Raúl Castro reappeared at Communist Party meeting after historic protests against Cuban dictatorship

The former head of the Cuban communist dictatorship, Raúl Castro, participated in a meeting of the leadership of the Communist Party (PCC, the only legal) in which the massive protests against the Castro regime were discussed Sunday, state media reported on Monday.

During the meeting of the Political Bureau of the PCC, chaired by the first secretary of the formation and dictator of the island, Miguel Díaz-Canel, “the provocations orchestrated by counter-revolutionary elements were analyzed, organized and funded from the United States for destabilizing purposes, ”said a statement released by the Cuban News Agency.

“The members of the highest authority of the party also addressed the exemplary response of the people to the call of comrade Díaz-Canel to defend the Revolution in the streets, which made it possible to defeat the subversive actions”, adds the brief official note.

As of yet, no video images or photographs have appeared in Cuban state media showing the youngest of the Castro brothers at the reunion, who turned 90 in June and who, during his last public appearances, appeared in healthy.

Thousands of Cubans took to the streets on Sunday to protest the regime, shouting “freedom!” in an unprecedented day that resulted in dozens of arrests and clashes after Díaz-Canel ordered his supporters to come out to confront the protesters.

The protests, the strongest that have taken place in Cuba since the so-called “maleconazo” of August 1994, took place with the country plunged into a serious economic and health crisis, with the pandemic out of control and a serious shortage. food, medicine and other essentials, in addition to long power outages.

On Monday, the dictator, to whom Raúl Castro delegated the leadership of the CCP last April, appeared with members of his cabinet for several hours on state television to discuss the main problems of the island.

In this intervention, Díaz-Canel once again insisted on blaming the United States for being behind the protests and the embargo that this country has applied to Cuba for six decades mainly for the economic difficulties that the island has been experiencing. .

Not used to seeing street riots on TV and, even less, to the police using batons, tear gas or firing shots in the air, Cubans are still digesting Sunday’s historic anti-government protests.

“Nothing like this has ever happened”, says Yoelnis Pérez, 35 years old. “I was amazed, I was scared, because it was something huge. In 35 years that I have, I had not had this experience “, he explains to the agency. AFP this art teacher, who was graduating from the school in Old Havana, where she works, when she noticed an unusual traffic of police and patrols in the neighborhood.

But the thousands of people who, like Pérez, took to the streets, they have different reasons for protesting.

Cuba is also mired in its major economic crisis in more than two decades, with a large balance of payments deficit and unable to meet its external debt. In 2020, GDP fell 11%, its worst drop since 1993.

The scarcity of basic products, food and drugs, systematic power cuts in certain regions and the generalization of exclusive payment stores In foreign currency, they motivated the protests that first erupted in San Antonio de Los Baños (30 kilometers east of Havana) and then spread to other places, including the Cuban capital.

The regime described as “mercenaries“O”lackey“To the participants in the ‘actions of discredit’ as described by the massive protests. President Díaz-Canel responded calling on his supporters to take to the streets to fight the protests.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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