What prompted the protests and what’s going on now:Why is it happening?It’s an accumulation. It’s not just Covid-19. People have been believing in the revolution, following the government's mandate to sacrifice. But people are tired of the government’s abuse.
Cubans are doing eight hours in line just to get a piece of bread. And at the same time, the housing situation is worse. People said, “Enough.” …. They see people in power and their kids living the great life. A few months ago, the grandson of Fidel [Castro] did a video in a Mercedes Benz, very arrogantly showing off his life while the people are starving.
[The day the protests started], a friend messaged me and said, “You have to see this.” And then another friend called, saying: “Look at this.” That’s when I saw the scene in San Antonio de los Baños [a town about 20 miles southwest of Havana, where the islandwide protests began]. And that’s how the news spread: People calling each other in different provinces, telling each other what was happening.
Then, the government quickly cut out the internet. And hand in hand with the blackout, they started putting out fake news.
But I had already seen it: It was just surreal. It was very, very, very powerful to see people screaming, saying, “I have no fear.”
The truth is, I was fairly calm at first. But when I started to get internet access and saw all the videos coming in of the beatings, police hitting and shooting at people, that really hit hard. Because those are images you’d never imagine coming out of Cuba. It’s something you never expect to see from Cuba.
We have seen 10 policemen beating a young kid. We have seen special forces enter a neighborhood, shooting when everyone is unarmed.
Anti-government protesters march in Havana, Cuba, July 11, 2021. | AP Photo/Eliana Aponte
How the Cuban government is responding:The government has created a very sophisticated disinformation process. They start by saying the people who protested were revolutionaries who were confused. Later, they said [the protesters] were delinquents. Now, they say [the protesters] are people who want the U.S. government to invade Cuba.
And now, they’re desperate to find leaders [of the protests]. They want to blame someone who is useful to them, who they can say was paid by the CIA. They have gone house by house detaining [people]. They’re desperate to find a leader to blame for everything. They need to find an enemy. But this time it doesn't work. You can't say that the young 16-year-old in the protest was paid off by the CIA. He probably doesn't even know what the CIA is, come on.
There are 500 people that have been identified who are missing. Missing means that we don’t know in which prison they are, where they are detained.
There are mothers that don’t know where their children are. [Some have been able to find] out where they are — gone to the jails — and they won’t let them see their children. I heard from a friend that saw one of our friends being held in a jail. His nose was broken and his ribs were bruised. His mother went and they wouldn’t let her see him.
Also, the government has been looking at the videos online and locating where they were taken and going to these peoples homes to take them, harass them and pressure them to delete the videos. I was talking to an activist today that told me she’s spoken to several mothers who say government officials have told them that their sons aren’t going to be released until they delete [the] Facebook photos and videos they’ve uploaded. All this does is make everything worse.
Those in power don’t want to take responsibility. The government doesn’t want to take responsibility … for the consequences of the decisions it has made. So, they’re trying to find an external enemy.
Why this moment is different for the Cuban people:Right now, everyone — all 11 million of us — knows someone that went to the protests, or knows someone that knows someone that went to the protests. Everyone has had an opportunity to verify stories and not believe what’s being said on TV.
Every person that has been unjustly detained, every person that has felt for the first time that feeling of freedom, every person that has now felt what it’s like at a protest to yell what you want, what you feel, what you’ve held back — there’s no turning back.
Today, there are thousands of Cubans who can’t turn back. Yes, the government is going to threaten and do what they always do — scare, process them legally, make them feel like they can’t leave their home. But in my experience, this was a step forward that I don’t see turning back.
The protest is bigger than anything that Raul and Fidel Castro were able to organize. But this was completely spontaneous. There is no leader, no opposition group that is able to do something like this. You can see it. And they were peaceful. Of course, there were some people who broke into food stores and also turned some police cars.
Still, the message from the people was very clear: [Vandalizing] the food stores means they are hungry and there is no way they have access to food. And turning over the police cars is saying they have enough of the police abuse. The people have spoken very clearly.
What the people want is to live a prosperous life with rights.
I think the older generation got used to living in a cage and, maybe, if you take away the cage, they don’t know anything else. But the younger people are clear that there are two options: Either they fight for their rights or it’s another lost generation. And it’s been very moving to see these people.
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