July 21, 2021

Amalia Dache studies the role of place in education.

And no place holds her focus like Cuba. An Afro Cuban American who still has family on the island, Dache has been closely following the protests that started July 11, but have roots dating back decades.

Dache traveled to Cuba in 2018 and 2019 to research the Afro Cuban experience, and the opportunities that existed — or were closed off from — the island nation’s significant Black population. Her findings challenged many of the Cuban government’s statements about access to education, health care, and jobs, while also detailing stories of repression and persecution.

Since the start of the protests, policymakers and journalists in the United States and around the world have sought out her expertise on the closed off country.

“I can’t ever stop thinking about Cuba,” Dache said.

We asked Dache why Cubans are in the streets, what the internal blockade Cuba’s government imposes on its people entails, and what many Americans get wrong about life in Cuba since the revolution.

Q: Why are we seeing anti-government protests in Cuba now?

This is a historic moment for Cuba and all of Latin America. The wave of protests that started July 11 was sparked by shortages of food and Covid-19 vaccinations as the pandemic sweeps across the island.

But the momentum behind these protests has been building for years. Rappers and artists, notably the San Isidro Movement, have been calling for democratic reforms since 2018. If you listen to the song ‘Patria Y Vida’ — meaning Homeland and Life — you are hearing the voice of people who are tired of a repressive regime, tired of having family members disappear, tired of not having access to the internet, and tired of not having many of the basic necessities of life.

Q: Afro Cuban youths are leading many of these protests. What should Americans know about the Afro Cuban experience?

Afro Cubans are central to Cuba’s story, even if the regime doesn’t tell it that way.

While accurate information is hard to come by, it’s estimated that seventy percent of Cubans are of African descent. When Castro’s government came to power, it declared an end to racism. And since there was no racism, they also outlawed all  Afro Cuban organizations and centers of the Afro Cuban community. It would have been as if the United States had outlawed the NAACP and Black churches after the Civil Rights Act passed. Black Lives Matter would not be allowed to exist in Cuba today.

My research very clearly challenged the idea that all or most Cubans have direct access to education or the medical establishment. It’s just not the case.

Since then, we’ve seen the regime limit opportunities for Afro Cubans. In my research, I spoke to Afro Cuban families who lost their small businesses during the revolution and were never able to recover financially. I spoke to people whose access to education — something the regime brags about internationally — was cut off because they wouldn’t align with the communist party – the party that rules all Cuban civil society, all institutions, including systems of education.

Cuba’s president calls the predominantly Afro Cuban neighborhoods with high rates of poverty where these protests started marginalized. How could there be marginalized neighborhoods in a supposed post-racial egalitarian society?

Q: Your family is Cuban, but you also spent time there as a researcher in 2018 and 2019. What did you learn and how did it change your thinking about the regime?

First, every person I interviewed was afraid to speak. They knew that telling their life story came at great personal risk. If I wasn’t Cuban and people weren’t able to make introductions on my behalf, I don’t know how many interviews I would have been able to conduct. That helps illustrate how little Americans and others around the world truly know about the lives of everyday Cubans, especially Afro Cubans.

In interview after interview, I heard stories of repression and cruelty, from the founding of the Cuban state to today. Women who had to give birth without access to pain medication. Unclean hospitals. People who had been jailed for long periods because of suspicions about their political beliefs.

I also saw how the regime used food access as a tool of repression. At one point, the taxi drivers who drive working people — not tourists — went on strike over a dispute after the government refused to allow them to raise fares. The government ended the strike by pulling milk from stores across Havana.

Every time I went back, something basic was missing from the shelves. It seemed like you could never get bread and butter at the same time. I saw how the government makes people devote so much energy to getting food or finding food that they don’t have time to complain about the taxis, or the lack of internet, or the crumbling hospitals.

My research very clearly challenged the idea that all or most Cubans have direct access to education or the medical establishment. It’s just not the case. If you don’t have access to American dollars, you often don’t have access to vital services.

Q: The United States has imposed a long-standing trade embargo on Cuba. If that were lifted, would Cuban people be better off?

No. It’s very hard for me to say that as someone who still has family living in Cuba. But lifting the embargo would not magically improve their lives. Here’s why: To understand the US embargo, it’s important to know about the internal blockade the Cuban government imposes on its own people.

For example, the US embargo does still allow for food and medicine sales to Cuba. The Cuban government buys $100 million worth of chicken from producers in the United States annually. It sells that chicken to the Cuban people at a marked-up rate, sometimes at double the cost, and uses the profit to fund the regime.

Other countries trade freely with Cuba, but because the government is heavily involved, the internal blockade keeps those profits from reaching the Cuban people. Poor neighborhoods — Afro Cuban neighborhoods — get the worst of the shortages. The police and military get money for new cars and surveillance technology.

Q: Since the start of the start of these protests, some Americans have talked about the role of “white Cubans” play in influencing US policy toward Cuba. Is that a fair characterization?

 Like I said earlier, it is important to recognize that the Cuban dictatorship created a racist and classist society that keeps Afro Cubans poor and without power. But ideas of race and class among Cuban people are different than they are in the United States, and Americans are distorting the picture when they project their racial dynamics onto Cuba.

There is an assumption in the United States, often wrong, that lighter skinned Cubans and Cuban Americans are the descendants of rich families who were the losers of Castro’s revolution. These ideas about “white Cubans” both ignore history and buy into the regime’s propaganda. Instead, we should remember that Cubans ended Spanish colonialism by working as a multiracial coalition, and Cubans and Cuban Americans of all races and classes have been working against the regime for decades.

Right now, the whole Cuban community — on the island, in the United States, and around the Caribbean — is asking the international community pay attention and help create needed change. We might have political differences, especially about things like US domestic policy, but we share a common goal of a free, equitable Cuba.

https://www.gse.upenn.edu/news/what-you-need-know-about-protests-cuba

By Jorge Felipe-Gonzalez

About the author: Jorge Felipe-Gonzalez is an assistant history professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Every Thursday at 5 p.m., my grandmother would go into her bedroom in Havana, lock the door, and tune her Soviet-made radio to Radio Martí, a Miami-based station run by Cuban exiles who had fled Fidel Castro’s revolution. She always set the volume barely above a whisper. “Walls have ears,” she would say. Despite being an ordinary and compliant citizen, she, like the rest of my family, avoided controversial political topics on the phone, afraid that the lines were tapped. We acted as if the state were always staring directly at us. Its presence was everywhere.

For my mother’s generation, the following things, among others, were forbidden: listening to the Beatles, being openly gay, displaying religious beliefs, and reading certain books. As a kid in the late 1980s, I wore the same clothes as everybody else did, received an identical education, and even used the same and only toothpaste brand, Perla. Individual autonomy and freedom of choice did not exist.

Modeled after and subsidized by the Soviet Union, the Cuban government exercised unfettered control over every aspect of its citizens’ lives. The agents of state security, trained by the East German Stasi and the Russian KGB, made sure that not a leaf moved without their knowledge. Then, a couple of weeks ago, the unthinkable happened: People marched in the streets, demanding freedom. Where was Big Brother and his omniscient eye?

The recent nationwide protests in Cuba are symptomatic of a much deeper underlying condition than decades of scarcity and a systemic lack of civil liberties. The Cuban political system is cracking. The structures upholding its authority have been slowly but steadily weakening for the past three decades, and the people living beneath them have not only taken notice but are reacting in ever more public ways.

As a child growing up in Castro’s long shadow, I saw the scaffolding of the state begin to crumble. I remember being 9 years old in 1992 and seeing empty store shelves where Soviet apples used to be, and the tragic day when my little red fire truck, made in East Germany, broke. It was the last toy I had. The Soviet Union had collapsed, and Cuba, a parasitic economy that had little to offer the global market and was further suffering under the U.S. embargo, lost 85 percent of its trade, triggering a severe humanitarian crisis. Soon we were without electricity. To cope with the intense Caribbean heat, we took our mattresses to the roof. The mosquitoes made sure that sleeping under the tropical stars was not the romantic experience many may imagine.

“The good old times are coming back,” my grandfather said one day in 1994, placing his newspaper on the table. Castro had just allowed Cubans to establish small businesses, reopened tourism to Westerners (the embargo kept Americans away, except for Cuban Americans, who were allowed to visit family), and legalized the domestic use of U.S. dollars. For ordinary Cubans, the liberalization and later subsidies from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela slightly alleviated the crisis. But for the state, the ideological and political consequences would be devastating.

As teenagers in the late ’90s, my friends and I gawked at the sight of Western tourists and Cuban Americans walking around Havana with their shiny sneakers, glimpses of a more prosperous world beyond the sea. It became harder for Castro to keep us convinced that socialism was the next logical step in human progress. As time went on, any remaining loyalty to the state was eroded by the seemingly endless stream of new stores packed with colorful products we couldn’t afford and hotels we couldn’t stay in, or even enter.

Back in the mid-’80s, my father worked as the accountant for a factory that made the Cuban version of Coca-Cola. Like every Cuban, he was a state employee, and as such, he had to demonstrate political obedience. For example, he was required to attend monthly meetings and do “voluntary” work for the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a neighborhood-based organization that Castro had established in 1960 for “collective revolutionary surveillance.” He also had to join the state-controlled Workers’ Central Union of Cuba. In that Cuba, social existence was impossible outside the domain of the state.

Today, nearly one-third of the workforce is employed by the private sector. My best friend, Yunior, now rents a room in his house to tourists and pays a housekeeper to clean it. Like all workers in the private sector, neither of them is required to join the state-controlled union, participate in state-led demonstrations, or provide government paperwork to keep their jobs. They are independent of the state and earn 10 times as much as a doctor. Yes, the cleaning lady too.

The early-’90s crisis triggered an exodus to Florida of nearly 35,000 people on small boats and makeshift rafts. I vividly remember my neighbors assembling rustic boats made of tables and tires tied with ropes and crowning the bow with a statuette of Our Lady of Charity, the patron of Cuba and protector of sailors. Many people did not make it. Those who reached American soil were able to stay because of the 1995 “wet foot, dry foot” policy and get permanent-resident status through the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Years later, in 2019, that Cold War law would open my own path to American citizenship.

For many Cubans desperate to leave the island and for Cuban Americans wishing to reunite with their relatives, these U.S. policies were joyfully received. They were convenient for Castro as well. Since taking power in 1959, the Communist leader had used migration as a political pressure-relief valve to rid the island of dissatisfied citizens, most famously in 1980, when 125,000 people left the country—many under government coercion—during the Mariel Boatlift.

Now that relief valve is closed. Days before leaving office, President Barack Obama ended the wet foot, dry foot policy. His successor reduced the U.S. embassy’s personnel and stopped issuing visas on the island. Cubans are now trapped, and instead of looking to the horizon, they are looking upward to those in power.

This month’s demonstrations were not the island’s first. Three decades ago, on August 5, 1994, a smaller group of Cubans protested in Havana, chanting “freedom” and “Down with Castro.” They were beaten and arrested—not that you would have known it from watching the coverage on state media. What we were shown back then was an edited version without the repression, highlighted by images of Castro’s arrival at the protest site, riding in a jeep and welcomed with chants of “Viva Fidel!”

That disinformation strategy is impossible today. In 2018, the Cuban government reluctantly authorized internet usage via cellphones. Three years later, the internet turned a local protest into a nationwide rebellion. Cellphone videos documented the ongoing repression and contradicted state-media manipulations. The information monopoly the government once enjoyed is gone.

After a half century in power, Fidel Castro, the embodiment of the state, got sick, stepped down as president, and died in 2016. Neither his brother Raúl nor his handpicked successor as president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has come close to capturing the charisma, or commanding the respect, of the elder Castro. (“Díaz-Canel singao,” a slur better left untranslated, was chanted during the recent protests.)

Today there is a new generation of Cubans who grew up without the omnipresent figure of Fidel and the prying eyes of the state. To these young people, the old-fashioned socialist rhetoric that still plays on state TV is unconvincing, alien, and frankly ridiculous. Unlike my generation, they did not watch Soviet cartoons but Disney and Pixar. They know the government has little to offer them. They want a political change and they want it now. Instead of fearing walls with ears or tapped phone lines as my late grandmother did, they want to be heard. To ensure that they are, they have taken to social media to amplify their voices.

To be sure, Cuba remains under Communist control, and the government can unleash its might at will, as ongoing violent repressions and summary trials show. But its totalitarian structures are irreversibly damaged. People sense the government’s weakness and will continue testing its rusty chains. Those in power should acknowledge that their time is overdue—and that they can’t solve the country’s never-ending economic and political crises with old formulas. They must open venues for liberalization before it is too late and the worst happens: a total collapse of the state, and a civil war.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/i-watched-cuba-crumble-inside/619616/

Communist officials say the instigators of recent protests are criminals from the island’s underworld

By Jose de Cordoba and Santiago Pérez

Aug. 12, 2021 7:00 am ET

Police detained a demonstrator in Havana on July 11, when hundreds of people went out to the streets in several cities in Cuba to protest food shortages and high prices. Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press

Recent antigovernment protests in Cuba were the biggest in more than six decades. But they were historic, too, because many of the protesters were Black Cubans, a group that is increasingly breaking with the country’s Communist government.

The protests, which were repressed by police and organized government supporters, included Cubans of all ages, races and classes. But Afro-Cubans were at the forefront of many of the nationwide demonstrations, according to protesters and Cuba experts. The most intense protests and violence, including the lone death acknowledged by the government, happened in impoverished and largely Black neighborhoods, Cuba’s government and dissidents say. And many, if not a majority, of those arrested in a subsequent crackdown are Black, their relatives and activists say.

“This is a fundamental break between Afro descendants and the government,” says Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a Black Cuban civil-rights activist. “The government saw delinquents where there are only angry people fed up with the lack of social mobility, lack of freedom and structural racism.”

The growing defiance of Afro-Cubans, who make up more than a third of the island’s 11 million people, is a turnaround for a group often seen as natural allies of a government that 62 years ago overthrew a dictatorship and prohibited racial discrimination. But in the past three decades, many Black Cubans, like many other Cubans, have become disillusioned with government policies that have widened racial and income disparities. The pandemic and a steep economic contraction have added to the pain.

While the government has long painted a picture of racial equality in Cuba, experts say Blacks in Cuba still have a harder time getting ahead than whites. Blacks are the poorest Cubans, have fewer people sending them dollar remittances from abroad and struggle to get jobs in either top government posts or the key tourism industry, according to surveys, Cuba analysts and interviews with Cuban Black activists.

The exact number and racial profile of people arrested and injured during the protests is difficult to determine because the government won’t disclose that information. Cuban civil-rights groups estimate that nearly 800 people have been detained since a wave of protests on July 11.

About 100 people face more serious criminal charges such as destroying government property or attacking police officers. A majority of those facing criminal charges are Cubans of African descent, according to a person familiar with the trials.

The government has long painted a picture of racial equality in CubaPhoto: yamil lage/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In recent weeks, scores of young Afro Cuban protesters have undergone summary trials behind closed doors, nearly all for minor offenses like inciting public disorder. Judges are handing out prison sentences of nine to 12 months in prison or house arrest, according to relatives of those arrested and activists.

Senior Cuban officials deny that the government’s response to the protests has been racially tinged. “Everyone knows that if there’s a government that has done a lot for racial equality and eliminating the vestiges of racism, it’s Cuba,” said a government spokesman. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the protests aren’t the result of social turmoil but due to U.S. interference and the work of “criminals from down-and-out barrios.” These are code words frequently used by the government to refer to Black Cubans from poor neighborhoods, Black activists say.

A senior Cuban official in charge of criminal investigations at the Interior Ministry, Col. Moraima Bravet, said many of the protesters came from “lowlife families” and she singled out a protest in a largely Black neighborhood known as La Güinera.

“Instigators can be, as we saw in the case of La Güinera, people on motorcycles chanting ‘Patria y Vida.’ That is stirring up disorder,” she said on television, referring to the title “Fatherland and Life,” a confrontational rap song composed by Black Cuban artists that became the anthem of the protests.

Some residents of La Güinera tell a different story. “They demonstrated peacefully, demanding freedom,” said Caridad Besú, a longtime La Güinera resident. Odet, her daughter, a hairstylist, and her son-in-law were detained in mid-July and face public-disorder charges after Odet posted a video of peaceful protests on Facebook.

Across Cuba, there are stories of young Black people who protested and were thrown into jail, according to Anamely Ramos, a member of the San Isidro Movement, a group of mostly Black Cuban artists and dissidents at the forefront of recent demonstrations. She has compiled a list using posts on Facebook and through interviews with relatives of the detained.

They include people like Virgilio Mantilla, arrested following the July 11 protests for shouting “down with the dictatorship” from his house. He has since started a hunger strike after receiving a nine-month prison sentence for contempt last month, Ms. Ramos said.

A 2019 survey of 1,049 Cubans carried out by the German Institute of Global and Area Studies, a Hamburg-based nonprofit, found that 95% of Black Cubans were on the bottom rung of Cuban society in terms of income.

Because a majority of the Cubans who fled after the 1959 revolution were white, nearly 8 in 10 Cubans who get dollar remittances from relatives abroad are also white, the survey found. Because that cash allowed many in Cuba to open a small business, white Cubans own 98% of the restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts that typically cater to the tourism trade, the survey found.

Access to dollars or euros makes a big difference in Cuba’s two-tier economy. Retail stores that sell products in the local currency, usually at subsidized prices, have little to sell. But another set of stores where the shelves are well stocked only accept foreign currency with prices out of reach for most Black Cubans.

Black Cubans have also been largely cut out of jobs in hotels and restaurants by operators who have favored lighter-skinned Cubans, says Alejandro de la Fuente, a Harvard University expert on Cuba who has done field research on Black participation in the tourist industry.

“Blacks live close to the tourist-dollar economy, but are excluded from it,” he said. “They are the losers of the dollar economy installed in Cuba in the 1990s.”

Black Cubans are also largely absent from senior government positions, says Javier Corrales, a Cuba expert at Amherst College. Black Cubans are well represented in the National Assembly, a largely powerless legislative body that meets to rubber stamp legislation twice a year, Mr. Corrales says. But it’s the president, his cabinet and close advisers who wield real power. The vast majority of these are and have always been white, he says.

A review of the website of the current 34-person Council of Ministers, the government’s top executive body, shows it has only three, or perhaps, four Black members. Cuba also has a Black vice president.

Some Black Cubans live on the fringe, slipping in and out of Havana’s underworld of black-market deals, prostitution, petty crime and police abuse. Maykel Castillo, one of the authors of “Patria y Vida,” spent 16 years in prison before music changed his life, said Eliexer Márquez, his hip-hop partner and childhood friend.

Mr. Castillo was detained by the police in May, and is now in a high-security prison awaiting trial on charges of resisting arrest and disobedience, which could keep him locked up for years. Friends say he remains defiant.

At a previous protest in November, Osvaldo Navarro, a Black activist, said Cuban police officers hurled a commonly used racist expression at him.

“You ungrateful Black, the revolution gave you everything,” the policeman shouted at him, says Mr. Navarro. He retorted: “The revolution gave me nothing.” Many other Black Cuban activists said they had suffered similar verbal abuse.

In mid-July, the U.S. group Black Lives Matter praised Cuba’s government, and didn’t mention repression after the protests. Cuba “has historically demonstrated solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent,” the organization said.

That got a stinging response from Black Cuban rapper Roberto Álvarez, who goes by the name Robe L. Ninho.

“Find out if Black rights are being respected, if there is racism here or not,” Mr. Álvarez retorted in a video.

Black Lives Matter didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com and Santiago Pérez at santiago.perez@wsj.com

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cubas-black-communities-bear-the-brunt-of-regimes-crackdown-11628766002

Para la Cuba del futuro, institucionalismo y educación cívica

‘Necesitamos pensar en el futuro y presentar y debatir opciones viables para la Cuba libre y democrática del futuro.’

DANIEL I. PEDREIRA

Miami 27 Jul 2021 – 18:18 CEST

Protestas en los alrededores del Capitolio, La Habana, 11 de julio de 2021. DIARIO DE CUBA

Las protestas recientes en numerosas ciudades cubanaspuntualizan un momento de inflexión en la historia cubana. Ciudadanos cubanos de a pie tomaron las calles reclamando su libertad, y numerosas manifestaciones alrededor del mundo han hecho eco del clamor popular cubano. Los eventos en Cuba, aun en desarrollo, han reanimado la esperanza de que la libertad, como cantó Willy Chirinohace tres décadas, “ya viene llegando”. Las consignas de “Patria y Vida” y #SOSCuba representan un cambio paradigmático en la lucha por la libertad de Cuba que se siente más cercana que en cualquier otro momento durante 62 años de dictadura castrocomunista.

Naturalmente, los esfuerzos de todos deben enfocarse en apoyar las protestas y denunciar la represión del régimen contra los manifestantes. Sin embargo, la actual discusión sobre los sucesos en Cuba carece de análisis sobre lo que puede (o debe) venir después de la posible caída de la dictadura. Aunque este tema es extenso y digno de un estudio más profundo, algunos puntos claves deben discutirse en estos momentos.

Las consideraciones en torno al posible liderazgo de una Cuba democrática son de gran importancia. Aunque muchos señalan la “falta de liderazgo” entre la disidencia y oposición cubana, los comentarios al respecto generalmente se refieren a la falta de un líder principal y reflejan la cultura política cubana. La fuerte tradición de caudillismo en Cuba, como en el resto de América Latina, hace que la consolidación del poder en la figura de un líder sea la norma en la política. El caudillismo también suele extenderse al sector no gubernamental, y será difícil desmantelar una larga tradición presidencialista que se remonta a la República.

Otro reto para los cubanos en su lucha por el futuro será evitar la proliferación de partidos políticos con bases personalistas. Es peligroso irse de un extremo al otro. La creación de un sinfín de partidos políticos sin bases claras y dominados por caudillos políticos tras seis décadas de unipartidismo también puede dañar al sistema democrático. La fragmentación política que suelen crear estas proliferaciones de partidos lleva a la inestabilidad del sistema político.

Aunque a muchos les parezca improbable, la nostalgia por el castrocomunismo, o por ciertos aspectos de este, puede resurgir en un futuro. Esta nostalgia por un estatus quo ante dictatorial se manifiesta cuando la situación bajo el sistema democrático se dificulta debido a factores políticos, económicos o sociales. Vemos este tipo de nostalgia por la dictadura hoy en Rusia, 30 años después de la caída de la Unión Soviética, permitiendo al presidente Vladimir Putin revivir ciertos aspectos de la antigua potencia comunista, como la censura y la perpetuación en el poder. Este fenómeno nostálgico ya ha tenido su primera manifestación en el exilio cubano, con la venta de “carne rusa” en algunos supermercados de Miami.

Tomando en cuenta algunos de los posibles peligros que puede encarar una Cuba posdictatorial, existen pasos necesarios para que la Cuba del futuro arranque exitosamente. Primordial entre estos está la creación de instituciones democráticas con bases sólidas. Estas instituciones no solo incluyen los poderes del Estado (Ejecutivo, Legislativo y Judicial), sino también se extienden a los partidos políticos. Para que estos partidos puedan consolidarse, necesitan tener una plataforma política definida, la que debe guiar a sus miembros.

Las instituciones de la sociedad civil, plenamente independientes del Gobierno, también tienen que florecer a lo largo del país. Estas instituciones, muchas veces integradas por voluntarios, jugarán un papel clave en ofrecer servicios a las comunidades locales, provinciales y nacionales en la Isla cuando el Gobierno no logre o pueda hacerlo. Ayudando a la implementación de este factor está la proliferación de organizaciones no gubernamentales (ONG) y sin fines de lucros en el exilio. Los Clubes de Leones, Rotarios, Kiwanis, el PEN Club, los Colegios Nacionales de Abogados y Periodistas, y un sinfín de organizaciones se pueden unir a las que existen en Cuba (denominadas ilícitas por la dictadura) para crear esta vibrante sociedad civil.

Uno de los papeles más importantes de esta nueva sociedad civil será promover la educación política, económica y cívica. En este ámbito ya existen instituciones (dentro y fuera de Cuba) dedicadas a estudiar detalladamente los graves problemas que acechan al pueblo de Cuba, y sus trabajos al respecto serán de gran utilidad en un futuro que se va acercando rápidamente.

How the Biden administration can help true patriots keep the flame of resistance alive.What sparked the massive, angry protests that spread across Cuba like
wildfire this week? Despite a certain narrative out of Washington, it wasn’t just the lack of food and medicine, or even the lack of vaccines against COVID-19. What primarily shook the island, and caught its despotic rulers off guard, was Cubans’ hunger for freedom.

After 62 years of brutal communist tyranny, large swaths of the Cuban population decided not to take it any longer. Many were inspired by the young rappers of the San Isidro Movement and their acclaimed song, “Fatherland and Life.” As they courageously took a stand against oppression, armed only with flashing cell phones, observers around the world were deeply moved by their stirring cries: Down with Communism! Liberty! Enough!

Cuba’s titular head of state, Miguel Díaz-Canel, who pledged to perpetuate the Castro regime, predictably accused the U.S. of inciting the unrest. He ordered his thugs to recapture the streets and “battle” the so-called mercenaries. Along with cruel repression, the regime imposed an Internet and social-media blackout.

The big question now is what should the U.S. do, and not do? If the Biden administration is serious about human rights and democracy in Cuba, it should not unconditionally lift existing U.S. sanctions or reverse Cuba’s designation as a terrorist state — or grant unilateral concessions to the regime, such as unlimited trips and remittances to the island. As occurred under President Obama, this would mainly benefit the Cuban rulers and their allies, demoralize the pro-democracy dissidents, and infuriate Cuban-Americans.

Long-deprived Cubans would welcome humanitarian aid, if it is handled by the Red Cross or other reputable, independent institutions. But that would not address the fundamental goal of the protests: to end the totalitarian stranglehold that has subjected the Cubans to an unbearable serfdom. In other words, regime change.

Cuba today has become the epicenter of the struggle for freedom in Latin America. Given the island’s geographic location and collusion with hostile powers, the outcome of Cuba’s crusade is of paramount importance, not only to the Cubans, but to the U.S. and the region. Russia this week warned against “outside interference” that would fuel the protests and undermine the regime, an implied threat to the U.S. that flies in the face of the Monroe Doctrine. China, so far, has remained quiet, but it continues to back the Cuban regime with investments and credits, and reportedly uses the electronic intelligence installations in Bejucal, near Havana. Those facilities are potentially capable of tracking and disrupting U.S. satellites serving the eastern coast.

A comprehensive U.S. strategy is needed to foster a peaceful democratic transition in Cuba — without interference by Russia, China, rogue states, or narco-terrorist organizations.

Among other things, that strategy should:

• Encourage Cuba’s pro-democracy dissident leaders to join forces and seek recognition under a broad unifying umbrella.
• Provide resources and tools to intensify civic resistance and overcome government censorship and blackouts. A generation ago, the U.S. and others did this successfully in support of Poland’s Solidarity Movement. Today, it would require satellite technology and funds to facilitate free Internet access for all Cubans.
• Maintain open lines of communication with reformists within the Cuban government and armed forces, who may be swayed to support a democratic transition.
• Apply the OAS Democratic Charter and the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance to penalize the regime’s bloody repression and crimes against humanity, and counter — with a collective show of force, if necessary — any attempt by Russia, China, or others to quash the freedom crusade in Cuba.

As the world is witnessing, the Cuban people are not resigned to their current fate. They are, it is clear, prepared to pay the price of freedom.

Sadly, while their brave protests these last few days may not be the end of their ordeal, they could well be the beginning of the end.

Lovers of freedom and democracy everywhere should support Cuba’s patriots and help them to keep the flame of resistance alive, so that one day we can all salute a new beginning for the island nation with a resounding and heartfelt: Viva Cuba Libre!

NÉSTOR T. CARBONELL is the author of the book, Why Cuba Matters: New Threats in America’s Backyard. He was born in Cuba and is a lifelong opponent of the Communist regime.

How the Biden Administration Can Help Cuba’s Hunger for Freedom | National Review

Sin embargo, nuestros padres patrios estuvieron más retribuidos por la nación, cuando sus descendientes de la Cuba oprimida rompieron las cadenas del terror, el miedo y la escasez con gritos de libertad y en estos trascendentales hechos históricos hicieron tambalear a la tiranía, que no podrá apagar el espíritu libertario de la nación y se alcanzarán los objetivos de paz y bienestar con la creación de la República de Cuba.

Libertad era el sentir de todos los cubanos en rebelión en la isla y con ella se pondría fin a la grave crisis humanitaria resultado de un régimen fracasado y la mala administración de su directiva, quienes usurparon y se robaron el país, se enriquecieron con el sudor del pueblo, mientras lo mantenían sujeto a la miseria material e intelectual.

El régimen castrista es una dictadura totalitaria, está muy lejos de ser un Gobierno y mucho menos una República, pues no es más que un estado delictivo donde sus mandantes usurparon el país y lo convirtieron en un narco-Estado. A esa mafia en el poder del país, con todos sus abundantes recursos para reprimir, se enfrenta con dignidad el pueblo cubano, empobrecido en lo material pero rico en lo espiritual e intelectual.

La crisis humanitaria continúa agudizándose en país y el Partido Comunista de Cuba y Miquel Díaz-Canel no tienen solución concreta a corto y mediano plazos para su control y su fin. Es hora de la renuncia de la gobernanza y su régimen y dar paso a un Gobierno de Transición para evitar más daño a la nación y al país.

El designado Díaz-Canel dio órdenes de usar la violencia extrema a sus secuaces del Partido Comunista y las Brigadas de Respuesta Rápida. Esa brutalidad política policial conllevó al linchamiento de varios ciudadanos en las protestas pacíficas; por lo que Díaz-Canel mancha sus manos de sangre de personas inocentes y pacíficas asemejándose a su régimen tiránico en los crímenes de lesa humanidad.
Estos crímenes de lesa humanidad deben ser condenados severamente, en alta voz y claramente por los gobiernos democráticos, las personas de buena voluntad y la comunidad internacional. El apoyo directo al pueblo cubano en su búsqueda de libertad y la solución desintegradora de la tiranía totalitaria comunista, una reminiscencia arcaica del despotismo y la crueldad de regímenes como los del apartheid sudafricano, el nazismo alemán y el estalinismo soviético.

El grito de libertad va cargado de todos los lamentos y llantos de este pueblo. Sufrimientos que llegan al oído del Dios Bíblico; quien por su inmensa misericordia y por nuestros reproches a las injusticias y a la tiranía nos concede nuestros deseos de vivir en libertad. Por eso, esforcémonos y luchemos en todas las ciudades y campos por nuestra libertad, por nuestros derechos humanos y, entonces, Cuba será libre.

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet
Presidente del Proyecto Emilia
Presidente de la Fundación Lawton
Premio Presidencial de la Libertad
La Habana, 25 de julio de 2021

Cuba es el único país que ha sido –y sigue siendo– vapuleado por tres desgracias nacionales a la vez, y las tres causadas por la sexagenaria dictadura:

1) la peor crisis sanitaria en su historia republicana;

2) la mayor escasez de alimentos, medicamentos, productos de aseo, combustible y de todo, de la mano de la quiebra financiera del Estado y la peor crisis socioeconómica en 30 años; y

3) la más obsesiva y masiva represión del pueblo por parte de la mafia enquistada en el poder que dejó muy atrás, lejísimo, a los regímenes de Gerardo Machado y Fulgencio Batista.

Aunque en la isla muy pocos lo saben, Cuba es en estos momentos el país más golpeado por el Covid-19 en todo el mundo, con un promedio de muertos que sextuplica la media global. El dato lo dio a conocer el doctor peruano Ciro Ugarte, director de Emergencias en Salud de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS), una entidad históricamente “amiga” del castrismo.  Ugarte reveló que en Cuba 20 de cada 100 pruebas de Covid-19 son positivas y que el promedio de muertes semanales por ese virus es de 52 por millón de habitantes, ¡SEIS VECES!  el promedio mundial.

TEMAS

miedo del régimen, protestas,11 de julio, Cuba, dictadura cubana, Miguel Díaz-Canel

En la cola nadie habla. Una mujer se mira la punta del zapato y un joven tamborilea con los dedos sobre la pared. Han pasado unos pocos días desde que los cubanos tomaron las calles en una protesta sin precedentes en los últimos 62 años y la indignación invade cada espacio. En la medida en que salen imágenes de la brutalidad policial, más testimonios de madres con sus hijos desaparecidos desde aquel domingo y los videos de las ciudades militarizadas, la irritación popular crece.

Cualquiera que, antes de esa fecha ya histórica, no conociera la Isla pudiera decir que las autoridades han logrado controlar la situación y que la calma reina otra vez en las calles cubanas. Pero, en realidad esta aparente tranquilidad es solo espanto, ira y dolor. En La Habana la tensión puede cortarse en el aire y por todas partes hay policías, militares y civiles  afines al Gobierno con improvisados garrotes en las manos. Dentro de las casas el malestar aumenta y las lágrimas corren. Pocos han vuelto a dormir una madrugada completa.

Miles de familias buscan a alguien en las estaciones de policía, otras tantas esperan que los uniformados toquen a su puerta para llevarse a algún pariente sospechoso de participar en las protestas. Algunos nuevos focos de inconformidad estallan en diferentes puntos de la geografía nacional y son ahogados a golpes y disparos por las tropas especiales, las temidas “avispas negras”. Numerosos periodistas independientes están detenidos, otros bajo encierro domiciliario y el acceso a internet ha sido censurado en varias ocasiones desde que estalló la primera demostración popular.

Miles de familias buscan a alguien en las estaciones de policía, otras tantas esperan que los uniformados toquen a su puerta para llevarse a algún pariente sospechoso de participar en las protestas

El pueblo que las autoridades mostraban como fiel en su totalidad al sistema, dócil y apacible ya no existe. En su lugar, hay un país lleno de gritos, algunos a voz en cuello y otros sordos que no se puede calcular con exactitud cuándo estallarán. La Cuba real se ha distanciado aún más de la nación que habita en la prensa oficial. Mientras la primera siente que ha recuperado la voz cívica, probado masivamente su fuerza en las calles y degustado decir en voz alta la palabra “libertad”; los titulares controlados por la prensa oficialista hablan de conspiraciones llegadas desde fuera, de grupúsculos que se manifestaron y de delincuentes que vandalizaron mercados. Ambos relatos son excluyentes y no podrán coexistir por mucho tiempo.

Miguel Díaz-Canel ha intentado matizar ante el micrófono las primeras palabras que pronunció aquel domingo cuando, prácticamente a cada hora, se sabía de un nuevo foco de protesta. “La orden de combate está dada” y “estamos dispuestos a todo”, amenazó entonces y el fantasma de la guerra civil sobrevoló el archipiélago. Ahora, sin retractarse de aquellas palabras, intercala conceptos como “armonía”, “paz” y “alegría” pero no logra convencer, porque a la par de esas frases almibaradas cientos de ómnibus por todo el país siguen desembarcando sus tropas de choque en plazas y barriadas.

Hasta ahora, la única flexibilización anunciada, en un intento de apaciguar las protestas, ha sido eliminar el límite para que los viajeros traigan a la Isla medicamentos, alimentos y productos de aseo. Pero la medida llega tarde, después de años de exigencias y ha sido vista como una migaja ante el fuerte reclamo social de que se desmantele el sistema, renuncien sus principales figuras y se comience cuanto antes una transición a la democracia. “La libertad no cabe en una maleta“, advierten muchos en las redes sociales, como tampoco a la rebeldía la detiene un escudo policial. “Teníamos tanta hambre que nos comimos el miedo”, se lee también por doquier. Pero ahora tenemos tanta ira que son ellos los que nos temen y se les nota.

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Este texto fue originalmente  publicado en la web de la  Deutsche Welle para América Latina.