Cuba deploys formidable squad of “black berets” to quell protests against regime

Amid the escalating protests against the Castro regime, the Cuban government sent the elite group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) known as the “black berets” to the streets in an attempt to deactivate them. historical events that take place in Havana and other towns on the island.

The formidable armed squad patrolled the streets at dawn on Monday, hours after the government of Miguel Díaz Canel began cutting internet service and electricity in some towns to prevent the spread of repression and agent actions. .

“They just told me from San Antonio that there is a gigantic brigade of black berets, they hit and fire tear gas, which people will not give up. They have cut the power and they are without internet so they cannot publish the testimony of what is happening at the moment ”, denounced the activist Tania Bruguera from her Facebook account.

In this sense, he added: “Dignity does not bend, a place in the history of this struggle to live with rights is all yours!” Palma Soriano, Güira de Melena, Alquizar, Caimito, Regla and we follow in your footsteps. We have the right to demonstrate peacefully and today we will not let it be denied to us. Homeland and life. ”

A few hours earlier, the Cuban government had assured that it was ready to defend the revolution “at the price it will take”.

“We will defend the Cuban Revolution at the right price!”proclaimed Deputy Foreign Minister Gerardo Peñalver in a tweet accompanied by a video of Communist sympathizers marching shouting “I am Fidel! and waving Cuban flags.

Miguel Díaz-Canel, surprised by the spontaneous demonstrations which broke out in various cities of the country – including Havana – gave the revolutionaries “the order of combat”, calling them to “take to the streets wherever these provocations are going to take place , from now on and in all these days. ”

The US government then reacted on Sunday by warning the Cuban authorities against resorting to violence against “peaceful protesters”.

“United States supports freedom of expression and assembly in Cuba and I would strongly condemn any use of violence against peaceful protesters exercising their universal rights, ”US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Twitter.

According to the data site Inventory, in total on Sunday there was a quarantine of demonstrations, scattered throughout Cuban territory.

Most of them were broadcast live on social networks, in a country where the arrival of mobile Internet only took place in 2018 and served to promote the demands of civil society.

On Sunday noon, access to 3G was also cut in much of the country and it was not restored until mid-afternoon.

“Cuba is not yours!”shouted a crowd gathered in front of the offices of the Communist Party (PCC), the only political formation authorized in Cuba.

“We are hungry”, “Freedom” and “Down with the dictatorship”, were other slogans chanted during the day, the development of which motivated the president to move to San Antonio de los Baños, the small town of the first concentration.