Remembering two Cuban Springs over ten years apart and the crackdowns that followed

Two Cuban springs ended in crackdowns, but the democracy movement knows it will return.

Jose Cipriano Rodriguez, corporal in Batista's regime, prepared for firing squad (1959).

 Winter arrives

Winter arrived in Cuba in 1959, and its darkest nights continued into 1969 when the Castro regime ended Christmas under the pretext of conducting the 10 million ton sugar harvest. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but Christmas did not return until 1997.

The Castro dictatorship replaced the family as the primary unit of social organization in Cuba during this darkest of winters. By doing so, it displaced the family and encouraged family members to spy on one another, creating widespread mistrust that persists today.

During this time, the Castro dictatorship's prison inmates were the keepers of Cuba’s human rights and democratic legacy, which later emerged in 1976 when the Cuban Committee for Human Rights was founded.

First thaw

Ricardo Bofill, Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Havana 1987

The international community first learned about their human rights reports through paper scraps they smuggled out of these prisons. The scandal that followed forced the Castro dictatorship 12 years later to allow visits from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch to Cuba and the prisons throughout the island. This thaw lasted between 1988 and 1989.

Many resistance organizations were formed during this time and in the years that followed. One of these organizations was the Christian Liberation Movement, which was founded in 1988.

Over the course of 10 years, this movement discovered ways to mobilize the Cuban people and demand that the communist government uphold its own laws and regulations, which on paper purported to include democratic components but were not observed in fact.

The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four human rights advocates, prompted the adoption of the Cuban Democracy and Solidarity Act on March 12, 1996, which tightened sanctions on Havana.

Castro decided that the Pope visiting Cuba would be a good way to obtain favorable coverage for the regime in its efforts to relax or lift sanctions.

When Spring started in December

 In the weeks leading up to the first Papal visit to Cuba, the Castro regime relaxed certain restrictions on the Catholic church in December 1997. "The church was granted permission to conduct open-air services and processions. Lay workers were allowed to go door-to-door to inform parishioners of the visit and the church had access to media for the publishing of the Pope's Christmas message in Granma by allowing a televised speech by Cardinal Ortega, and by providing at the last minute, live coverage of the papal masses."

The return of Christmas was also supposed to be a temporary measure, in honor of Pope John Paul II's apostolic visit to Cuba (January 21- 26, 1998) . However, 25 years later Christmas continues to be celebrated in Cuba.

Some have pointed to this Papal visit as the beginning of a Cuban spring, where cracks appeared in the totalitarian edifice of Cuba’s communist dictatorship that over five years, forever changed the island nation.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate published Steps to Freedom analyzing democratic resistance beginning in 1997 with 44 civic actions, saw an increase to 233 civic actions in 1999, following Pope John Paul II's visit, then 444 in 2000, 600 in 2001, 959 in 2002, and 1,328 in 2003.

The Christian Liberation Movement, founded in 1988, following the 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II launched their most ambitious initiative, the Varela Project, named after the Cuban Priest, Felix Varela, who in the 19th century was credited with being the one who taught Cubans how to think. Father Varela sought Cuban independence, and was a fierce opponent of slavery.

On May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban National Assembly.

Former President James Carter visited Cuba in May 2002. On May 15th Mr. Carter gave a speech at the University of Havana, where he advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions on Cuba and "called for the Varela Project petition to be published in the official newspaper so that people could learn about it."

Havana’s response to this nonviolent citizen's initiative, and to President Carter's request? Coerced Cubans into signing another petition declaring the Constitution unchangeable and quickly passed it through the rubber stamp legislature.

The Varela Project was never presented for debate before the National Assembly, which violated the regime’s existing laws.

Winter returned in March 2003

Ten months later on March 18, 2003 the secret police began rounding up Cubans who had made the Varela Project possible. Seventy five activists would be put on trial and condemned to long prison terms. Over 40 of them had taken part in the Varela initiative. 

It was the end of a Cuban Spring, but the democracy movement knew that Spring would return.

Twenty years later on March 18, 2023, three of the former prisoners of conscience arrested two decades earlier reflected on the events of that day, and the aftermath in a panel discussion organized by the Center for a Free Cuba. It is long, but worth the watch. However, it is in Spanish.

Castro dictatorship's shock troops crackdown on hundreds of non-violent protesters in Caimanera, Guantánamo, Cuba

Article 20 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Díaz-Canel with UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan. Source: Estudios Revolución

"Cuba is committed to all human rights mechanisms," Díaz-Canel lied to UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan on May 5, 2023 during her visit to Havana, Cuba.

One of the human rights mechanisms recognized by the United Nations is the freedom of assembly and association. 

Diaz-Canel's lie was demonstrated a day later.

Hundreds of Cubans in the town of Caimanera in Guantánamo, Cuba took to the streets to demonstrate tonight. They shouted "Homeland and life", "Freedom" and "Long live human rights" demanding their human rights and freedom. 

Cubanet cited a local source in Cuba that "confirmed that the protests began around seven at night and up to the time of writing this note they were continuing. “First three men came out and began to demonstrate on Carretera street between José Martí and Correo, and the people joined them. We walked around Caimanera until we reached the park and passed the Communist Party headquarters, where no one came out because they are with the police."

According to this source, "the trigger for the protest, he indicated, is the lack of food and the precarious conditions of the health system. “After the five pounds of rice for the month are gone, we are eating bread with sugar. They are starving us while they live well." ... "In one of the videos that have come out of the demonstration, the people are heard shouting that they are hungry and that they do not believe in the excuse of the blockade. There is also a man who tells how he took his little son to the hospital and there was not even what was necessary to suture his wound."

Cubanet's Camila Acosta reported over Twitter at 11:24pm that Cuba had been without internet connection or telephone service in all of Cuba for more than an hour. She also said that "the last report indicated the arrival of special troops to suppress the protests."

Netblocks confirmed at 11:25pm that "Network data show a collapse in internet traffic in Cuba amid protests for freedom and human rights centering around Caimanera, Guantánamo; connectivity remains intermittent at present with partial restoration noted." 

Black Berets arrived in Caimanera, and violently ended the nonviolent protest during the shutdown of internet and telephone service.Video emerged after the internet black out was partially restored.

Will Alena Douhan reconsider her favorable remarks in light of these developments?

Considering that in her public remarks during her meeting with Diaz-Canel Ms. Douhan did not address his public call on July 11, 2021 for Cuban communists to violently put down nonviolent protests with what he called an "order of combat," hopes are not high.

This pessimism is underscored by Ms. Douhan's pattern of arguing that regimes like Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela are the victims and Western sanctions the culprit.

However, there is hope that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk will hold the Cuban government to account.

Regardless of what these UN officials do,  people of good will should send a message both to Havana and the international community by signing and sharing the petition to expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council.

 

Remembering two Cuban Springs

Winter arrives

Jose Cipriano Rodriguez, corporal in Batista's regime, prepared for firing squad (1959).

Winter arrived in Cuba in 1959, and its darkest nights continued into 1969 when the Castro regime ended Christmas under the pretext of conducting the 10 million ton sugar harvest. It was supposed to be a temporary measure, but Christmas did not return until 1997.

The Castro dictatorship replaced the family as the primary unit of social organization in Cuba during this darkest of winters. By doing so, it displaced the family and encouraged family members to spy on one another, creating widespread mistrust that persists today.

During this time, the Castro dictatorship's prison inmates were the keepers of Cuba’s human rights and democratic legacy, which later emerged in 1976 when the Cuban Committee for Human Rights was founded.

First thaw

Ricardo Bofill, Cuban Committee for Human Rights, Havana 1987

The international community first learned about their human rights reports through paper scraps they smuggled out of these prisons. The scandal that followed forced the Castro dictatorship 12 years later to allow visits from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch to Cuba and the prisons throughout the island. This thaw lasted between 1988 and 1989.

Many resistance organizations were formed during this time and in the years that followed. One of these organizations was the Christian Liberation Movement, which was founded in 1988.

Over the course of 10 years, this movement discovered ways to mobilize the Cuban people and demand that the communist government uphold its own laws and regulations, which on paper purported to include democratic components but were not observed in fact.

The Brothers to the Rescue shootdown on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the deaths of four human rights advocates, prompted the adoption of the Cuban Democracy and Solidarity Act on March 12, 1996, which tightened sanctions on Havana.

Castro decided that the Pope visiting Cuba would be a good way to obtain favorable coverage for the regime in its efforts to relax or lift sanctions.

When Spring started in December

March 18, 2003: End of the Cuban Spring?

In the weeks leading up to the first Papal visit to Cuba, the Castro regime relaxed certain restrictions on the Catholic church in December 1997. "The church was granted permission to conduct open-air services and processions. Lay workers were allowed to go door-to-door to inform parishioners of the visit and the church had access to media for the publishing of the Pope's Christmas message in Granma by allowing a televised speech by Cardinal Ortega, and by providing at the last minute, live coverage of the papal masses."

The return of Christmas was also supposed to be a temporary measure, in honor of Pope John Paul II's apostolic visit to Cuba (January 21- 26, 1998) . However, 25 years later Christmas continues to be celebrated in Cuba.

Some have pointed to this Papal visit as the beginning of a Cuban spring, where cracks appeared in the totalitarian edifice of Cuba’s communist dictatorship that over five years, forever changed the island nation.

The Cuban Democratic Directorate published Steps to Freedom analyzing democratic resistance beginning in 1997 with 44 civic actions, saw an increase to 233 civic actions in 1999, following Pope John Paul II's visit, then 444 in 2000, 600 in 2001, 959 in 2002, and 1,328 in 2003.

The Christian Liberation Movement, founded in 1988, following the 1998 visit of Pope John Paul II launched their most ambitious initiative, the Varela Project, named after the Cuban Priest, Felix Varela, who in the 19th century was credited with being the one who taught Cubans how to think. Father Varela sought Cuban independence, and was a fierce opponent of slavery.

On May 10, 2002, carrying 11,020 signed petitions in support of the Varela Project, the Christian Liberation Movement's Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Antonio Diaz Sanchez, and Regis Iglesias Ramirez delivered them to the Cuban National Assembly. 

Former President James Carter visited Cuba in May 2002. On May 15th Mr. Carter gave a speech at the University of Havana, where he advocated for the lifting of economic sanctions on Cuba and "called for the Varela Project petition to be published in the official newspaper so that people could learn about it."

Havana’s response to this nonviolent citizen's initiative, and to President Carter's request? Coerced Cubans into signing another petition declaring the Constitution unchangeable and quickly passed it through the rubber stamp legislature.

The Varela Project was never presented for debate before the National Assembly, which violated the regime’s existing laws.

Winter returned in March

Ten months later on March 18, 2003 the secret police began rounding up Cubans who had made the Varela Project possible. Seventy five activists would be put on trial and condemned to long prison terms. Over 40 of them had taken part in the initiative. It was the end of a Cuban Spring, but the democracy movement knew that Spring would return.

Open letter to Mr. Richard Branson of the Virgin Group on the best way forward for Cuba

Dear Mr. Richard Branson,

Read your blog, saw your Tweet, and believe that you are driven by good intentions to opine on Cuba, but as the German philosopher once said, "the devil is in the details." 

First, I found the two photos you posted of yourself touring Havana in 2017 with Eusebio Leal, the city historian to be ironic.

Photo: Richard Branson blog, Twitter 2023

Military control of economy expanded during Obama thaw 

Over a quarter of a century Mr. Leal through an extensive restoration effort transformed Old Havana into a "colonial jewel" and he was able to operate the City Historian's Office throughout this time, it became a hub of influence with budgetary freedom. This ended during Obama's detente. 

Andrea Rodriguez, the Associated Press correspondent in Cuba, in her September 8, 2016 article "Cuban military expands its economic empire under detente" found: "That independence is gone. Last month [August 2016], the Cuban military took over the business operations of Leal's City Historian's Office, absorbing them into a business empire that has grown dramatically since the declaration of detente between the U.S. and Cuba on Dec. 17, 2014."

The Obama thaw coincided with the Castro regime's military expanding its control over the Cuban economy. 

You state that the embargo has been "codified multiple times." My understanding is that it has been codified twice, and modified once.

When the embargo was codified into law, and trade opened

It was first codified in the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, during the Bush Administration, that also opened up exports of food and medicine, as well as permitting family remittances, postal services, and telecommunications to and from Cuba.  

The second time was in 1996, following the February 24, 1996 shoot down of two civilian planes of the civil society group Brothers to the Rescue in international airspace on Raul Castro's orders in a premeditated act of state terrorism that killed four U.S based civilians. 

The Clinton administration had the following options: do nothing, apply sanctions, or a military strike. They opted for the second option and signed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996. 

This transferred authority over U.S. policy toward Cuba from the Executive Branch to the Legislative. 

Congress loosened Cuba sanctions in the Trade Sanctions and Reform Act of 2000 (“TSRA”). This meant that cash and carry trade began between American companies and the Cuban dictatorship and its military conglomerate GAESA.

Mr. Obama's thaw with General Castro coincided with more repression, brain damaged diplomats

You mention in your blog that the Cuban government committed to bilateral talks: "to address issues like migration or mail service," but failed to mention the escalation in repression against dissidents during this "thaw" that began in 2009. 

Two months prior to the high point of the Obama detente, replacing a plaque that said "U.S. Interests Section" with one that said "Embassy of the United States of America" on July 20, 2015 a vicious attack was carried out to silence a former government official.

In a vicious machete attack on May 24, 2015, Sirley Ávila León lost her left hand, nearly lost her right upper arm, had her knees slashed, and was left with crippling injuries. She was denied adequate medical care, and doctors secretly advised her that she would need to leave Cuba if she wanted to recover. The regime had been embarrassed by a campaign she organized to keep a school open. She arrived in Miami on March 8, 2016, and with the help of the Cuban exile community, a team of medical professionals took care of her. By September of 2016, Sirley was able to return home to Cuba. She found her home occupied by strangers and went to her mother’s house. A short time later a camera was set up outside to spy on her. By mid-October 2016, Sirley was getting death threats from state security and feared for her life. She fled back to the United States a couple of weeks later and sought asylum.

You made mention that "both nations also agreed to reopen embassies in Washington and Havana," but left out that downgraded embassies, but fully staffed, called Interest Sections were established by Jimmy Carter and Fidel Castro on September 1, 1977. 

You also omitted the mysterious Havana Syndrome that began to harm both U.S. and Canadian diplomats in Nov 2016, and appears to have been a directed energy device. NBC News reported on this in December 2021. 

On February 20, 2022 the CBS News program Sixty Minutes reported on diplomat's children harmed by the Havana Syndrome. It was during Obama's opening the attacks began. U.S. diplomats over the past 39 years in Cuba were harassed, threatened, but not permanently harmed.

You cite your visit to Cuba during the Obama thaw as ground for your claim "that the Cuban people found something new that had been so elusive for decades: hope and opportunity." If that were true why did over 120,000 flee Cuba during the opening?

These Cubans fled because they knew President Obama would close the door on Cubans, and that the thaw would benefit the dictatorship and harm them.  Mr. Obama ended the Wet Foot - Dry Foot policy, and also ended a an asylum program for trafficked Cuban doctors on January 12, 2017. 

Would also recommend reading Hungarian-born political sociologist Paul Hollander's book Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society and the section in which he catalogues the strategies and tactics totalitarian regimes use to control what one sees visiting their respective countries and what the unintended consequences are for its victims. 

Machete attacks, breaking bones, knife attacks since 2012

 

Trump sanctions targeted Cuban military

Obama-era openings benefited the Cuban military. Mr. Trump in 2017,  undid them through executive orders that forced Havana to open the economy to the non-military.  

On February 6, 2021 the Cuban government announced it would "allow small private businesses to operate in most fields, eliminating its limited list of activities, state-run media reported".  Why return to a policy that would reverse these changes further empower the Cuban military's control over the national economy, and not everyday Cubans?

Important not to be complicit in Cubans' suffering

We have not lost sight of the human cost and terrible despair caused by the isolation of the Cuban people or the fact that this was the policy of the Cuban dictatorship for decades. Even phone calls were discouraged, and punished. Families are still being divided by Havana in 2023.

Cuban nationals Omara Urquiola (left) and Anamely Ramos (Right) not allowed to return home.

Today, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are complicit in carrying out Havana's orders to prevent Cuban nationals Anamely Ramos and Omara Urquiola, and others from returning home to Cuba, leaving them stateless persons, separated from their families.

Has your airline, Virgin Atlantic, also engaged in this practice, in order to do business with the Cuban government?

Thank you for speaking out on behalf of Cuba's political prisoners. You are right when you give the following description: "many of them young people who were detained for simply filming protests and never had due process in court." There are over 1,000 political prisoners with out including thousands more imprisoned for pre-crime. 

The New York Times reported on January 13, 2020 that documents obtained by a former senior judge in Cuba "showed that approximately 92 percent of those accused in the more than 32,000 cases that go to trial in Cuba every year are found guilty. Nearly 4,000 people every year are accused of being “antisocial” or “dangerous,” terms the Cuban government uses to jail people who pose a risk to the status quo, without having committed a crime."

 It is a complex, layered problem

We are agreed that this is complex, and layered problem, it is not only a Cuban problem, but it is not impossible to navigate. The question for you is what is the final goal? 

The Cuban government is clear about its goals. 

1. Continue to advance its anti-U.S. agenda on the world stage working closely with Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to create an authoritarian international order. 

2. Continue to empower regime elites in the private sector copying the Russian oligarch model. No rule of law, but rule by those connected to those in the center of power. Dissenters continue to be crushed.  

3. Continue to weaponize migration to leverage the United States while ignoring the human cost in lives lost. Havana has done this in 1965, 1980, 1994, 2014-16, and is doing it now because they perceive the current U.S. administration as weak, and malleable. 

Most everyone else 

1. Most Cubans want a democratic transition to a system based in the rule of law where entrepreneurs can flourish and human rights are respected, including property rights. 

2. They want to be left alone to pursue their own life goals, and live in freedom. They would like to do this in Cuba, but if that is not an option Cubans will continue to seek to do so elsewhere.  

This was what you heard in the shouts of freedom, and calls for an end to the dictatorship by tens of thousands of Cubans across the island in July of 2021. 

Finally, your concerns about Russia and China are mistaken. 

The Castro regime rushed to Moscow's and Beijing's side in 1959 while the United States had normal diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba. Havana's ideology is both anti-United States and anti-Western Democracy.  

Havana's relations with Beijing were not determined by relations with the United States, but the Sino-Soviet split. Relations were restored in the late 1980s with Cuba one of the few countries that supported the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. 30/

Relations with Moscow cooled during the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era. Soviet publications with articles on Glasnost and Perestroika were banned. Members of the Cuban military "contaminated" by reformist ideas were purged, and some were executed. Relations with Russia warmed again with Putin in 2000, and grown closer as he has become more authoritarian.  

One last observation and two questions Mr. Branson. I remember the humanitarian concert you organized for Venezuelan refugees in 2019, and commend you for it. 

How do you feel about the role the Cuban dictatorship has played in propping up Maduro in Venezuela?

Cuban forces in Venezuela, described as an "occupation force" by OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, are training Venezuelans in torture techniques and supervising torture sessions. 

Is providing more resources to the Castro regime to carry out its overseas goals of destroying democracies something that you want to facilitate?

Thank you Mr. Branson for your time and interest in the well-being of the Cuban people. 

From one troublemaker to another.

Cordially,

John Suarez

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.

 

Cuban Grinch, dead five years, outlawed Christmas in Cuba for 29 years. Political show trials through Christmas 2021 show toxic legacy continues

 

The fictional original Grinch, and the more sinister real life counterpart

American children's author, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss brought the Grinch into existence in 1955, and wrote about How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1957. In  the story the Grinch, a creature covered in green fur, decides to stop Christmas from coming. He does this by dressing up like Santa Claus then proceeds to expropriate all of the presents, the Christmas tree, and the food for the Christmas feast among those observing the holiday.

Although not covered in green fur, Fidel Castro dressed in a green camouflage uniform throughout his dictatorial rule. He claimed to be a force of liberation, but in short order began expropriating everyone's property, mass executions, and turned the country into a vast prison. In the case of Cuba children were familiar with the Three Kings, and propaganda murals portrayed Mr. Castro and other revolutionaries in that light.

The Independent (Ireland) in 2017 had Fidel Castro on the short list of Grinch like figures who were sworn enemies of Christmas, and there is reason for the comparison.

 Fidel Castro canceled Christmas in 1969 under the pretext to prevent work shortages for the 1970 ten million ton sugar harvest but continued the ban through 1997. The Cuban dictator would send mobs to intimidate Cubans who attended religious services. Three Kings Day and Easter were also abolished. 

Priests who stayed behind often paid a terrible price.

In 1976 the Castro dictatorship adopted a constitution which turned Cuba into an atheist state. 

Unlike the Grinch, Fidel Castro did not restore Christmas due to a change of heart.  It took 29 years and a Catholic Pope leveraging the old dictator.

Pope John Paul II negotiated for the return of Christmas as an official holiday in Cuba in conversations surrounding his 1998 visit to Cuba. 

Cubans were finally no longer subjected to state repression for observing Christmas, and began to be officially observed on December 25, 1998. 

Despite the formal return of Christmas, repression still takes place over the holidays on the tropical island.

State Security does not go on holiday.

Ten years ago, on Christmas day 2011 three Ladies in White Leticia Ramos Herrería, age 42, Sayma Lamas, age 43, and Elizabeth Pacheco Lamas, age 20 were beaten up and detained by state security agents. The secret police punched and kicked the women and stopped them from attending Christmas Mass.

Lady in White Leticia Ramos

Cuban independent journalist and labor activist Iván Hernández Carrillo in a series of tweets on January 5, 2017 reported on repression against Lady in White Leticia Ramos Herrería and her family in order to prevent them giving toys to children on January 6, 2017:

Combined forces of the national police and secret police raided the home of Lady in White Leticia Ramos this morning (tweeted on January 5th at 1:53pm). Armed forces confiscated the toys that were in the home for Three Kings Day in Cárdenas, Matanzas (1:54pm). In the raid they brutally beat up Randy Monteoca and Alexey Ramos son and brother of the Lady in White, were also arrested (1:55pm). Since this morning the situation of Lady in White Leticia Ramos is unknown, her mobile phone is off or outside the coverage area (6:14pm).  This morning at 11:05am Iván Hernández Carrillo tweeted that "Leticia Ramos and her son Randy Monteoca released yesterday afternoon, the latter with a 2,000 peso fine.

This state security operation was not taking place in a vacuum.  Not only were human rights overall in serious decline in Cuba, but religious repression in 2016 reached levels not seen since 1992.

The Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), an arm of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, continues to oversee religious affairs in Cuba, and exists to monitor, hinder and restrict religious activities.

Meanwhile,the repressive apparatus continues to grind on destroying Cuban lives. Over 90 Cubans have been subjected to political show trials between December 13th and December 23rd. 

CiberCuba reported today on the condemnation of a father and daughter present during the July protests.

Fredi Beirut Matos, (64) Katia Beirut Rodríguez, (36), condemned 20 years in prison

Fredi Beirut Matos, (age 64), and his daughter, Katia Beirut Rodríguez, (age 36), both witnessed the killing of Diubis Laurencio by police, in Havana, were both sentenced on Thursday December 23, 2021 to 20 years in prison for the alleged crime of sedition. Independent journalist Claudia Padrón Cueto denounced on her Facebook profile, based on a previous publication by a relative, that their "greatest crime is they witnessed how police killed Laurencio, a Black man, from a poor neighborhood who was unarmed, who was shot. The military prosecutor's office says it was in self-defense. The videos of his death show that the only thing that he had was a cell phone in his hand. Fredi and Katia were direct witnesses and they are paying for it, " 

The proceedings continued today on Christmas Eve in the Isle of Pines.

Vicente Morin Aguado reports in Havana Times that the prosecution is requesting that Martha de los Ángeles Pérez Acosta, Ramón Salazar Infante and Francisco Alfaro Diéguez be sentenced to three years in prison, and Juan Luis Sánchez González be sentenced to eight years in prison for "inciting public disorder." 

What did they actually do? They proclaimed in a city park the lack of existing freedoms, and called for democracy.

Hundreds of Cuban families are suffering across the island this Christmas as the dictatorship launches another wave to terrorize and silence Cubans.

The Cuban Grinch died in 2016, but his toxic legacy continues.