Thousands of Cubans have joined the biggest protests against the government for decades, Reuters reports

By Marc Frank and Sarah Marsh

HAVANA (Reuters) – Demonstrating “freedom” and calling for President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down, thousands of Cubans joined street protests from Havana to Santiago on Sunday in the largest anti-government demonstrations by the Communists on the island in decades.

The protests were the worst economic crisis in Cuba since the fall of the Soviet Union, its first ally, and a record rise in coronavirus infections. People were affected by a shortage of basic goods, restrictions on civil liberties, and the authorities handling the pandemic. .

Thousands of people gathered in downtown Havana and along the coast, shouting “Diaz-Canel down” marking the Cuban flag and shouting “Fidel” to drown pro-government groups.

Special-strength jeeps, machine guns were seen mounted in the rear throughout the capital city of Havana, and there was a large police presence even after the protesters went home.

“We are going through very difficult times,” said Miranda Lazara, a 53-year-old dance teacher who joined forces with thousands of protesters who marched through Havana. “We need a system change.”

Diaz-Canel, who is also the leader of the Communist Party, blamed the unrest on the old enemy of the U.S. Cold War, which in recent years has hardened the trade embargo on the island decades ago in a televised speech on Sunday evening.

Diaz-Canel said many protesters are honest but manipulated by U.S.-orchestrated social media campaigns and have done “mercenaries” on the ground, and warned that no more “provocations” will be tolerated, and called on supporters to confront those “provocations”.

Julie Chung, the U.S. Secretary of State’s Office for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said she was deeply concerned about “calls for a fight” in Cuba and that the Cuban people have a right to a peaceful meeting. “

During the Havana protests, Reuters witnesses saw security forces arrest two dozen protesters with the help of officials in alleged ordinary clothing. The police sprayed the pepper and struck some protesters, as well as a photographer who worked in Associated Press.

In an area of ​​Havana, protesters erupted in an empty police car, overturned and then threw stones. Elsewhere, they shouted “repressors” against the riots.

Some protesters said they took to the streets after seeing what was happening on social media, which has become an increasingly important factor since the introduction of the mobile internet two and a half years ago, even though the connections were wrong on Sunday.

INTERNATIONAL PROTESTS

Protests in the Caribbean’s national island of 11 million people, which are usually limited to public dissent, have escalated in recent years, albeit on that scale or at the same time in so many cities.

Michael Bustamante, an assistant professor of Latin American history at the International University of Florida, said the largest anti-government demonstrations took place in the summer of 1994.

“Only now were they not confined to the capital; it seems they didn’t start from there,” he said.

Sunday’s demonstrations began in the municipality of San Antonio de los Banos in the province of Artemisa, on the border with Havana. The video on social media showed hundreds of residents shouting anti-government slogans and demanding everything from coronavirus vaccines to the end of daily blackouts.

“I walked through the village trying to buy some food and there were a lot of people there, some with signs, protesting,” Claris Ramirez, a local neighbor, said on the phone. “The blackouts are protesting that there is no cure.”

President Diaz-Canel visited the town and then in his remarks said: “We call on all the revolutionaries in the country, all the communists, to take to the streets whenever there is any effort to create these provocations.”

The protests took place on Sunday, hundreds of kilometers (km) east of Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, where social media videos showed hundreds of people walking through the streets, once again confirmed by a local resident.

Cuba has been exacerbating the economic crisis for two years, with the government blaming US sanctions and the pandemic in particular, while its opponents cite incompetence and a one-party Soviet-style system.

A combination of punishment, local inefficiency, and a pandemic have shut down tourism and slowed other foreign revenue flows from one of their dependent countries to import most of its food, fuel, and agriculture and manufacturing.

The economy fell by 10.9% last year and by 2% until June 2021. As a result, generosity has led to Cubans being forced to queue for basic goods throughout the pandemic.

Cuba has launched a massive vaccination campaign, so far 1.7 million of its 11.2 million people have been vaccinated and many have received at least one shot twice in the three-shot process.

However, the arrival of the Delta variant has led to an increase in cases, with health authorities reporting 6,923 cases and 47 deaths on Sunday, twice a week earlier, and hospitals in the severely affected province are in dire straits.