Communist Cuba erupted in its largest-scale demonstrations in decades on Sunday as thousands of people chanting “freedom” and “yes, we can” took to the streets from Havana to Santiago de Cuba in a major new challenge to an authoritarian government struggling to cope with increasingly severe blackouts, food shortages and a spiking coronavirus outbreak,
The Washington Post reports.
The protests, from Havana’s famous Malecon to small towns and the island nation’s eastern cities, spoke to the power of social media, as well as discontent that has bubbled to the surface in the worsening pandemic, during which Cuba has already witnessed growing political protests led by artists and musicians.
The protests on Sunday apparently started in the city of San Antonio de los Baños and spread rapidly as demonstrators shared their protests on Facebook Live. The demonstrations were so large that President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded Raúl Castro this year as first secretary of the Communist Party, called on Cuba’s “revolutionary” citizens to take to the streets.
Witnesses said Cuban security personnel deployed tear gas and other forms of force to disperse crowds, using vehicles to detain dozens of people. There were reports of multiple people wounded, as security forces and pro-government counterdemonstrators clashed with protesters.
On social media, images appeared of Cuban citizens confronting officials in the authoritarian state, standing on what appeared to be overturned police cars and talking into cameras, bloodied and defiant after melees with government loyalists and police.
José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said his group had received reports that at least 20 people had been arrested. He added that the organization had received reports of violence being used by Cuban forces, a claim echoed by social media users sharing videos of wounded protesters.
The protests exceeded frustrations of food lines and power scarcities, venturing into a challenge to the police state itself. Protesters could be heard chanting “Patria y Vida” — Homeland and Life — a play on the communist slogan “Homeland or Death” that has become a social media phenomenon among Cuban artists, musicians and dissidents.
