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MIAMI – Shouting “Freedom” and other anti-government slogans, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of cities across the country on Sunday to protest over food and medicine shortages, in a remarkable eruption of discontent unprecedented in nearly 30 years. years.
Hundreds of people marched in San Antonio de los Baños, southwest of Havana, with videos streaming live on Facebook for nearly an hour before suddenly disappearing. As the afternoon progressed, more videos emerged of protests elsewhere, including Palma Soriano, in the south-east of the country. Hundreds of people also gathered in Havana, where a heavy police presence preceded their arrival.
“The people are dying of hunger! a woman shouted during a demonstration filmed in the province of Artemisa, in the west of the island. “Our children are starving!
Clip circulating on Twitter showed protesters overturning a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles east of Havana.
In a country known for its repressive crackdown on dissent, the rallies were widely seen as astonishing. Activists and analysts said it was the first time so many people have publicly protested against the Communist government since the so-called Maleconazo uprising, which exploded in the summer of 1994 in a huge wave of Cubans leaving the country by the sea.
Carolina Barrero, a Cuban activist, went even further. “This is the most massive popular demonstration to protest against the government that we have seen in Cuba since 1959,” she said via text message, referring to the year Fidel Castro took power. She called Sunday’s public outpouring “spontaneous, frontal and forceful.”
“What happened is huge,” she added.
The protests were sparked by a severe economic crisis in Cuba, where the coronavirus pandemic has cut crucial dollars for tourism. People now spend hours in line every day to buy basic groceries. Many were unable to work as restaurants and other businesses were stuck for months.
Desperate conditions have triggered an increase in migration by land and sea.
Since the start of the exercise last October, the US Coast Guard has intercepted more than 512 Cubans at sea, up from 49 for the previous year as a whole. On Saturday, the Coast Guard suspended the search for nine Cuban migrants whose ship overturned at sea off Key West, Florida.
The Cuban government attributes its long-standing economic problems to the US trade embargo, which cuts it off from access to finance and imports. But the pandemic has worsened conditions, and in Matanzas, east of Havana, some patients and their families have resorted to posting videos on YouTube of angry people crying out about the lack of drugs and doctors. The Cuban Ministry of Health website says the nation of 11 million now has around 32,000 active cases of Covid-19.
The protest movement gathered momentum after a number of celebrities started tweeting with the hashtag #SOSCuba. Mia Khalifa, a former adult film actress with nearly four million Twitter followers, joined in by posting insults against the president. The president’s office even responded to criticism from a Puerto Rican singer, Residente. The message was then deleted.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel took office three years ago, the first time someone outside the Castro family has been allowed to take up the post. Raúl Castro, who had already handed over the presidency, then resigned as head of the Communist Party this year.
Mr. Díaz-Canel’s tenure was first marked by increased access to the Internet, which helped fuel the uprisings against him, especially by artists.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez confirmed via Twitter that Mr. Díaz-Canel had rushed to San Antonio de los Baños, where the government insisted that “salaried” demonstrators were trying to provoke a severe reaction from the authorities.
“Celebrating what they orchestrated today in San Antonio de los Baños only reveals the worst nature of people,” the president said, quoted by a government Twitter account.
Hours after the extraordinary events, the president broke into national television programming to urge government supporters to take to the streets. He criticized the United States for restricting exports, access to funds and travel to Cuba, which resulted in widespread shortages.
Mr. Díaz-Canel said in a televised address on Sunday that the protests were a form of “systemic provocation” by dissidents who were following US orders. He said that in recent months Washington has sought to destabilize and weaken the island’s economy as part of a policy designed to “cause a massive social implosion.”
Granma, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper, said in a rare reference to the protests that people who took to the streets on Sunday included government supporters who “may have been confused by the misinformation on social media.”
“We call on all revolutionaries to take to the streets to defend the revolution everywhere,” said the president.
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Díaz-Canel posted photos of nurses and other medical staff arriving by bus in Matanzas.
“It is no longer a question of freedom of expression; it’s a question of hunger, ”said Adonis Milan, theater director in Havana, moments before leaving his house to join the crowd that was massing in the city. “People are taking to the streets. They demand the end of this government, of the single party, of the repression and the misery that we have experienced for 60 years.
Hours later, he recalled sobbing that the internet had been cut, riot squads were on the streets and a number of performers had been arrested after claiming air time on television. national.
“I managed to escape,” he said.
Ernesto Londoño contributed reporting.
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