Two years after the anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, for which nearly 500 people have been sentencedthe island continues to be plunged into a deep economic and social crisis that fuels discontent, but also repression against dissident voices.
(Read here: Organizations ask that the European Union and Celac address human rights violations in Cuba)
On July 11, 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets of the island shouting “We are hungry” and “Down with the dictatorship”, after months of strict confinement due to the pandemic. and a critical economic situation in the absence of tourists, in unprecedented protests since the 1959 Revolution.
More than 1,500 were detained, among them almost 700 are still in prison, according to the NGO Justicia 11J, born in Cuba to document these arrests and now based outside the island. According to official figures, close to 500 were sentenced with final sentences, some up to 25 years in prison.
The government has a very narrow margin of maneuver in the short term
The government accuses the United States of orchestrating the marches to overthrow him. On Monday, Granma, the official media outlet, once again denounced the “direct responsibility” of Washington. For days, police and security forces have had a greater presence on the streets of Havana, AFP confirmed.
Although the president Miguel Díaz-Canel assured a year ago that the country of 11 million inhabitants would overcome the “complex economic situation”, Cuba continues to struggle to get out of the quagmire.
Uncontrollable inflation, the slow recovery of tourism, the drop in sugar production, high international prices that exacerbate shortages, the tightening of US sanctions and record emigration are internal and external factors that have combined to lead the country to its worst crisis since the 1990s.
“The government has a very narrow margin of maneuver in the short term,” estimates Cuban political analyst Arturo López-Levy, a visiting professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, who cites the “very precarious levels of food and energy security in which the historic generation”, headed by Fidel and Raúl Castro, handed over the country to Díaz-Canel, in office since 2018.
Faced with these difficulties, the government accelerated the economic opening, which is essentially state-owned, towards the private sector. This alleviated certain deficiencies, but increased inequalities due to high prices.
In this file photo taken on July 11, 2021, a man is detained during a demonstration against the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel in Havana.
Hunger strike
Despite the harsh sentences imposed on the July 11 protesters, Cubans, trapped in a very precarious material situation, are less hesitant to express their discontent with the authorities.
In 2022, sporadic demonstrations against power cuts broke out in several provinces and in Havana.
In May, dozens of people demonstrated against the shortage of food and medicine in Caimanera, a small town 1,000 km east of Havana. They are protests that “do not occur in a planned way, nor with a legal nature, but in an ad hoc way”, in the face of difficulties of the population, says López-Levy.
“The protests are a reflection of this drop in credibility” of the government, which is making an effort to propose solutions to the crisis, said sociologist Rafael Hernández. “So an ‘extra’ blackout, the lack of water, fuel, continued inflation (…) contribute to tightening that rope, which has lost its former elasticity”, especially in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.
![](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Protests for the hunger strike in Cuba.
Eliana Aponte / TIME
Information about these protests is filtered through images published on social networks by citizens. The authorities, visibly surprised during the outbreak of 2021, have taken to interrupting mobile internet when these outbreaks arise to prevent their spread.
Opponents and activists regularly denounce arbitrary arrests, harassment or pressure to leave their country. Justicia 11J recently launched a campaign to alert about the arrest of “ten Cuban activists and dissidents” who are still imprisoned, under a “new wave of repression.”
Young activists who were the face of the mobilization, among them the playwright Yunior García and the art historian Carolina Barrero, were forced to leave Cuba.. Others were detained, such as the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, sentenced to five years and who began a hunger strike on Friday.
“In Cuba, the human rights situation continues to deteriorate,” Amnesty International denounced in May, pointing to the penal code in force since 2022, which is more repressive. The Vatican, the European Union and the United States called for the release of the jailed protesters.
AFP
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