Four months after protests erupted in Cuba, the Communist government faced a fresh challenge Monday as activists called people into the streets to press for more freedoms and the release of political prisoners.
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Yet authorities made clear they would not tolerate the kind of mass demonstrations that rocked the island last summer. They denied a permit for Monday’s “Civic March for Change,” calling it a U.S.-backed operation to destroy the Cuban system. Before the march, swarms of police in plain clothes encircled the homes of activists and independent journalists, preventing them from leaving.
“If the streets are militarized, the main opposition leaders can’t go out, and the press can’t go out, it will be difficult to do anything,” Abraham Jiménez Enoa, an independent journalist who contributes opinions to The Washington Post, said in a telephone interview. A day earlier, security forces had surrounded his Havana apartment building, telling him he was under house arrest.
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“There is an enormous deployment of police and use of repression,” he said. “We are living a state of siege.”
The best-known protest organizer, 39-year-old playwright Junior García Aguilera, was barred from leaving his apartment by swarms of plainclothes police and government supporters, and his telephone lines and Internet were cut off. On Sunday afternoon, he waved a white rose from his apartment window and hung a sign reading: “My house is blocked.” People stationed on the roof promptly dropped a giant Cuban flag over the side of the building, covering his windows.
Cuba harasses, detains activists on eve of planned protest march
Cuban authorities had planned to reopen the island to vacationers on Monday, in hopes of reinvigorating an economy devastated by 20 months of covid-19 restrictions. Instead, the day became the latest flash point in a conflict between communist authorities and an opposition movement led by artists and young people. Activists used a Facebook forum, Archipiélago, to call for the protest and urge support from other countries as well. They said marches were planned in 120 cities around the world.
Camilo Condis, a Cuban entrepreneur who hosts the podcast “El Enjambre” (The Swarm), said it was predictable that the government would detain the protest organizers. The question was whether the public would still risk arrest by marching. “What we have to see is what will happen with the people who are not activists, who aren’t well-known, who will not have a patrol car in front of their houses, waiting for them,” he said.
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It was such ordinary people who powered the spontaneous demonstrations in July. They surged into the streets across Cuba, angered by food shortages, blackouts and a medical system overwhelmed by the covid-19 pandemic. “Freedom! Freedom!” they shouted.
Security forces broke up those marches, arresting hundreds of people. Since then, the government has promised to legalize small- and medium-sized businesses, one of the most dramatic economic reforms in years. The pandemic has ebbed after a massive vaccination campaign.
Yet many Cubans are struggling after GDP plunged 11 percent last year, due to the pandemic and U.S. sanctions.
Cuba's communist leaders have long resisted change. Protests show the risk of delaying it.
The Biden administration has threatened new sanctions if Cuban authorities use violence against protesters on Monday. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Cuba’s “intimidation tactics.”
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“We call on the Cuban government to respect Cubans’ rights, by allowing them to peacefully assemble and use their voices without fear of government reprisal or violence, and by keeping Internet and telecommunication lines open,” he said in a statement.
For their part, Cuban authorities have denied the existence of a broad opposition movement. Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called Monday’s protest “a destabilizing operation designed in Washington.”
Stripped naked, beaten, forced to shout "Viva Fidel": Cuba's crackdown on dissent
On the Facebook site Archipiélago, which convoked Monday’s protests, activists urged citizens nervous about participating to instead show their support by banging pots and pans, wearing white, applauding marchers and boycotting state-run television. If people encountered soldiers at designated protest sites, the forum suggested, they should instead go to parks and hold celebrations with dancing and singing.
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“Our objective is to end the use of violence, not multiply it,” García Aguilera wrote in a statement published online, urging demonstrators to avoid confrontation. “Our goal is to free the political prisoners, not add to the lists of detainees.”
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