Giuliani speaks to small crowd
As thousands of Cuban Americans marched in Washington Monday to call for the U.S. to put more pressure on Cuba’s government, former President Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani came to Miami to denounce Cuba’s communist regime. He spoke to a small group of people outside of Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana.
The protests in Washington and Giuliani’s rallyturned-news conference were held on July 26, which marks 68 years since Fidel Castro led his first attack against Fulgencio Batista’s government in Cuba and began his revolution. July 26 is a national holiday in Cuba.
In Miami, about 10 people carrying Cuban flags and wearing shirts and caps with slogans such as “Patria y Vida” and “Cuba SOS,” were outside of the landmark Cuban restaurant Monday morning as hornhonking cars drove by in support. About a dozen police lined the street and set up an impromptu watch tower in the Versailles parking lot.
Giuliani, also the former mayor of New York City, entered the restaurant at about 9 a.m. and did not come out until about 12:30 p.m. to give his remarks in a short, improvised press conference under a scorching sun. He spoke to a group of about 15 people surrounding him, including five protesters who were there since the morning and stood near him. Some of the people waiting to be seated in the restaurant for lunch also walked closer and listened in.
Standing at a makeshift microphone set up by the restaurant’s main entrance, Giuliani in his brief remarks described the Cuban government as one of the most “inhumane, indecent, horrible regimes” in history. He denounced the imprisonment of artist Anyelo Troya, who filmed part of the “Patria y Vida” musical video.
He also criticized President Joe Biden for his reaction to the island’s protests that erupted July 11, which Giuliani believes “will be a very important day in the history of liberty and freedom.”
He said: “It took our president four days to respond to this.” Then added: “And then he made a statement that’s pathetic.”
Biden issued a release July 12 that said in part, “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”
Giuliani said he didn’t organize the rally. He didn’t say who did. He also said nobody invited him — he just happened to decide to visit Monday.
When asked why the turnout was so low, Giuliani didn’t respond. One of the attendees volunteered an answer for him, half-shouting that the majority of the exile community traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest in front of the White House.
South Florida has seen a wave of demonstrations in the past two weeks, with hundreds gathering and marching across MiamiDade County in solidarity with the people in Cuba who are calling for freedom. Sunday marked two weeks since protests began in Cuba on July 11. Cuban authorities began prosecuting people who participated in the unprecedented anti-government demonstrations in summary trials last week.
Meanwhile, other Miami
events in solidarity with Cubans on the island took place later Monday:
A couple dozen people showed up to a “Freedom Vigil” at Hialeah Park Racing and Casino, joined by local and state officials — including Miami-Dade County Commissioner René García, Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez and MiamiDade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
In Broward County, another protest took place in Pembroke Pines.
And in Calle Ocho, a crowd of over 100 people gathered Monday evening
near the Little Havana mural and marched west on Southwest Eighth
Street, carrying Cuban flags and signs that said “Freedom for Cuba.”
“Despite the fact that I live here in the United States, I am Cuban . ... I have my mother, I have my whole family there in Cuba and it hurts me so much that that country is being destroyed by communism,” said Sanchez, 63, who was joining a Cuba protest in Miami for the first time on Monday. “This had to come, [Cuban leaders] are running on empty.”