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Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel attacked “shameful offenders” who he said were trying to “smash” his country’s communist revolution after the Caribbean island witnessed its biggest anti-government protests in close proximity of three decades.
As Cuban officials blamed the United States for Sunday’s protests, Joe Biden called on the island’s leaders to heed the “call for freedom” from its citizens.
“The Cuban people courageously claim fundamental and universal rights,” Biden said in a statement.
In a televised address Monday morning, Díaz-Canel, who recently took over from Raúl Castro as Communist Party leader, described the protests as part of a US-backed and social media-backed plot to stoke public discontent and overthrow the Cuban regime. .
“The approach was not peaceful yesterday,” said the 61-year-old politician, criticizing the “completely vulgar” behavior of some protesters whom he accused of throwing stones at police and destroying cars. Díaz-Canel admitted that other protesters had legitimate concerns about food shortages and power outages, although he blamed these problems on US sanctions. “It is legitimate to feel dissatisfied,” the powerful first secretary of the party said on the show.
Rogelio Polanco Fuentes, a senior party official who heads his ideology department, denounced the protests as part of a US-funded effort to create “instability and chaos” in Cuba, which is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in decades as well. as a worsening of the Covid crisis.
Polanco Fuentes compared Sunday’s protests to the failed US-backed uprising against Venezuelan authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro in 2019. “We are experiencing new chapters of unconventional warfare… in other places , they called these color revolutions… or soft coups. “said Polanco.
Cuban dissidents have dismissed claims about the protests that spilled over into Cuba on Sunday, with thousands taking to the streets to denounce the lack of medicine and food and the lack of political freedoms.
By Sunday afternoon, the protests reached one of Cuba’s most iconic locations: the Malecón waterfront in the capital Havana, where thousands of protesters were seen chanting “homeland and life” and “freedom”. The Malecón promenade was the scene of the last major street protests in Cuba, a sudden and short-lived outburst of dissent in 1994 known as the “Maleconazo Uprising”.
“What is happening is absolutely historic for us… I think it’s a point of no return. Things will never be the same after that, ”said Carolina Barrero, a 34-year-old activist based in Havana. “We are talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of people all over the island. In every small town there were protests, [it was] completely spontaneous.
“They were shouting: ‘We are no longer afraid!’ “We want freedom! ‘And’Down with dictatorship!‘(Down with the dictatorship!)’, Added Barrero, an art historian who said she was recently placed under house arrest after being detained reading a poem in front of the Culture Ministry. from Cuba.
Paul Hare, the former British ambassador to Havana, said Cuban leaders would be concerned about the very unusual outbreak of dissent, and in particular the way it was organized with the help of social media. Word of the protests spread quickly on Sunday, as celebrities and influencers shared news from the marches using the hashtag #SOSCuba.
“What the Cuban government has always feared is a coordinated movement, as opposed to sporadic protests… They see it as the possible genesis of an organized rival political movement,” Hare said.
“The hardliners will say: ‘be careful, this could get out of hand’ … They will be worried [about the protests]. It is a sign that the Communist Party is no longer able to vertically dictate what policy should be, ”Hare added.
Cuban activists said they were unimpressed by Díaz-Canel’s initial response to their demands, and in particular by his call on Sunday for “revolutionaries” to take to the streets to confront provocations by protesters “firmly. and bravery “.
“What worries me the most is how they are trying to set the stage for a crackdown,” said Claudia Genlui Hidalgo, a 30-year-old dissident who saw several friends arrested on Sunday. “When he says ‘revolutionaries in the streets’, he incites violence.”
Barrero said she hoped the protests would lead to a peaceful transition out of the one-party regime, but was also troubled by the possibility of conflict and by Díaz-Canel’s description of the protests as “mercenaries.” counter-revolutionaries ”.
Hare predicted that there would now be a political crackdown on those identified as the leaders of the protests as Communist Party security chiefs fought to prevent a repeat.
World leaders reacted on Monday to Cuba’s unexpected convulsion with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, saying he hoped a peaceful resolution could be found “without the use of force, without confrontation and without violence.” “Cubans must decide [the solution] because Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation – there must be no interventionism, ”added López Obrador.
A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry also warned of “outside interference” which sought to “encourage the destabilization” of the communist-ruled island.
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