‘People need help’: Thousands rally in D.C. to pressure Biden on Cuba
Cuban-American protesters in Washington marked the 26th of July with a vigil and rally to urge President Joe Biden to do more to pressure the regime in Havana.
Artemio and Marlen Garcia left Miami at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday to arrive in Washingprotests ton shortly before a midnight vigil to mark the 26th of July.
The purpose of their journey, complete with Cuban flags and honking all along Interstate 95, was to raise awareness for pro-democracy
that broke out throughout Cuba on July 11 and to pressure the Biden administration into action.
“People need help,” Marlen Garcia, 60, said. “The Cuban government needs pressure, like America and other countries did with apartheid South Africa.”
The Garcias were part of a group of thousands of Cuban-American protesters that took over downtown Washington and Lafayette Park
outside the White House on Sunday evening and Monday. After a midday rally with Republicans in Congress, the crowd marched to the Cuban Embassy.
As an 18-wheeler with “S.O.S. Cuba” spray-painted on its trailer did laps around the White House honking its horn, the crowd on Monday morning swelled to a few thousand people.
Many of the protesters were born in Cuba and still have family there.
And while there was disagreement on what the U.S. can or should do to bring democracy to Cuba, there was widespread agreement among the demonstrators that the U.S. embargo should remain in place and that food and vaccines are not spurring demonstrations in Cuba. Instead, they said the July 11 protests were a call for freedom that can’t be ignored.
“The main thing we want from Biden is to put pressure on the Cuban government,” said Lazaro Veida, 56, who flew from Phoenix to join the protest. “For whatever reason, they don’t want to do it.”
MIAMI REPUBLICANS SHOW UP
After the crowd grew from a few hundred to a few thousand on Monday morning, Miami’s three Cuban-American Republicans in the House of Representatives and Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott headlined a group of GOP lawmakers who fired up the demonstrators.
They were introduced by Alexander Otaola, a Cuban-American YouTube host and activist popular with the exile community who helped organize and promote
Monday’s protest. After Otaola led a “Where is Biden?” chant, he handed the mic over to Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Florida’s longest-serving member of Congress.
“We’re not here to ask for aspirin. We’re not hear to ask for remittances,” Diaz-Balart said. “We’re here to ask for one thing — freedom. Where the hell are you, Mr. President?”
While the crowd spontaneously chanted “intervention,” none of the speakers on stage, which included Republican U.S. Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar, Carlos Gimenez, Dan Crenshaw, Nicole Malliotakis, Michael McCaul, Michael Waltz and Victoria Spartz, explicitly called for the U.S. military to get involved. Instead the group presented a unified message of prodding Biden to do everything in his power to provide internet to Cuba and speak out more forcefully against the regime in Havana.
“We are respectfully sending a message to President Biden, please be with the Cubans, we need your leadership we need your guide, we need the White House,” Salazar said. “The White House can do two things, rally the international community and turn on the WiFi.”
After the rally, the lawmakers also sent a letter to Biden demanding a meeting to discuss their concerns.
No elected Democrats showed up at Monday’s protest.
CANDLELIGHT VIGIL
The protests began on Sunday evening and continued through the night, with thousands of antiregime protesters gathered outside the White House just before midnight to mark the 26th of July Monday with a candlelight vigil. Alex Perez and Chris Cruz stood off to the side and smiled at the scene.
“I’m 27 and I never thought I would live to see something like this,” said Perez, a Hialeah resident who came to the United States from Cuba seven years ago. “We need to make sure there’s pressure for people who didn’t have to go through what I went through to know what’s going on in Cuba.”
Perez and Cruz made plans weeks ago to come to Washington for a demonstration timed for July 26, the date that Fidel Castro led his first attack against the Batista government and a national holiday in Cuba. They ended up getting 10 of their friends to join them in a rental van after mass pro-democracy protests broke out across Cuba on July 11.
“We saw a lot of people on I-95 with Cuban flags and messages on their cars,” Cruz said Sunday. “Tomorrow is going to be intense but I know people will keep their cool.”
The pair of 27-year-olds from Hialeah were part of the first wave of demonstrators who arrived in Washington from all over the country. Though the largest contingent of protesters were from Miami, others hailed from New Jersey and Texas.
Their message — and location just steps from President Joe Biden’s residence — was a sign that they want the U.S. to do more. Not everyone was in agreement on what “more” means.
Some protesters walked with signs calling for U.S. military intervention. Others said the U.S. should use every means possible to get internet to Cubans on the island who are attempting to resist the regime. And Perez and Cruz said they favored a “humanitarian intervention” where the U.S. and other countries enter Cuba with supplies and equipment that can be directly delivered to the people instead of the government.
“I think Cuba needs a human intervention, not bombs,” Perez said. “Biden should not only say what is the right thing to do, he should do it.”
HEADING TO THE EMBASSY
After the elected officials spoke, the crowd began to move out of Lafayette Park and into the streets. They were on their way to the Cuban embassy about three miles north of the White House.
As the protesters left the park, three counterprotesters from Code Pink shouted at the crowd, calling for an end to the embargo. They were protected by police, and protest organizers blocked fellow protesters who were incensed at Code Pink from getting physical.
Jose Rodriguez, a 29year-old from Miami who flew to Washington for the protest, said he hoped their gathering outside the embassy caught the attention of the regime.
“The government has got to get out of power,” said Rodriguez, who favors military intervention because the government “has all the power and the arms.”
“Dialogue is not an option anymore,” said Maria Cardona, who traveled from Miami with Rodriguez and stood outside of the closed Cuban consulate building, which was overgrown with weeds across the street from the embassy.
During his speech at the White House, Sen. Scott called for the embassy to close, a position shared by Rodriguez and Cardona, though they said they didn’t think the closure would make much difference.
While protest organizers had a permit to stay in
Lafayette Park throughout the day Monday, the Secret Service ordered protesters out of the park around 2 p.m. At the same time, Biden was meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi in the White House nearby and security in the area increased considerably.
Streets a block away from the White House were closed to vehicle traffic during Biden and Al-Kadhimi’s meeting. By the time the crowd returned from the Cuban embassy around 3:30, they were able to reenter the park.
The Secret Service declined to comment on the closures, citing security reasons.
PROTESTERS FROM FLORIDA, TEXAS AND ELSEWHERE
Thousands of protesters arrived on Monday morning after Sunday night’s inital wave. Maria Fundora, who leads a Texasbased group called Cuba Libre that provides legal assistance to Cubans making asylum claims, said at least 18 buses left from Miami and only three had arrived in Washington by Sunday evening. Other caravans came from Tampa and Texas, she said.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Fundora asked. She said the last two weeks stirred up so much emotion for her that she “can’t concentrate.”
Fundora, 59, said she favors military intervention in Cuba and noted the U.S. military presence in Guantánamo Bay. She isn’t happy with Biden’s response to the protests in Cuba so far and said
“what he’s not doing guarantees a Trump 2024 ticket.”
“All they need to do is open the gate,” Fundora said, referring to the U.S. military. “We went into Kuwait, Somalia and didn’t ask for anyone’s permission. We went in and killed Osama bin Laden and didn’t ask anyone. Are you telling me someone from Cuba needs to do something as horrible as 9/11 to get the U.S. to do something?”
The mood outside the White House on Monday was largely festive, with constant chants of “Libertad” and ““Patria y Vida,” or “Homeland and Life.” Almost everyone was holding a Cuban flag or wearing one on their shirt, and American flags were also a constant presence. A smattering of pride flags were waved as one speaker noted how the Castro regime harasses and prosecutes LGBTQ activists in Cuba.
At midnight on Sunday, the White House’s red, white and blue floodlights in honor of the ongoing Tokyo Olympics went dark, but the protesters’ candles and cellphone lights partially illuminated the scene.
As a video screen played scenes of protesters being beaten by police in Cuba, Yumila Aguedo stopped to take a photo with a banner.
Aguedo decided to drive to Washington from Hialeah after watching an episode of Otaola’s YouTube program, “Hola Ota-Ola.” Aguedo, a 40year-old who came to the U.S. 14 years ago, said she worries constantly about her mother, father and brother who are still in Cuba.
“They are scared,” Aguedo said. “I think the U.S. has to think about how to help us, not with food and not with medicine. If [Biden] stands up for us, he can do it.”