#TwelveMonths after the #11J protests in #Cuba: A reflection and call to action

Take the truth as a weapon, placing it in practice in the civic field, what Scripture proposed in the spiritual realm: "the truth shall make you free". Bishop Agustín Román, December 16, 2006

Cubans march under a banner declaring "Down with dictatorship" and "Patria y Vida"

Tens of thousands of Cubans marched in over 50 cities and towns in the island nation beginning on July 11, 2021 and were met with threats, violence, mass arrests, and deadly force that brought these nationwide protests to an end on July 13, 2021, , but sporadic protests continue in Cuba despite the regime's efforts to shut them all down. In one week, a year will have passed.

How did it begin?

A protester from San Antonio de los Baños told BBC Mundo that the initial protest was organized on Saturday[July 10, 2021] through social networks for Sunday [July 11, 2021] at 11:30 AM (local time). Reuters on August 9th reported in more detail on the social network used, and its background confirming the initial reporting by the BBC. On Sunday July 11, 2021 in the late morning hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of San Antonio de los Baños and were soon joined by thousands more.

Thinking that this would be a replay of the August 5, 1994 Maleconazo the Castro regime sent out its repressive forces to quell the protest in San Antonio de los Baños, and President Miguel Diaz-Canel arrived to the protest site to claim that all had returned to normal, but it was too late, the protests had been seen through social media and multiplied across Cuba.

The non-violent protests continued and spread across Cuba with Cubans chanting "the streets belong to the people", "Homeland and Life", "Freedom", "We are not afraid", and "Down with Communism." 

Why did it start?

First, protests in Cuba are not a rare phenomenon. Nationwide or mass protests involving thousands and tens of thousands are rare due to the lack of communication, regime surveillance, repression and the right to peaceful assembly is not recognized in Cuba.  Havana on August 5, 1994 had a social explosion with large numbers of protesters and they were met with an extremely violent response from the dictatorship.

Secondly, this time was different. Fidel Castro was dead five years, and Raul Castro, who turned 90 in 2021, is a shadow of his former self.  Sixty two years of communist dictatorship had millions of Cubans desiring change.

There were or other aggravating factors.

Let Cubans die to advance "home grown vaccine" claim

Tîcö Äwö Ôrümîlä, buried grandmother in mass grave in the Juan González cemetery in Santiago, Cuba. (Facebook)

 The Cuban government's decision not to get foreign vaccines for Cubans in order to claim that Cuba was the first country in the world to vaccinate their entire population with homegrown vaccines caused many deaths.

Officials decided not to acquire vaccines from their allies, China and Russia, or sign up with the United Nation's COVAX program. Russian and Chinese vaccines became available in Latin America as early as December 2020.

Official regime journalist Leticia Martinez Hernandez over Twitter on May 18, 2021 bragged that "Cuba will be the first country in the world to vaccinate their whole population with their own vaccines. Live to see!" 

Havana's foreign ministry on June 9, 2021 repeated the same campaign theme: "Cuba could be the first country to immunize its entire population with its own vaccines. The population wants and trusts the vaccine candidates, our science, and the country's experience in vaccine development."  

Officials rejected using alternative vaccines over the six months that they were available, because their  first "homegrown vaccines" had not been ready for clinical trials until May 2021 in Havana, and in the rest of the island until June 2021.

Cuban official statistics on COVID-19 infections and deaths are not reliable. Professor Duane Gubler of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore in the January 8, 2019 New Scientist report, "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017", stated matter of factly that "Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious." Doctors and journalists have been jailed in Cuba for speaking truthfully on past disease outbreaks.   

Thousands of Cubans did not live to see the home grown vaccines, and died by the score.

Following July protests in Cuba, officials in August 2021 accepted China's sinopharm vaccine and began providing it to Cubans. This was at least nine months after it had already started to be distributed in the rest of Latin America. 

Havana used the pretext of the pandemic to tighten monopoly control over distribution of assistance with zero transparency, and refused to allow farmers markets. Cubans are resentful of this internal blockade placed on them.

Volunteers collect humanitarian aid collected in Miami to be sent to Cuba.

In 2020 the Castro regime seized a humanitarian shipment that would have helped tens of thousands of Cubans.They continue to block grassroots efforts today. 

The Biden Administration in early July 2021 granted a temporary authorization from the US Department of Transportation for two cargo airlines to travel to the island with humanitarian cargo. According to 14ymedio the "permit, which will be in force until November 30 and was made public on August 13, includes charter flights 'for emergency medical purposes, search and rescue, and other trips considered of interest to the United States.'” Two months had passed and there was still no response from Havana, despite the urgent need on the ground.

The Castro regime seized and collectivized properties, and prohibited farmers selling their crops to non-state entities, in the early years of the revolution. The Cuban government established production quotas and farmers were (and are) obligated to sell to the state collection agency, called Acopio. Most recent law on agriculture in Cuba ( Decreto Ley 358 de 2018) continues to prohibit private sales of agricultural products to non-state entities. 50% of crops rot waiting on Acopios to collect them. During prior crises in the 1980s and 1990s officials had allowed farmers markets, temporarily to emerge and sell their produce directly to Cubans to alleviate hardship then shut them down after the crisis. This practice was not permitted during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Between 70% and 80% of Cuba's food is imported. Since 2000, much of the food purchased by Havana has been imported from the United States, but the only legal importer is the Cuban government that price gouges Cubans with 400% and higher price markups.

On July 14, 2021 the Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero appeared on television and announced that the dictatorship would "temporarily lift restrictions on the quantity of food and medicine incoming travelers could bring into Cuba."

How did the 11J protests end?

President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a public address on July 11, 2021 threatened: 

"They [protesters] would have to pass over our dead bodies if they want to confront the revolution, and we are willing to resort to anything." 

What did Cuba's top official mean by this? Diaz-Canel did not mince words: 

"We are calling on all the revolutionaries of the country, all the communists, to take to the streets and go to the places where these provocations are going to take place today from now on, and in all these days and face it decisively, firmly, with courage." 

The Castro regime's president concluded declaring, "the order of combat is given, revolutionaries take to the streets."

Unarmed protesters beaten, shot and killed by regime agents.

Videos emerged of Cuban officials firing on fleeing unarmed protesters in Cuban neighborhoods, and other footage emerged of Cuban protesters showing where the bullets had passed through their bodies.

Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, (age 36) was shot in the back by police on July 12, 2021

Havana officially recognized one Cuban killed on July 12th during the continuing protests, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, (age 36). He was shot in the back by regime officials on day two of nationwide protests in Cuba. Reports have been received that family members of those killed have been threatened to remain silent.  

Christian Díaz, age 24, disappeared after joining the 11J protests. Relatives on July 12, 2021 reported him missing to the PNR in Cárdenas. Police told his father that Christian was jailed in Matanzas. On August 5, 2021 officials informed his family he’d drowned in the sea and was buried in a mass grave. His family is convinced he was beaten to death. 

Christian Díaz, age 24, disappeared during 11J protests.

Cuban protesters were met with extreme violence by the dictatorship, but continued to take to the streets over three days before the extreme repression, and militarization of all Cuba shut them down.

Thousands detained

 Yoani Sanchez's news outfit 14ymedio reported more than 5,000 protesters detained on July 13, 2021.

On Saturday, July 17 the regime held their official rally, and even there they could not obtain unanimity and violently dragged out an unknown protester who screamed "Freedom."

Hundreds of political show trials

Over 550 Cuban protesters have been sentenced to over 4,000 collective years in prison, but not all were protesters. Dayron Martín Rodríguez was sentenced to 30 years in prison for recording the protests that he happened upon.

Dayron Martín sentenced to 30 years of prison for filming protests (Photo: Claudia Peiro)

On January 13, 2022, France24 reported on the plight of Dayron Martín Rodríguez (age 36) who was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was "detained in La Güinera. Dayron went out "to buy food for his pigeons when he ran into the rally," said his mother, Esmeralda Rodríguez (age 63), who added that "he started recording to send his father the video." He felt the stones hitting him, he fell and lost his phone. Video emerged during the 11J protests of police throwing rocks and firing on unarmed protesters. Esmeralda Rodríguez, "suffered a pre-infarction when she found out in Ecuador, where she emigrated. eight years ago" that her son had been sentenced to 30 years in prison. 

Regime officials are doing everything possible to terrorize Cubans into silence with long and unjust prison sentences, and a continued militarized presence on Cuba's streets. It is important to note that the worse punishments were meted out not to protesters, but to those who recorded the protests, and shared it over social media.   

More draconian laws

Following the 11J protests on August 18, 2021 Havana brought Decree-Law 35 into force. Human Rights Watch reported that "the decree, which has the stated purpose of 'defending' the Cuban revolution, requires telecommunications providers to interrupt, suspend, or terminate their services when a user publishes information that is 'fake' or affects 'public morality' and the 'respect of public order.'

On May 15, 2022 the Cuban dictatorship issued a new penal code that punishes with "penalties of 10 to 30 years – in extreme cases even death" for "those who give information to international organizations, associations or even people who have not been authorized by the government." Insulting or attacking officials or civilians doing their “citizens’ duty” can jail you for up to five years. Five years in prison if you “incite” against the socialist order,  and 10 years if you use communications media to do it.

The political show trials continue in Cuba, and so does the repression combined with the uncertainties around the new repressive laws, and penal code. 

Call to action

On the evening of July 11, 2021  I was outside of the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC with others protesting the repression of the dictatorship, and in solidarity with Cubans on the island demanding freedom, but we had long planned the protest to remember the victims of the July 13, 1994 "13 de marzo" tugboat sinking and the martyrdom on July 22, 2012 of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante by the secret police.

Last year, we were at the Cuban Embassy protesting repression, remembering victims, and martyrs. We will be there again on July 11 at 7:00pm.  

Why are Cubans protesting in Cuba and around the world?

Cubans are engaging in nonviolent protests both inside the island and in the diaspora on November 15th ostensibly to protest limitations on civil liberties in Cuba, and call for the release of hundreds of political prisoners. The Cuban dictatorship has prohibited peaceful protests on the island, and is ramping up repression, and strategies to stop the demonstrations. 

Protest on 11/14/21 at Cuban Embassy in Washington DC.

Although the main objective is the release of political prisoners, and defending civil liberties, the grievances run far deeper, and are too numerous to list in a single blog entry, but some highlights can be listed here for context and greater understanding.

1. Dictatorship's decision not to get foreign vaccines for Cubans in order to claim that Cuba was the first country in the world to vaccinate their entire population with homegrown vaccines caused many deaths.

Posted on Facebook by Tîcö Äwö Ôrümîlä, had to bury his grandmother in a mass grave in the Juan González cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba. (Screen capture)

Officials decided not to acquire vaccines from their allies, China and Russia, or sign up with the United Nation's COVAX program. Russian and Chinese vaccines became available in Latin America as early as February 2021. Reports of Russian and Chinese COVID-19 vaccines reaching Latin America made news in early March 2021, but Havana declined them preferring to promote their still unavailable domestic vaccines while most other countries in Latin America did.

Official regime journalist Leticia Martinez Hernandez over Twitter on May 18, 2021 bragged that "Cuba will be the first country in the world to vaccinate their whole population with their own vaccines. Live to see!" She even replied to her own Tweet that she would keep the above "tweet fixed until then. I want to remember the feat on which we have bet." Havana's foreign ministry on June 9, 2021 repeated the same campaign theme as the official journalist: "Cuba could be the first country to immunize its entire population with its own vaccines. The population wants and trusts the vaccine candidates, our science, and the country's experience in vaccine development."  Officials rejected using alternative vaccines over the six months that they were available, because their  first "homegrown vaccines" had not been ready for clinical trials until May 2021 in Havana, and in the rest of the island until June. As of November 9, 2021 none of the Cuban vaccines have been peer reviewed. 

Cuban official statistics on COVID-19 infections and deaths are not reliable. Professor Duane Gubler of the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore in the January 8, 2019 New Scientist report, "Cuba failed to report thousands of Zika virus cases in 2017", stated matter of factly that "Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious." Doctors and journalists have been jailed in Cuba for speaking truthfully on past disease outbreaks.  Sarah Marsh, of Reuters, was reporting on June 17, 2021 that "coronavirus infections have halved in Havana since authorities started administering Cuba’s experimental vaccines en masse in the capital a month ago." Less than a month later Reuters was reporting that Cuba "has the highest rate of contagion per capita in Latin America." There are official denials, but independent reports of mass graves in Cuba for COVID-19 victims continue to circulate.

Following July protests in Cuba, officials in later August 2021 accepted China's sinopharm vaccine and began providing it to Cubans. This was at least seven months after it had already been distributed in the rest of Latin America. Why didn't Havana do this beginning in January or February when the rest of Latin America did and Cuba did not have "home grown" vaccines? Why are they doing it now when they have the "home grown" vaccines that they claim are up to 92.8% effective (but have not been peer reviewed), compared to China's sinopharm vaccine that is only 72% effective?

2. Havana wishes to maintain monopoly control over distribution of assistance and zero transparency. 

Volunteers collect humanitarian aid collected in Miami to be sent to Cuba.

In 2020 the Castro regime seized a humanitarian shipment that would have helped tens of thousands of Cubans.They continue to block grassroots efforts today. The Biden Administration in early July 2021 granted a temporary authorization from the US Department of Transportation for two cargo airlines to travel to the island with humanitarian cargo. According to 14ymedio the "permit, which will be in force until November 30 and was made public on August 13, includes charter flights 'for emergency medical purposes, search and rescue, and other trips considered of interest to the United States.'” Two months had passed and there was still no response from Havana, despite the urgent need on the ground.

3. Cubans are resentful of the internal blockade placed on them by the Castro dictatorship.

Havana continues to call the United States economic embargo on Cuba a "blockade." This is not true as the State Department (and U.S. - Cuba trade statistics over the past 20 years) demonstrate. A meme appeared on social media in Spanish that outlines this reality, and Cuban scholar and journalist Carlos Alberto Montaner on July 15, 2021 gave a commentary on the blockade not prohibiting a series of economic measures that are proscribed by the Cuban government. Another meme correctly replaced the term "blockade" with "economic sanctions."

This first to be examined was the claim that "U.S. sanctions do not prohibit fishermen in Cuba from fishing, the dictatorship does." This was explored in a July 29th CubaBrief that was mentioned in a column by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the September 7, 2021 print edition of The Wall Street Journal titled "A Sanction Worth Lifting in Cuba."

The second to be examined was the claim that "U.S. sanctions do not confiscate what farmers harvest, the dictatorship does." Castro regime seized and collectivized properties, and prohibited farmers selling their crops to non-state entities, in the early years of the revolution. The Cuban government established production quotas and farmers were (and are) obligated to sell to the state collection agency, called Acopio. Most recent law on agriculture in Cuba ( Decreto Ley 358 de 2018) continues to prohibit private sales of agricultural products to non-state entities. 

Today, between 70% and 80% of Cuba's food is imported. This included the years when Cuba was heavily subsidized by the Soviet Union, and was part of the East Bloc. Since 2000, much of the food purchased by Havana has been imported from the United States.

Rotting crops cannot be blamed on economic sanctions, but inefficient centralized communist agricultural practices that prohibit market mechanisms to increase efficiency and deliver more food to Cubans. Diario de Cuba (DDC) ( March 18, 2021) and 14ymedio (June 15, 2021) have reported on rotting food crops due to the failures of the state enterprise, Acopio in picking them up on time. Worse yet, farmers have no other option bu to allow them to rot or risk fines and prison.

4. Cubans are beaten and imprisoned for thinking differently. There are hundreds of Cuban political prisoners who have not committed any crime, except exercise their fundamental rights. Nonviolent opposition leaders have died under suspicious circumstances with official involvement. 

Oswaldo Payá and Laura Pollán died under suspicious circumstances linked to regime.

Cubalex, a human rights NGO, identified 1,227 detained Cubans (this is a partial number), related to the protests that began on July 11th, in their database. Summary trials have been carried out, with Cubans condemned in excess of 20 years in prison for taking part in the protests.

Following the 11J uprising on August 18, 2021 Havana brought Decree-Law 35 into force. Human Rights Watch reported that "the decree, which has the stated purpose of 'defending' the Cuban revolution, requires telecommunications providers to interrupt, suspend, or terminate their services when a user publishes information that is 'fake' or affects 'public morality' and the 'respect of public order.'

Extrajudicial killings of dissidents also happen in Cuba.

On July 22, 2015 Javier El-Hage, and Roberto González of the Human Rights Foundation released a 147 page report titled The Case of Oswaldo Payá found that "witness statements, physical evidence and expert reports – suggest direct government responsibility in the deaths of Payá and Cepero. Specifically, the evidence deliberately ignored by the Cuban State strongly suggests that the events of July 22, 2012 were not an accident – as was quickly claimed by authorities in the state-owned media monopoly and later rubber – stamped by Cuba’s totalitarian court system – but instead the result of a car crash directly caused by agents of the State, acting (1) with the intent to kill Oswaldo Payá and the passengers in the vehicle he was riding." Oswaldo Payá was the founding leader of the Christian Liberation Movement.

Cuban opposition leader and human rights defender Laura Pollán died on October 14, 2011 under circumstances that Cuban dissident and medical doctor Oscar Elias Biscet described as "death by purposeful medical neglect." Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, a courageous woman spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. She had been a school teacher, before her husband was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003 along with more than 75 other civil society members. She was the founding leader of the Ladies in White.

5. The Castro regime ended black advancement in Cuba, and silenced criticism of racism for decades through repression of black voices.

From Verde Olivo 1, no. 29 (October 1, 1960). A cartoon depicting Fidel Castro meeting with African Americans in Harlem in a pro-regime publication. On the left capitalists, and on the right Fidel Castro with black Americans featured with racist stereotype

 

“Of the 256 Negro societies in Cuba, many  have had to close their doors and others are in death agony. One can truthfully say, and this is without the slightest exaggeration, that the Negro movement in Cuba died at the hands of Sr. Fidel Castro.” … “Yet this is the man who had the cynical impudence to visit the United States in 1960 for the purpose of censuring American racial discrimination. Although this evil obviously exists in the United States, Castro is not precisely the man to offer America solutions, nor even to pass judgement,” reported Cuban nationalist Juan René Betancourt in his essay in the NAACP's publication The Crisis in 1961. 

Racist attitudes persist in Cuba under the Castros and this is reflected in rates of interracial marriage being lower in Cuba than in Brazil that has a much higher level of inequality than the Caribbean island, and has not undergone a communist revolution.

On the economic front the glaring differences between black and white Cubans are shocking with 95% of Afro-Cubans having the lowest incomes compared to 58% of white Cubans.