RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of Havana on Sunday to demonstrate peacefully with chants of “freedom” until they were intercepted by security forces and brigades of government supporters, leading to violent clashes and arrests.
Clashes between protesters and pro-government demonstrators took place in the central Fraternity Park, in front of the Capitol, where more than a thousand people gathered with a strong presence of military and police forces, who made several arrests.
THE LARGEST PROTEST IN 27 YEARS
However, a group of several hundred demonstrators managed to evade the police cordon and headed en masse along the emblematic Paseo del Prado towards the Malecon with their arms raised and shouting slogans such as “freedom”, “homeland and life,” and “dictators”, about the country’s leaders.
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Organized brigades of government supporters also came to the place, shouting “I am Fidel” or “Canel, my friend, the people are with you”.
The event could make history since it is the first time that a large group of Cubans has taken to the streets of Havana to protest against the Government since the famous “Maleconazo” of 1994, at the height of the “special period” crisis.
INTERNET BLACKOUT
Proof of the seriousness of the situation is that the authorities have cut the Internet mobile data service throughout the country, presumably to prevent the dissemination of videos of the protests and reduce the participants’ ability to gather.
The demonstration in Havana comes after a wave of spontaneous protests this Sunday in different parts of the country, the first of them in San Antonio de los Baños, where a mass of people took to the streets to demand freedom and criticize the government for the lack of food, medicines and the continuous blackouts suffered by this town, which is 30 kilometers east of the capital.
The demonstration in San Antonio, harshly repressed by the police according to witnesses, was broadcast live on Facebook until the Internet was cut off, which presumably lit the fuse for similar acts in other localities such as Güira de Melena and Alquízar (west), Palma Soriano (east), Cienfuegos (center) and Havana.
THE PRESIDENT BLAMES THE US.
The demonstrations have arisen at a time of severe crisis in Cuba, which is suffering a worrisome shortage of medicines and basic products and is also going through the third and worst wave of covid-19, with extremely high contagion rates in the most affected regions.
The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, appeared today on two occasions. First, he went to San Antonio de los Baños accompanied by a group of supporters and security forces, he accused “mercenary people paid by the U.S. government” of organizing the protests.
He later spoke live on state television, where he urged his supporters to be ready for “combat” to protest against his administration.