2) which, of course, must take care of the forms.
It cannot fall for the crude propaganda of the Miami media,
which - remember - assured that the pilots "escaped"
from Cuba because "in the communist system there is no freedom"
and that, if they returned, they would be tortured or shot.
BBC prefers to focus on the “human side”. The pilot - we read -
“had been begging the sky for a while that the wing (...)
of the glider (...) was not going to tear. (…)
Beneath their feet (…) stretched the United States
and the dream of a future in which scarcity (…) would be barely a memory”.
A maudlin story to cover up the details
of a huge political farce. Let's start with the
criminal elements that BBC deliberately hides.
First: those two people to carry out
their individual immigration project did not hesitate to steal a hang glider,
a public property intended to obtain foreign currency from tourism.
They did not hesitate to cause economic damage to the country
they left behind, while it suffers
a ruthless economic war. One of them made a joke about his criminal action:
“it was just my friend and I (taking care of the glider).
It was like the rabbit was guarding the carrot”.
In second term: BBC minimizes the clear danger to air traffic
of that action. “The most dangerous part of the trip” - we read -
was “landing the glider at the Key West international airport,
without having communication with the air authorities” (…)
“I slipped between two planes, one that was entering
and another that was at point of taking track. Thank goodness they saw me”,
confesses one of the pilots. So, an air pirate
which is about to cause an accident
not only obtains political asylum in the United States,
but also the complacent pat of the European press.
The BBC report is “human” in tone;
it discards political elements, but hiding them,
it hides reality from the reader. Let´s remember that
both people obtained asylum in the United States
with the justification that “if they were deported,
their future in Cuba would be doomed to prison”.
Right, because Cuba is the only country in the world
where imprison you for robbery and air piracy (5). What a cruel dictatorship!
Although it was not said clearly, the BBC cannot hide
the economic origin of the hijacking,
which one of those involved recognizes: “we were going to lose our jobs”.
“The idea of leaving Cuba”, says the journalist,
“when the island's economic crisis also began
to threaten the Aviation Club program”.
Of course, the “economic crisis”. And why doesn't the BBC talk about
the two hundred sanctions imposed on the Cuban economy
by the same government that, after sinking
the income of these people, grants them political asylum?
Not a single word, not a single mention
in the report about the US economic blockade.
This is how one of the
most “serious” media in the world acts. This is how the necessary collaborators
of the US Government's criminal geopolitics
against the Cuban people work.
Translated & Subtituled by Laura V. Mor.