Presentation made in Lehigh Valley on April 4, 2024: The Dangers of the Communist dictatorship in Cuba for Cubans in Cuba, and Americans in the United States

“A republic, if you can keep it.” -Benjamin Franklin's response to Elizabeth Willing Powel's question during the Constitutional convention: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"

Cuban presidents 1902 to 1952, and dictator Batista 1952-59.

The Lost Republic 

After 406 years of Spanish colonial rule, and four years of a United States occupation, Cubans got their Republic.

Between 1902 and 1952 Cuba had democratic, multiparty, competitive elections, and 17 different Cuban presidents were elected. It was messy and contentious, but it was a free society.

Cuba had several independent newspapers, radio, and television stations. There was a vibrant civil society, and culture that made its mark in the world.

Cuban diplomats in this democratic era fought for improved international human rights standards. They helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, lobbied for its passage in 1948 and the creation of the UN Human Rights Commission..  

Cuba had regular and periodic, free and fair elections until March 10, 1952 when Fulgencio Batista carried out a coup against the last democratically elected president of Cuba, Carlos Prio Socarras. 

 

The Big Lie 

The Castro brothers led a revolution, against Batista, promising a return to democracy, and the rule of law to Cuba, but used terrorism, including bombing civilian targets, taking innocent hostages, and engaging in air hijackings to take power.

 

Fidel Castro repeatedly told Cubans and Americans he was not a communist. Washington believed it, placing an arms embargo on Batista in March 1958, and diplomats pressured the Cuban dictator to leave power in December 1958.

 

Cuba had seventeen different rulers from 1902- 1959 versus two from 1959 - 2024, the brothers Fidel Castro (1959 - 2006) and Raul Castro (2006 - present).

 

Cuba has been under communist control since 1959. 

 

Millions exiled, hundreds of thousands jailed for their political beliefs, and tens of thousands killed for them. 

Castro lied, but communists view lies in the service of imposing communism as justified, and the truth as non-existent when it does not advance their agenda.

This is how Cubans lost their Republic. 

 The Havana Cartel and the Terrorist International

Terrorists, drug dealers, and regime's hostile to democracies gained an ally with the rise of the communist dictatorship in Cuba. 

The Castro dictatorship early on began, with the assistance of the KGB, assisting drug trafficking networks improve their ability to get more drugs into the United States to strike at American youth. The Havana Cartel documentary provides an overview of these practices to the present day.

Havana hosted terrorists from Africa, the Americas, and Asia at the Tri-Continental Conference on January 3rd through 16th in 1966.At the Conference, Fidel “Castro insisted that ‘bullets not ballots’ was the way to achieve power.”  He maintained “‘conditions exist[ed] for an armed revolutionary struggle.’

The Cuban dictatorship created the Organization for the Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAL) to coordinate terrorist groups worldwide. 

Afterwards Havana set up terrorist training camps in Cuba, Libya, and Algeria.

This wreaked havoc in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, but it did not exempt the United States.

Terrorists attack on U.S. soil killing Americans

The Puerto Rican terrorist group, Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, (FALN), from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, carried out more than 130 bombings, including in the United States. 

This group was started in the mid-1960s and received advanced training in Cuba. This information is taken from Zach Dorfman’s article “How Fidel Castro Supported Terrorism in America: ‘FALN was started in the mid-1960’s with a nucleus . . . that received advanced training in Cuba,’” published in The Wall Street Journal on June 8, 2017.

The FALN was responsible for the January 24, 1975 bombing of the historic Fraunces Tavern in New York City which killed Alejandro Berger (28), James Gezork (32), Frank Connor (33), Harold H. Sherburne (66) and wounded 63 others.

The same Puerto Rican terrorists were also responsible for a bombing spree in New York City in August 1977 that killed Charles Steinberg, (age 26), injured six, and forced the evacuation of 100,000 office workers; and the purposeful targeting and maiming of four police officers, among many other crimes. 

Joseph Connor, who's father Frank Connor was murdered in the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing, on March 20, 2024 made a statement in which he revealed that William "Guillermo" Morales, the FALN bombmaker, likely responsible for his dad's untimely death, fled U.S. custody becoming a fugitive, and is currently protected in Cuba by the Castro dictatorship that harbors him.

 

Other terrorists groups in the United States were also backed by the Communist dictatorship in Cuba. The New York Times reported on October 9, 1977 that “according to a top‐secret report of the Federal Bureau of Investigation” prepared in August 1976 and 400 pages long, “Cuban espionage agents operating in the United States and Canada supplied limited aid to the Weather Underground, a militant antiwar organization, in the late 1960's and early 1970's.” 

This is the same Weather Underground that carried out bombings of the U.S. Capitol, the State Department and the Pentagon.

Weaponizing migration

During President Obama's detente with General Raul Castro between 2014 and 2016 over 120,000 Cubans entered the United States in another migration surge comparable to Mariel. This was at a time of loosened sanctions, and under an Administration seeking normalized relations that provided an influx of international credits to the Castro regime. 

Secondly, tougher sanctions began to be put in place in 2017, but migration from Cuba during the Trump Administration returned to the lower pre-normalization levels of 2011. 

President Biden, during his 2020 campaign, promised a return to the Obama Cuba policy, and engagement by an Administration that, unlike his predecessor, "would act rationally."

Cuban migration began to rise during the early days of the Biden Administration and was drawing press scrutiny in April 2021. In mid-July 2021, Senator Marco Rubio warned of a Mariel-style crisis after the 11J protests in Cuba.

The disastrous Afghanistan pullout completed on August 30, 2021, sent a green light to Havana that they could further intensify the migration crisis and leverage additional concessions from the Biden Administration

The influx dramatically increased with Cubans traveling through Nicaragua in the last month of 2021.  In late November 2021, days after the United States condemned Cuban-ally Daniel Ortega for stealing the Nicaraguan presidential election on November 7, 2021, Managua lifted visa requirements on Cubans entering the country, creating a new and larger channel for an exodus. 

 Over 500,00 Cubans have entered the United States over the past two and a half years. 

Havana's tactic against Washington is explained in Professor Kelly M. Greenhill's 2002 paper, "Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis." (Please let us know if you need a copy.)

Havana's actions over the past 65 years demonstrate that the communist dictatorship in Cuba uses migration as a weapon and has the capability to open migration up or shut it down depending on foreign policy goals and the perceived risk that a hawkish administration may call their bluff or pursue some sort of action that would endanger the regime's future, or negatively impact the dictatorship internationally. 

History demonstrates that economic conditions and sanctions are not the determining factors in generating a migration crisis. It is the ability to obtain unilateral concessions from the United States without incurring a negative response for compromising U.S. national security, and taxing resources with hundreds of thousands of refugees.

The communist dictatorship murders and brutalizes Cubans to maintain absolute power. 

Cubans who seek a better life abroad on their own terms are targeted with violence by the dictatorship.

Mariel 1980 

The 1980 Mariel exodus was the first time that acts of repudiation were seen and documented, when Cubans who simply wanted to leave the country were brutally assaulted and forty Cubans were lynched.

Granma, the Communist Party’s daily paper, compiled a list of 100 insults to scream at those who wanted to leave. Meanwhile Fidel Castro prepared to associate these refugees with the worse of the worse. 

Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, Fidel Castro's former bodyguard, wrote a tell all book published in May 2014 of his time with the dictator titled, The Double Life of Fidel Castro: My 17 Years as Personal Bodyguard to El Lider Maximo that included a remarkable passage on the events of Mariel. 

Brian Latell, a former U.S. intelligence analyst and academic at the University of Miami, in a June 8, 2015 op-ed in The Miami Herald reviewing the above book touched on how Castro dealt with the Mariel boatlift during the Carter presidency:

For me, Sánchez’s most appalling indictment of Fidel concerns the chaotic exodus of more than 125,000 Cubans in 1980 from the port of Mariel. Most who fled were members of Cuban exile families living in the United States. They were allowed to board boats brought by relatives and to make the crossing to South Florida.

But many of the boats were forcibly loaded by Cuban authorities with criminals and mentally ill people plucked from institutions on the island. Few of us who have studied Fidel Castro have doubted that it was he who ordered those dangerous Cubans to be exported to the United States. He has persuaded few with his denials of any role in the incident. Yet Sánchez adds an appalling new twist to the saga. We learn that prison wards and mental institutions were not hurriedly emptied, as was previously believed. Sánchez reveals that Castro insisted on scouring lists of prisoners so that he could decide who would stay and who would be sent to the United States. He ordered interior minister Jose Abrahantes to bring him prisoner records.

Sánchez was seated in an anteroom just outside of Fidel’s office when the minister arrived. The bodyguard listened as Fidel discussed individual convicts with Abrahantes.

“I was present when they brought him the lists of prisoners,” Sánchez writes, “with the name, the reason for the sentence, and the date of release. Fidel read them, and with the stroke of a pen designated which ones could go and which ones would stay. ‘Yes’ was for murderers and dangerous criminals; ‘no’ was for those who had attacked the revolution.” Dissidents remained incarcerated.

A number of the criminal and psychopathic marielitos put on the boats to Florida went on to commit heinous crimes — including mass murder, rape, and arson.

The author and former bodyguard of Fidel Castro, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, passed away at age 66 on May 25, 2015.  Within a year of the Spanish edition of the book being published. 

Cuban migrant shot in the back by State Security in 2015

Yuriniesky Martínez Reina (age 28) was shot in the back and killed by state security chief Miguel Angel Río Seco Rodríguez in the Martí municipality of Matanzas, Cuba on April 9, 2015 for peacefully trying to leave Cuba. A group of young men were building a small boat near Menéndez beach to flee the island, when they were spotted trying to leave and were shot at by state security. Yuriniesky was left for two days in the lagoon, before being found by his brother. Unlike the families of many other victims who are intimidated into silence, Yuriniesky's family spoke out, identified his killer and demanded justice in a video published on April 27, 2015 by Libertad Press.

July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre

Three Cuban families totaling about 70 persons looking for a better life away from the regime boarded the Cuban tugboat "13 de Marzo" in the early morning hours of July 13, 1994. The captain of the tug was among those who wanted to depart. Despite their best efforts, an informant had already reported them to State Security. They left the port at 3:00am on July 13, 1994 and almost immediately were being pursued by other tugboats, also of the Maritime Services Enterprise of the Ministry of Transportation. Seven miles from the Cuban coast line at a location known as "La Poceta" the “13 de Marzo” tugboat was confronted by the tugboats. Amnesty International in their 1997 investigation reported that the vessels which attacked the “13 de Marzo” were Polargo 2”, “Polargo 3″ and “Polargo 5″ and identified as belonging to the Ministry of Transport. According to the IACHR report the attack did not appear improvised. Thirty seven were killed in the "13 de marzo" tugboat massacre.

Massacres of Cubans fleeing continue to the present day

 On October 28, 2022, off the coast of Bahía Honda, Artemisa Province, Ministry of the Interior (MININT) agents of the communist dictatorship in Cuba rammed and sank a boat of fleeing Cuban refugees. Seven Cubans were killed in this latest attack, and their names are: Aimara Meizoso, Israel Gómez, Indira Serrano, Omar Reyes, Yerandy García, Nathali Acosta, and Elizabeth Meizoso (age two). This is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a list of vessels sunk by the regime to prevent Cubans from fleeing communism. Those who survived the attack on October 28th stated that the MININT vessels blocked their path as soon as their boat departed, and that they were deliberately attacked to break the boat in half with which they intended to flee the island. These witness reports, gathered after the event, say that one of the repressors threatened to “split them in two.”

Cubans who stay, and seek democratic change within the existing rules of the system face death threats, attempts on their life, and extrajudicial killings by government agents.

Sirley Avila Leon: Machete attacked for speaking out.

Sirley Ávila León was a delegate to the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power in Cuba from June 2005, for the rural area of Limones until 2012 when the regime gerrymandered her district out of existence. The Castro regime removed her from her position because she had fought to reopen a school in her district, but been ignored by official channels and had reached out to international media. Her son, Yoerlis Peña Ávila, who had an 18 year distinguished career in the Cuban military was forced out when he refused to declare his mother insane and have her committed to a psychiatric facility.

Sirley joined the ranks of the democratic opposition and repression against her increased dramatically. On May 24, 2015 she was the victim of a brutal machete attack carried out by Osmany Carriòn, with the complicit assistance of his wife, that led to the loss of her left hand, right upper arm nearly severed, and knees slashed into leaving her crippled. Following the attack she did not receive adequate medical care and was told quietly by medical doctors in Cuba that if she wanted to get better that she would need to leave the country.

On July 22, 2012 agents of the Cuban dictatorship murdered pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero. Oswaldo Payá was a Sakharov Laureate who had been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Why did the Cuban dictatorship seek revenge against Oswaldo and Harold? 

The Varela Project demonstrated to the international community that thousands of Cubans were not satisfied with the status quo, and wanted human rights to be respected, and multiparty democracy to return to Cuba. This contradicted the official narrative that Cubans are happy with the existing communist dictatorship. 

On May 10, 2002, Oswaldo, along with Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez of the Christian Liberation Movement, turned in 11,020 Varela Project petitions, and news of the petition drive was reported worldwide.

Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez were sentenced to long prison sentences in March 2003 following show trials, along with 73 other Cuban dissidents. Many of them had taken part in the Varela Project and, nearly eight years later, were forced into exile as an alternative to completing their prison sentences.

In spite of the crackdown, Oswaldo would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures with Freddy Martini on October 5, 2003. He would spend the next eight years campaigning for the release of his imprisoned compatriots and continuing campaigns to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba. 

Early in 2012 Oswaldo also denounced that the Cuban government was engaged in a fraudulent change in which Cuban exiles were being asked to be complicit in their own repression.

Once again he was disrupting the Cuban regime's narrative, they killed him, and through continuing death threats forced his family into exile.

His daughter, Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo, continues his struggle for a free Cuba.

What Cubans want and what the Communist dictatorship in Cuba wants are in conflict.

Cubans want to live in freedom. In recent protests across the island in addition to chants of "food" and "electricity" one can also hear the chants for "liberty." Cubans want to be the protagonists in their own lives, not automatons with everything decided for them by the communist elite of the dictatorship. They want their Republic back.

The communist dictatorship wants to maintain power, and continue to spread their model beyond Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to other countries while assisting America's enemies in Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.

 

Cuba's Queen of Salsa Celia Cruz was born 98 years ago today in Havana but the Castro regime still bans her music

 "Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is remembering without pain." - Celia Cruz  

Celia Cruz 1925 - 2003

Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born 98 years ago today in Havana, Cuba, but she was better known as Celia Cruz. She played in Cuba for twelve years from 1948 until 1960. Because she wanted to play her music around the world, she was banned by the Castro regime from returning to the island.

 

Celia was not able to return to Cuba when her father died there in 1961, and she was not allowed to return to Cuba when her mother became ill, or at attend her funeral when her mom died in 1962.

Celia Cobo of Billboard Magazine observed that "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." The impact of the Castro regime on music in Cuba goes beyond jailing musicians and includes systematic censorship that threatens the island's musical legacy as has been the case with the Queen of Salsa.

Google Doodle of Celia Cruz from 2013

She is recognized around the world as an icon of music and in 2013 Google honored Celia on the 88th anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums."  

 Next year the United States Mint will be featured on the reverse side of the U.S. quarter as one of the honorees for the American Women Quarters Program.

However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. According to Shoot the singer!: music censorship today, a book edited by Marie Korpe states that there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations are growing up without knowing or hearing these censored musicians and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.

The phrase cultural genocide is used to describe the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s that blacklisted and censored scores of Cuban musicians and artists.

The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that the way Celia Cruz was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her parents, still goes on today in Cuba with members of the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

The Queen of Salsa passed away twenty years go on July 16, 2003 and her music is still banned in Cuba today.  At the time of her death the Associated Press reported:

"While the death of salsa singer Celia Cruz was reported prominently in newspapers across the world, the news got scant and somewhat bitter treatment Thursday in the official media of her homeland. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported Cruz’s death in a tiny, two-paragraph story published low on page 6 of the eight-page edition."

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that the Cuban regime's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and two days later the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news.  The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio. 

Let Celia Cruz's music be heard in Cuba

This wasn't news but a rumor that nine years after her death her music would be played on Cuban radio, after a half century absence but they were dispelled by regime officials. On August 21, 2012 Tony Pinelli, a musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned.

Sharing the music of Celia Cruz in Cuba is a counter-revolutionary act according to the Castro regime and is an act of subversion against the communist dictatorship. Please share her music widely because it is the sound of freedom. This is why Cuba's tyrants hate her and her music so much, even in death.

Viva Celia Cruz! Azucar!

26 years without justice for Danish student gunned down in Havana by a soldier

  "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

Joachim Løvschall was studying Spanish in Havana in the spring of 1997. He was gunned down by a soldier of the Castro regime in Havana, Cuba twenty six years ago today on March 29, 1997. The identity of the soldier was never revealed to Joachim''s family. No one was brought to justice. Joachim's family is not satisfied with the official explanation.

The last time they saw Joachim
On March 28, 1997 Joachim Løvschall ate his last dinner with white wine in a little restaurant called Aladin, located on 21st street in Havana. He went to the Revolutionary Plaza and bought a ticket to the Cuban National Theater. Following the performance he went to the theater's bar, Cafe Cantante, and met up with two Swedish friends. They each drank a couple of beers, but soon left because Joachim did not like the music. At 23:30, they said good bye to each other on the sidewalk in front of Cafe Cantante. 

Joachim was never seen alive again. 

Last seen in the front of Cafe Cantante

The Castro regime's version of what happened
On September 28, 1997 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published an article by Kim Hundevadt titled "Dangerous Vacation" that outlined what happened to Joachim Løvschall and presented the Castro dictatorship's version of the events leading to this young man's death:

Around 23:30, a person matching Joachim Løvschall's description was in a bar named Segundo Dragon d'Oro. The bar lies in the hopeless part of town, around the Revolutionary Plaza which is dominated by ministry and other official buildings of harsh concrete architecture, and lies empty in at night.

At 2:45am he left the bar, after becoming intoxicated. Around 20 minutes later, he was walking down the Avenue Territorial, behind the Defense Ministry.

Joachim Løvschall walked, according to the Cuban authorities, first on the sidewalk that lies opposite the Ministry. Midway he crossed over to the other sidewalk, considered to be a military area, though it is not blocked off.

The Cubans have explained that Joachim Løvschall was shouted at by two armed guards, who in addition fired warning shots, which he did not react to. Therefore, one guard shot from the hip with an AK-47 rifle. The first shot hit Joachim in the stomach and got him to crumble down. The second shot hit slanting down the left side of the neck.

Joachim Løvschall: December 7, 1970 - March 29, 1997

Sixteen years ago
On June 12, 2007 Christian Løvschall, Joachim's father, at a parallel forum at the United Nations Human Rights Council spoke about his son's disappearance and the struggle to find out if Joachim was dead or alive:

"Although the killing took place on the 29th of March, we only came to know about it on the 6th of April - i.e. after 8 days were we had the feeling that the Cuban authorities were unwilling to inform anything about the incident. Only because of good relations with Spanish speaking friends in other Latin American countries did we succeed in getting into contact with the family with whom Joachim stayed and the repeated message from their side was that they could reveal nothing, but that the situation had turned out very bad and that we had to come to Cuba as soon as possible. At the same time all contacts to the responsible authorities turned out negatively... Only after continued pressure from our side on the Cuban embassy in Copenhagen, things suddenly changed and the sad information was given to us by our local police on the evening of the 6th of April. We are, however, 100% convinced that had we not made use of our own contact and had we not continued our pressure on the embassy in Copenhagen, we might have faced a situation where Joachim would have been declared a missing person, a way out the Cuban authorities have been accused of applying in similar cases."

 Ten years later Christian Løvschall outlined what he knew concerning his son's untimely death:

We do feel we were (and still are) left with no answers except to maybe one of the following questions: Where, When, Who, Why Starting out with the where we were told that Joachim was killed by the soldiers outside the Ministry of Interior.

Where

What we do not understand is why no fence or signs did inform that this is a restricted area? I have been on the spot myself, and the place appears exactly like a normal residential area. So you may question whether this in fact was the place of the killing? Contrary to this the authorities keep maintaining that the area was properly sealed off, and the relevant sign posts were in place.

When

As to when Joachim was killed we only have the information received from the police because of the delay informing one might believe that this is another forgery made up to cover the truth.

Who

The who was in our opinion has never been answered by the Cuban authorities. We understand that a private soldier on duty was made responsible for the killing, and also it has been rumored that his officer in charge has been kept responsible. This is of course the easy way out, but why can't we get to know the whole and true story?   

Why 

Why did the soldiers have to fire two shots, one to his body and one to his head, to murder him? Was Joachim violent and did he, an unarmed individual, attack the armed soldiers? Or is it simply that the instruction to Cuban soldiers are: first you shoot and then you ask? But again: Who can explain why two shots were needed?

Despite the claims made by the travel industry there have been other travelers to Cuba who have been killed or gone missing under suspicious circumstances. 

Others have been falsely imprisoned in legal proceedings that fall far short of international standards. Like North Korea, but with a tropical twist, Cuba suffers a dictatorship where both nationals and foreigners have no legal protections locally if they run into trouble with the regime. 

The ongoing plight of Benjamin Tomlin, who has spent four years in a Cuban prison, should lead others considering a holiday in Cuba to think twice. 

So should what happened to Joachim Løvschall on March 29, 1997 when he was gunned down by an AK-47 wielding Cuban soldier for allegedly walking on the wrong sidewalk.

 

Protests in Cuba: A tale of tyranny in three acts.

Hotel Santa Clara Libre on Oct 2nd at 8:33pm only bldg with electricity. Source: Yad

Act I: The storm hits, and Cuban hotels quickly recover power and return to business as normal. Rest of the island in darkness. Protests break out in Cuba. 

Hurricane Ian over Cuba on September 26, 2022

 

Category 3 Hurricane Ian battered the west of Cuba on September 26th, and an already crumbling national electrical grid collapsed leaving Cubans without electricity. 

The entire island of Cuba went black without electricity. Not just the Western part that was impacted by Hurricane Ian.  

Cuba seen from space on September 27, 2022 after Hurricane Ian.

However GAESA's hotels continued to have electricity and were promoting tourism to the island in the aftermath of the storm on September 29th.

The Hotel Nacional of Cuba reported on September 29th over Twitter that all services were "available to our guests." They added that "some of the clients have even joined in cleaning and tidying up the outdoor areas."

Diaz-Canel prior to fleeing from Cubans.

Reports of protests emerged across Cuba on September 29th. Diaz-Canel fled from an encounter with Cuban citizens in Batabanó. Cubans repudiated the selected Cuban President, and his convoy sped out of the area. 

Why are Cubans upset? Whereas hotels across the island are already operating normally, most Cubans are still in the dark without electricity. Food has already been hard to come by due to the Cuban dictatorship's internal blockade, and whatever meager amounts they have are rotting. 

Yes, Cubans are protesting the incompetence of the regime. They are protesting the failure to maintain the infrastructure, and provide proper maintenance to the electrical grid. However, they are also calling for an end to the dictatorship and for freedom.

Act II: Protests expand across Cuba, and secret police, paramilitaries mobilize and travel to crackdown on demonstrations. 

The Wall Street Journal reporters Vivian Salama and José de Córdoba broke the story that the Biden Administration had “received a rare request from Cuba’s government  to provide emergency assistance” and that “the U.S. was still trying to determine  whether the government in Havana would supplement the request as it  works to determine the extent of the damage, according to the email communications.”

Civil society groups expressed concern that the Castro regime had a record of seizing and reselling humanitarian assistance, and called on the Biden Administration to provide humanitarian assistance directly to the Cuban people, or through independent civil society organizations and religious groups. 

On September 30, 2022 the Center received reports of an expanded military presence in the streets in the neighborhoods of Arroyo, Cerro, and Guinera in Havana. Cubalex, the Cuban human rights NGO that provides legal assistance to Cubans, shared an image of a street lined with police cars.

Andrea Rodriguez, the AP correspondent in Cuba, reported  that "an Associated Press journalist saw a total of about 400 people gathered in at least two spots in the Cerro neighborhood shouting, “We
want light, we want light,” and banging pots and pans."

14ymedio reported on September 30th that the Castro regime had "cut off internet access on the evening of September 29th after protests continued in some parts of the capital. Demonstrations continued in Cerro and Arroyo Naranjo, another protest began in San Francisco de Paula, in the municipality of San Miguel del Padron." 

Newsweek journalist Jack Dutton reported at 4:10am on September 30th that "people in Cuba have been protesting for 48 hours, according to multiple media reports, after the power went out due to Hurricane Ian and the internet has also reportedly been cut. Early on Friday, internet shutdown monitor NetBlocks.org posted on Twitter, showing a near total collapse of internet traffic from the Caribbean island."

The Center for a Free Cuba (CFC) in a Twitter thread called on the international community to support the Cuban people and called on the Cuban government to respect the rights of Cuban protesters. "There must not be a repeat of police and paramilitaries firing on unarmed civilians to terrorize populace as was done in July 2021," admonished CFC. 

⚠️ Confirmed: Real-time network data show internet has been cut in #Cuba for the second evening in a row; metrics show a collapse in connectivity after 8 p.m. local time amid protests over poor conditions and power cuts worsened by Hurricane Ian 📉 #CubaPaLaCalle pic.twitter.com/YDJ6ZsTjwX

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) October 1, 2022

Cubans continued to protest over the next three nights, despite the internet being shut down by the dictatorship the past two nights across the island while regime agents were mobilized in large numbers, and cracked down on demonstrators. Human rights organizations are trying to compile lists of those arrested and/or disappeared.

Act III:  Reports emerge of Cubans beaten bloody by government agents in regime dress. Mass arrests, and international press claims that protests have diminished, but reports from Havana say different.

Military in civilian dress knocks down black Cuban woman protester.

Reports emerge, along with images and video of regime agents carrying baseball bats, and clubs that protesters have been badly beaten: faces smashed in, broken noses. 

"Explicit testimony about repression in Calle Línea (Havana). Mentions several people badly beaten, [Justicia11J] has only been able to identify among them José Adalberto Fernández Cañizares, who needed care at the Calixto García hosp before being transferred to a detention center."

Video also emerges of regime agents carrying clubs and chanting "I am Fidel" through city streets to intimidate Cubans. 

 Other videos appear of what appear to be the unconscious bodies of demonstrators carried away by regime agents. It is also learned that Cubans video taping protests, and repressive acts are being rounded up and arbitrarily detained.

Coda: Hotels could have opened their doors to Cubans in need, and defused a volatile situation.

The Miami Herald reported on September 27th that "on Monday [September 26th], several prominent Cubans and Cuban Americans signed a petition asking the heads of Meliá Hotels International, Iberostar, Kempinski, NH Hotel Group and other foreign hotel chains operating in Cuba to 'make room for Cuban families, most of them with children, who will be left destitute and homeless as a result of Ian.' During natural disasters in the United States, when public shelters have been overwhelmed, hotels have been used as a temporary housing solution.

Cuban activist Rosa María Payá, musician Paquito de Rivera, Modesto Maidique, former president of Florida International University, and the Reverend Jose Conrado of the Parish of Trinidad in Cuba, led the appeal."

Seven days later, and no response has been received from these hotels.

Cubans and Cuban Americans have requested a humanitarian corridor to get assistance directly to Cubans in need on the island, and circumvent profiteering by Castro's military junta.