Cubans already made their point
Monday came and went, and the massive street protests planned in Havana did not materialize. As a result, the repressive regime made protesters’ point for them.
The thing is, the Cuban government has 60 years of experience in squelching unrest. Young Cuban activists likely knew just what to expect.
On Monday, Cuba sent out the message loud and clear to those who planned to demand their basic human rights, their basic freedoms: “Don’t even think about it.”
But no matter, the activists, whose battle cry is “Patria y Vida” still got their message across.
Can the Cuban government logistically surround every activists home every day for the rest of the year as they did Monday? Doubt it, so this is not over.
The Cuban government must be well aware that its reaction is under the world’s microscope. And it should be. The regime has a real problem. Its young population, its millennials, its artists and writers no longer want to struggle daily for the necessities of life, and they want democracy, too. This, incredibly, remains a shocker to a regime in power since 1959.
On Monday, activists in Cuba spent the day posting videos and photographs to the outside world showing state police officials in plain clothes surrounding their homes.
Yunior García, an artist and playwright who has emerged as the protest organizer, let it be known that his home was surrounded. An Associated Press photo of Garcia holding a white rose, an homage to Cuban patriot José Martí, through a window slat has gone viral.
The massive widespread street protest this summer, on July 11, surprised the government of Cuba’s Miguel DíazCanel and exiles in Miami, who quickly joined in, not to mention human-rights activists across the world.
This time, the young activists on the island hope everyone is watching. They succeeded in focusing the spotlight on the government’s possible violent reaction.
In Miami, Cuban exiles, who did gather in their usual spots, view the civil disobedience as the best chance in their generation to end the legacy of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. And high-powered Florida Republicans are also taking the opportunity to show support. Among them was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “You have a lot of people standing up and fighting against a brutal dictatorship,”
DeSantis said Monday at Miami’s Freedom Tower, where he announced that he will ask for $25 million from the Legislature to restore and preserve the tower, an enduring symbol for Cuban exiles, many of whom were processed into this country there.
Yes, a blatant move for votes, but, beyond that, appropriate on Monday. “Floridians should not stand for such a Marxist regime to exist 90 miles away,” DeSantis said.
The governor is on point here. And on the island, the Cuban also made their point: No mas.