Communisms is based on "take from the rich, give to poor" which never worked, and bankrupted everywhere it was tried. It only created very bloody dictatorships, immense sufferings.
Always in the history of human civilization, what humans needed has always been free market economy strictly based on basic human rights and freedoms.
Our Great Creator, who rules beyond the infinity, creates and loves all human beings equally and unconditionally regardless of race, color of skin, gender, language, culture, geographic region, etc. and wants us all to be free from greed, jealousy and
hatred against each other equally and unconditionally for a lasting peace and happiness.
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https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article252713788.html
‘Freedom!’ Thousands of Cubans take to the streets to demand the end of dictatorship
BY ADRIANA BRASILEIRO AND NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
JULY 11, 2021 02:34 PM, UPDATED 1 HOUR 15 MINUTES AGO
PICTURE: A man is arrested during a demonstration against the government of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana, on July 11, 2021. - Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist government, marching through a town
chanting “Down with the dictatorship” and “We want liberty.” (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP) (Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images) YAMIL LAGE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
In an unprecedented display of anger and frustration, thousands of people took to the streets Sunday in cities and towns across Cuba, including Havana, to call for the end of the decades-old dictatorship and demand food and vaccines, as shortages of
basic necessities have reached crisis proportions and COVID-19 cases have soared.
From the Malecón, Havana’s famous seawall near the old city, to small towns in Artemisa province and Palma Soriano, the second-largest city in Santiago de Cuba province, videos live-streamed on Facebook showed thousands of people walking and riding
bikes and motorcycles along streets while chanting “Freedom!” “Down with Communism!” and “Patria y Vida” -- Homeland and Life -- which has become a battle cry among activists after a viral music video turned the revolutionary slogan “
Homeland or Death” on its head.
“We are not afraid!” chanted Samantha Regalado while she recorded hundreds of people walking along a narrow street in Palma Soriano.
People in several Cuban cities marched on Sunday to ask for more freedoms. YAMIL LAGE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
During the day, protests erupted in several cities, including the island’s biggest -- Havana, Santiago, Santa Clara, Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Holguín -- but also in smaller towns like Palma Soriano, Cárdenas, Colón, Guira de Melena, Artemisa and
others. Inventario, a website specializing in Cuban data, tracked at least 25 protests in different locations throughout the island.
Images circulating on social media of angry crowds overturning police cars are unseen in a country where the communist government has kept a tight grip on the population for more than six decades.
Last time Cubans took to the streets to protest against the communist government was in 1994 and Fidel Castro was alive. But the uprising, known as the Maleconazo, only took place in Havana and didn’t last long, as the former Cuban leader quickly
turned the demonstrations into a massive exodus after he opened Cuba’s maritime borders. Thousands of Cubans left the island in makeshift boats and rickety rafts, in what became known as the balsero crisis.
Video streamed on Facebook by Antonio Miguel Cobas Jalowayski around 1 p.m. in Palma Soriano showed hundreds of protesters calling for freedom and shouting, “Down with the dictatorship” and “Down with Díaz-Canel,” a reference to Cuban leader
Miguel Díaz-Canel. The protesters also demanded medicine, COVID vaccines and “the end of hunger.” A crowd is seen pushing a police car and shouting “the dictators just arrived,” in reference to the police. Later, one protester is heard saying,
This is a peaceful demonstration.”
READ NEXT: They’re fed up. These videos show protesters demanding change in Cuba
Facebook user Carlos Alberto Ceballos Brito published a video around the same time showing a crowd gathering in Alquizar, a town in Artemisa province near Havana, also protesting against the government and chanting “Down with Diaz-Canel” and “
Patria y Vida”. In several moments the crowd used strong language to refer to Díaz-Canel, whose popularity is sharply falling as life on the island deteriorates.
In an impromptu televised address later in the afternoon, Díaz-Canel blamed the protests on U.S. efforts to tighten the embargo, with the alleged intention to “provoke a social uprising” that would justify a military intervention.
Visibly upset and raising his voice, the Cuban leader warned that protesters would face a strong response and called “all revolutionaries” to confront them on the streets “with firmness and courage.”
PICTURE: Many families marched near the Capitol Building in Havana to demand improvements to their quality of life. ADALBERTO ROQUE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
“We are not going to hand over the sovereignty or the independence of the people,” he said. “There are many revolutionaries in this country who are willing to give our lives, we are willing to do anything, and we will be in the streets fighting.”
Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic contraction in over three decades, as chronic inefficiencies and paralyzing bureaucracy have gradually eroded the country’s production capacity, including the essential food and agriculture sectors. Trump-era
sanctions have reduced access to vital economic lifelines like remittances, and foreign investment has plunged. Painful currency reforms this year have sent inflation soaring, and long lines for food have again become commonplace.
Now Cuba is struggling to control transmission of the coronavirus and has been setting record highs almost daily in the past few weeks. Cuba decided to make its own COVID-19 vaccine and didn’t seek to buy shots from other countries. But plans to
immunize the population with a homegrown vaccine has been plagued by delays.
COVID-19 cases in Cuba soared to a record 6,422 on Friday, nearly twice the number registered just earlier in the week, while deaths reached 28 as the island struggles to contain the virus in high-transmission areas and in the capital Havana.
Last week calls for the government to accept humanitarian aid increased as Cubans began documenting on social media the collapse of the health system in the province of Matanzas, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the island.
The government responded by sending more doctors to the province and setting up a bank account to receive aid, but the account is in a Cuban bank under U.S. sanctions. Although Cuban officials said this week the country is open for donations,
historically, the government has refused or seized the humanitarian aid coming from Cuban exiles.
In a separate video posted on Facebook on Sunday, activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara called on Cubans to head to the Malecón to protest against the island’s authoritarian regime.
“I’m going to the street, I’m going to the Malecón, no matter the cost,” he said.
Otero Alcántara went on hunger strike earlier this year to draw international attention to increased repression of artists and activists, who have stepped up calls for more civil liberties. He was forcibly removed from his home and hospitalized.
PICTURE: AP photographer Ramon Espinosa is arrested by the police while covering a demonstration against Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana, on July 11, 2021. - Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist
government, marching through a town chanting “Down with the dictatorship” and “We want liberty.” (Photo by Adalberto ROQUE / AFP) (Photo by ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP via Getty Images) ADALBERTO ROQUE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Later in the afternoon, Cubans were sharing videos of the police response. A Facebook video posted by user AntenaCubana shows people in Palma Soriano throwing stones at the police while a person is heard saying the police had been beating the
demonstrators. Another video showed several trucks carrying special-forces police officers reportedly arriving in San Antonio de los Baños, where Cuban president Díaz-Canel showed up to speak to residents, a gesture that mimicked Castro’s response to
the Maleconazo in 1994.
PICTURE: Artist and political activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who went on hunger strike earlier this year to push for greater freedoms, calls on Cubans to gather at the Malecón boardwalk in Havana on Sunday to support democracy. BY COURTESY
In Havana, about 300 people close to the government gathered near the capitol building shouting slogans in favor of the late President Fidel Castro and Díaz-Canel. Some people from the group assaulted an Associated Press cameraman, disabling his camera,
while an AP photographer was injured by the police, according to the AP.
On Twitter, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez suggested the protests were orchestrated by the US.
“President @DiazCanelB is in San Antonio de los Baños with the revolutionary people that are mobilized against the imperialist campaign and its salaried agents,” he wrote. “We appreciate the international solidarity and support of Cubans living
abroad #EliminatetheBlockade.”
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Bruno Rodríguez P
@BrunoRguezP
Representante gubernamental de Cuba
Pdte @DiazCanelB está en San Antonio de los Baños junto al pueblo revolucionario movilizado frente a la campaña imperialista y sus agentes asalariados. Agradecemos la solidaridad internacional y el apoyo de los cubanos residentes en el exterior #
EliminaElBloqueo
12:37 PM · Jul 11, 2021
2.4K 1K Share this Tweet
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But as news of the protests around the country spread on social media -- despite reports of the government shutting down internet access -- Cubans in the capital also took to the Malecón to demand the end of the regime.
Videos posted around 3 p.m. on Facebook showed a crowd chanting “Patria y vida.” Cuban journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa reported that the police were detaining protesters gathered around 23 and L streets, at the heart of the city of Havana.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he will ask President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to urge members of the Cuban military to stand with the people of Cuba.
“The incompetent communist party of #Cuba cannot feed or protect the people from the virus,” he tweeted.
Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and a New Jersey Democrat, urged the U.S. to “stand in solidarity with the brave people of Cuba that are risking their lives today for change in their country and a future of Patria y
Vida,” according to a statement.
In Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez called an impromptu press conference to say this is the moment for an international intervention led by the United States to help the Cuban people achieve democracy and prevent “a blood bath” on the island.
“We are asking the federal government to do everything possible and not waste this moment,” he said.
PICTURE: People take part in a demonstration against the government of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana, on July 11, 2021. - Thousands of Cubans took part in rare protests Sunday against the communist government, marching through a town
chanting “Down with the dictatorship” and “We want liberty.” (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP) (Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images) YAMIL LAGE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Suarez also said the unprecedented protests in “more than 14 cities across Cuba” have the potential to trigger demands for change in authoritarian regimes in the entire hemisphere.
“The implications of this moment can mean freedom to so many in the hemisphere, from Nicaraguans to those who suffer under the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” he said.
In support of the protesters in Cuba, hundreds of vehicles snaked their way across the City of Miami Sunday.
Miami police shut down Southwest Eighth Street from 32nd Avenue to 37th Avenue as the crowds multiplied in front of Versailles Restaurant and the area of Little Havana and Coral Gables.
In a video posted by the Miami Police Department, police officers could be seen standing with demonstrators as they chanted “Libertad!”
“[The area] is being secured by @MiamiPD in support of a demonstration and to ensure the safety of all participants,”’ the department said in a tweet. “Please avoid the area and definitely as we continue monitoring.
Protesters held flags and posters that said “SOS Cuba.” Many stopped traffic to sing the notes of the Cuban national anthem.
“Freedom” and “Homeland and Life,” groups shouted in unison. Several people cried.
”It was time for people to go out into the streets. The misery and hunger in Cuba have to end, the repression and mistreatment of the people have to end, ”said Yoselin Castro, who was in the crowd at Versailles.”We have been living in misery and in
major need for many years. It was time to wake up, ”said Ronald Rodríguez, who also showed up outside the renown Cuban restaurant.
Miami Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and Republican state Sen. Ileana Garcia echoed his comments and asked the Biden administration to intervene by tightening the embargo against the regime, but by also sending humanitarian aid to Cuba.
Julie Chung, the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said Cubans are exercising “their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages.”
“We are deeply concerned by “calls to combat” in #Cuba,” she wrote on Twitter. “We call for calm and condemn any violence.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava also shared her views on Twitter, writing: “We stand united with the Cuban people on the island and across our community at this historic moment in the struggle for freedom, dignity, and basic human rights – may
their courageous actions bring about real change and move us closer to the dream of a free Cuba.”
Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International director for the Americas, called the spontaneous protests “incredible and powerful.”
“The fear is over!” she tweeted.
Despite Díaz-Canel warnings, the uprising continued during into the early evening.
Videos circulating on social media showed crowds of demonstrators walking through streets near the Malecón in Central Havana, around the Capitol building and in the town of Regla, across Havana bay.
A video broadcast on the YouTube channel of an influencer known as Paparazzi Cubano seems to show protesters in Camagüey throwing stones at a police car and several police officers, while sounds of what appear to be gunshots can be heard.
Other images surfacing late Sunday show military deployment in Holguin and the police beating demonstrators in Isla de la Juventud, the island just south of the mainland, as security forces responded to Díaz-Canel’s call to stop the uprising.
“Over our dead bodies,” Díaz-Canel said.
El Nuevo Herald reporter Carlos Martinez contributed to this report.
PICTURE: Hundreds of people marched in several locations in Cuba on Sunday to demand the end if the dictatorship as the island struggles with shortages of food and a spike in COVID-19 cases. YAMIL LAGE AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Profile Image of Adriana Brasileiro
ADRIANA BRASILEIRO
(305) 376-2576
Adriana Brasileiro covers environmental news at the Miami Herald. Previously she covered climate change, business, political and general news as a correspondent for the world’s top news organizations: Thomson Reuters, Dow Jones - The Wall Street
Journal and Bloomberg, based in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Santiago. ----------
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NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
305-376-2169
Nora Gámez Torres estudió periodismo y comunicación en La Habana y Londres. Tiene un doctorado en sociología y desde el 2014 cubre temas cubanos para el Nuevo Herald y el Miami Herald. También reporta sobre la política de Estados Unidos hacia Amé
rica Latina. Su trabajo ha sido reconocido con premios de Florida Society of News Editors y Society for Profesional Journalists.Nora Gámez Torres is the Cuba/U.S.-Latin American policy reporter for el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. She studied
journalism and media and communications in Havana and London. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from City, University of London. Her work has won awards by the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society for Professional Journalists.
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