Shortage Economy and Oppression: Nationwide Protests in Cuba

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The 28-year-old historian Laura Vegas also joined the protest. The security forces patrol in front of her house. “The government’s special task forces were dressed in civilian clothes. They marched through the streets shouting, ‘We are Fidel,'” she says. “I couldn’t stay home. I just got out with my slippers and walked all the way to Old Havana.” That was almost seven kilometers walk, as she reported on the phone.

“We are fed up with the repression. We are dying of hunger. We have nothing, we have no houses. But the government has money to build hotels and they are starving us,” Geovanis Gonzalez angrily told Reuters. Activists called for the anti-government protests on social networks: Videos are shared under the hashtag #SOSCuba.

Corona and sanctions

The socialist Caribbean island is suffering from a severe economic crisis, the consequences of the pandemic and the US embargo. The tourists stay away, the main source of foreign currency. Even under the new US President Joe Biden, the sanctions were not relaxed.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel reacted promptly to protests across the country. In a speech to the population broadcast nationwide on television and radio, he blamed the United States for the unrest: “We will not see any counterrevolutionary who has sold himself to the United States receive money from them, our country destabilized. We call on all revolutionaries, all communists – take to the streets, go where these provocations are taking place. Today and in the next few days. ”

Security forces vehicles patrolled the streets with machine guns. In San Antonio de los Baños, the president himself mingled with his supporters.

Crisis, lack and anger

Pictures shared on social networks show demonstrators being led away by plainclothes security forces. Cuban government supporters hold clubs in their hands. In the October 10th district, which is particularly marked by poverty and violence, angry demonstrators overturned a police car. The Spanish AP photographer Ramón Espinosa can be seen in a photo with injuries, his face is smeared with blood.

In recent months, artists, including those from the San Isidro movement, have caused a stir with protests and hunger strikes. The government repeatedly proceeded with arrests and house arrest against them. This time it is mainly people from the poorest neighborhoods who join the demonstrations, as a Cuban journalist reports on WhatsApp. Again and again the Internet is restricted, she reports.

Just a few months ago, President Miguel Díaz Canel also took over the chairmanship of the Communist Party. He is considered loyal and loyal to the line. But the pressure on him is growing: the crisis, the shortage, the anger at the repression are driving people onto the streets.