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Demonstrators in Havana protest shortages, rising prices
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Cuba is going through a worsening economic crisis
Via RT:
Thousands of protesters marched on Sunday in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and other locales, decrying food, medicine and vaccine shortages, and demanding an end to the island nation’s Communist rule. Numerous videos posted on social media showed crowds marching and chanting such slogans as “We are not afraid”, “Liberty” and “Cuba is not yours!”
Juan Carlos Pedreira on X (formerly Twitter): “La Habana, Cuba 🇨🇺 pic.twitter.com/0yuYTpiaAE / X”
La Habana, Cuba 🇨🇺 pic.twitter.com/0yuYTpiaAE
While many of the marches seemed mostly peaceful, protesters were reported flipping cars and throwing rocks at police in Havana and elsewhere.
Jose Felix Diaz on X (formerly Twitter): “Protestors flipping the car of a high ranking communist official in Cardenas, Matanzas, Cuba. These protests have popped up all over the island. They are not isolated. This is a movement #SOSCuba #vivaCubalibre pic.twitter.com/8nwQpkvEjn / X”
Protestors flipping the car of a high ranking communist official in Cardenas, Matanzas, Cuba. These protests have popped up all over the island. They are not isolated. This is a movement #SOSCuba #vivaCubalibre pic.twitter.com/8nwQpkvEjn
Marco Rubio on X (formerly Twitter): “I am asking @POTUS @SecBlinken to call on members of the Cuban military to not fire on their own peopleThe incompetent communist party of #Cuba cannot feed or protect the people from the virus. Now those in the military must defend the people not the communist party. / X”
I am asking @POTUS @SecBlinken to call on members of the Cuban military to not fire on their own peopleThe incompetent communist party of #Cuba cannot feed or protect the people from the virus. Now those in the military must defend the people not the communist party.
The island nation has been plagued by shortages of basic necessities for decades, under perpetual US embargo, with the situation further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump administration’s move to reclassify Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. But despite the pressure and isolation, Cuba became the first country in Latin America and the Caribbean to successfully develop not one but two Covid-19 vaccines, and has managed to domestically produce and vaccinate over a quarter of population with at least one dose – while suffering a severe shortage of syringes due to US sanctions.
Via South China Morning Post:
Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests against the communist government, chanting “Down with the dictatorship” as President Miguel Diaz-Canel called on his supporters to confront the demonstrators.
Diaz-Canel, who also heads the Communist Party, blamed the United States for the unrest in a nationally televised speech on Sunday afternoon.
Special forces jeeps, with machine guns mounted on the back, were seen in the capital, Havana, and Diaz-Canel called on supporters to confront “provocations”.
Thousands of people gathered in downtown Havana and along parts of the seaside drive amid a heavy police presence. There were a few arrests and scuffles.
A Reuters reporter witnessed police pepper spray a few protesters and hit others with batons, but there was no attempt to directly confront the thousands chanting “Freedom” as they gathered and marched in the city centre. Their shouts of “Diaz- Canel step down” drowned out groups of government supporters chanting “Fidel”.
The protests broke out in San Antonio de los Banos municipality in Artemisa Province, bordering Havana, with video on social media showing hundreds of residents chanting anti-government slogans and demanding everything from coronavirus vaccines to an end of daily blackouts.
“I just walked through town looking to buy some food and there were lots of people there, some with signs, protesting,” local resident Claris Ramirez said by phone.
“They are protesting blackouts, that there is no medicine,” she added.
Diaz-Canel, who had just returned from San Antonio de los Banos, said many protesters were sincere but manipulated by US-orchestrated social media campaigns and “mercenaries” on the ground, and warned that further “provocations” would not be tolerated.
The only authorised gatherings in Cuba are normally Communist Party events.
“Cuba’s incompetent communist party can’t feed its people or protect them against the virus,” said Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American who opposes the communist government. In a tweet, Rubio called on the Cuban military to defend the people rather than the regime.
Julie Chung, the top US diplomat for Latin America, tweeted: “Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths.”
There were protests later on Sunday hundreds of kilometres to the east in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, where social media video showed hundreds marching through the streets, again confirmed by a local resident.
“They are protesting the crisis, that there is no food or medicine, that you have to buy everything at the foreign currency stores, and on and on the list goes,” Claudia Perez said.
“We are calling on all the revolutionaries in the country, all the Communists, to hit the streets wherever there is an effort to produce these provocations,” Diaz-Canel said in his broadcast remarks.
The Communist-run country has been experiencing a worsening economic crisis for two years, which the government blames mainly on US sanctions and the pandemic, while its detractors cite incompetence and a Soviet-style one-party system.
A combination of sanctions, local inefficiencies and the pandemic has shut down tourism and slowed other foreign revenue flows in a country dependent on them to import the bulk of its food, fuel and inputs for agriculture and manufacturing.
The economy contracted 10.9 per cent last year, and 2 per cent through June of 2021.
There has been a surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths this year, with a record 6,900 cases and 47 deaths reported on Saturday.
Cuba has two vaccines and has begun a mass vaccination campaign, with 1.7 million of its 11.2 million residents vaccinated to date and twice that many at various states of the three-shot process.
Under hashtags such as #SOSCuba, calls for assistance have multiplied on social media, with citizens and music stars alike urging the government to make it possible for much-needed foreign donations to enter the country.
An opposition group called Saturday for the creation of a “humanitarian corridor,” an initiative the government rejected by saying Cuba was not a conflict zone.
Ernesto Soberon, a foreign affairs official, denounced a “campaign” he said sought to “portray an image of total chaos in the country which does not correspond to the situation”.
