Playwright Yunior García, 39, made a surprising decision. Leader of the Archipiélago movement, which organizes the call for a peaceful march against the Cuban regime scheduled for this Monday (15th), he will walk alone through the streets of Havana carrying white flowers the day before the events.
As the repression has taken more aggressive forms in recent days, with arrests and acts of intimidation —groups shouted insults at García during the night and threw dead birds on the walls of his house—, the artist wants to do something to encourage the population to participate. of the demonstrations.
The idea, explains the playwright, is “to represent those who will not be able to leave because they are imprisoned or dead” and show the dictatorship that the population is not afraid and will march the next day. The strategy also seeks to assess how much brutality the country’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, is reserving for dissidents.
García’s journey will start at 3 pm (5 pm in Brazil) and goes from the neighborhood of Vedado to the Malecón. “It will not be an act of heroism, but of responsibility,” he said, who urged protesters the next day to be inspired by the idea of walking peacefully, making it clear that it is about “expressing yourself freely, in a creative way. , without giving space for them to unleash violence on us”.
The events scheduled for this Monday seek to continue the spontaneous and unprecedented demonstrations that took place on July 11 and took thousands of people to the streets to protest against the power cuts, the persecution of regime dissidents and the lack of food and medicine . The scarcity of these products has been aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic, which has interrupted the entry of tourists —tourism is the country’s main industry— and remittances from Cubans abroad.
So far, the repression of the movement has already led to the arrest of 1,175 people, according to the Cubalex association, which monitors issues related to political arrests on the island. More than half of them remain behind bars and only about 60 trials have been held.
According to the NGO Human Rights Watch, in a report carried out through interviews with victims and their families, prisons are places for psychological torture, such as sleep deprivation and humiliation — dissidents were, for example, forced to strip off their clothes and walk for hours screaming “Hooray, Fidel”.
While admitting that “complex situations can lead to some excesses,” Díaz-Canel denied reports of torture and said no one is missing. “Our priority, in these cases, is to inform the family right away where the detainee is and how he is.”
While some of the detainees were released after weeks or months, others were given harsh sentences. Roberto Perez Fonseca, 38, accused of public disorder and instigating crimes, was sentenced to ten years in prison. Police said he threw, with an impulse to destroy, stones at a police car.
The July protests also ended with one dead, singer Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36.
The campaign to demobilize the acts also relied on other strategies: dismissals of participants in the July protest, or of their families, “scraches” outside the rebels’ house and threats to impute new crimes to those recently released from jail.
While the July demonstrations started suddenly, this time the protesters sought international support by asking the regime for permission to protest this Monday. It is, after all, a right guaranteed in the Constitution, and if the government did not allow it, it would show signs that the law is a dead letter.
That’s what happened. The dictatorship refused permission, on the grounds that, during the period, there will be military exercises aimed at promoting the reopening of the island and the arrival of tourists. The entry of foreigners will be allowed for the first time since the pandemic, from this second on.
The regime is trying to delegitimize the movement, saying it is a “subversive and US-financed march” and that Cuba “has the right to protect itself from foreign aggression.” To that end, Díaz-Canel has called on government supporters to take to the streets to curb the protests.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told the European Union, which said he was observing the movement through its representatives on the island, “there is pressure on foreign diplomats to take sides and participate in acts of destabilization.” “I ask you to respect the Vienna Convention.”
The July protests were the most intense since 1994, when the country was going through the Special Period and the economy collapsed after the end of financial support from the former Soviet Union. On the occasion, Fidel Castro made a speech in the streets of Havana to calm the population.
Cuba is struggling after the island’s GDP shrank by 11% in 2020, mainly due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic. The problems caused by the American embargo, which is behind much of the shortage, also worsened during the period. There are reports that in much of the island there are electricity blackouts that last up to six hours.
This Monday, there will also be demonstrations in Miami, by Cubans living in the USA. Although President Joe Biden announced new sanctions on Cuban officials after the July protests, the American leader did not issue new statements in support of the new march.
The interests of the US are, in large part, related to the electoral process, as 1.5 million Cuban-Americans voted for Donald Trump and supported the retreat from the approximation initiated under Barack Obama’s administration. Since taking office, Biden has not made any major changes in policy towards the island. The end of the embargo is an issue locked in Congress, and, without the support of the Republicans, it will not materialize.
For the political analyst and director of the Cuba documentation project at the US National Security Archive, Peter Kornbluh, the strategy towards Cuba has always been one of “exploitation, intervention and neglect”. “What is happening now is the product of years of abusive policies, exacerbated by the pandemic. Biden has been saying he is with the Cuban people, but deep down he has been maintaining the political sanctions of the Trump era without introducing any new elements,” he says. “Biden should insist on authorizing the entry of humanitarian aid and lifting restrictions on American travel to the island.”
On the other hand, the analyst says the Cuban regime’s accusation that the US is behind the protests “paralyzes Biden, because what he does will be seen as part of a conspiracy.”
“The right in Washington will portray any return to normality in the relationship with Cuba as a gift to the dictatorship, rather than support for the Cuban people, who are the ones who need it and would benefit from it.”
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