‘They Are Starving Us to Death’: Hundreds of Cubans Protest Castro Regime

Demonstrators and government officials argue during a protest calling for the restoration
Ramon Espinosa/AP
Frances Martel

The small town of Caimanera, Cuba, bordering the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, erupted in protests this weekend demanding freedom, respect for human rights, and access to basic food supplies.

The communist Castro regime responded to the protests, which began on Saturday evening, by “militarizing” the town of an estimated 11,000 people. Participants recorded members of Cuban state security forces, including the notorious “Black Beret” repressors, punching, kicking, and beating protesters as they shouted “freedom,” “long live human rights,” and other pro-democracy slogans. The videos show civilians, mostly women, attempting to physically assault the repressors in response.

At least five people, all young men, disappeared on the night of the protest, believed to be in police custody.

The protest in eastern Cuba is the latest in a nearly uninterrupted stream of mass acts of civil disobedience since July 11, 2021, when an estimated 187,000 people took to the streets to demand an end to communism in nearly every municipality. The non-governmental organization, the Cuban Observatory for Conflict, documented nearly 4,000 anti-communist protests in Cuba throughout 2022.

The independent outlet Cubanet reported that hundreds of people in Caimanera, which borders Guantánamo Bay, began convening on an open road around 7 p.m. local time shouting pro-democracy slogans, attracting more local residents. Some shouted “freedom!” while others shouted a common slogan at Cuban protests, “fatherland and life,” a play on the mid-century communist slogan “fatherland or death.” The Cuban independent outlet 14 y Medio reported that witnesses heard some protesters outside the Party headquarters shouting, “down with the communist system!”

Other outlets noted some shouting, “we are hungry!” and saying “they did not believe the excuse of the embargo.” The Castro regime regularly blames the American embargo for shortages of basic needs in Cuba, despite the embargo from the United States to Cuba being much less severe than the Cuban regime embargo on American products. Also, the U.S. embargo contains humanitarian exemptions that allow for mass shipments of food and medicine to Cubans.

One group reached the local headquarters of the Communist Party, the only legal political party in the country, and began demanding an end to the Castro regime.

Warning – explicit language throughout:

#Urgente. “Vivan los derechos humanos “ gritan en Caimanera.Hemos perdido contacto con nuestra fuente en la localidad. Su conexión a Internet cayó mientras detallaba al medio qué sucedía. Denunciamos que pueden haber cortado el Internet, una estrategia que aplican en escenarios de protestas.

Posted by CubaNet Noticias on Saturday, May 6, 2023

“First, three men came out and started protesting … and the people joined them,” an anonymous witness told Cubanet. “We walked Caimanera until we got to the [local] park and passed by the Party headquarters, where nobody came out [to join the protest] because the police are headquartered there, we think analyzing what to do.”

The witness told Cubanet that residents of Caimanera are surviving on five pounds of rice a month and “bread with sugar.”

“They are starving us to death while they live well. We go to hospitals and they treat us with lemon grass because there’s no medicine,” the witness explained.

Another anonymous witness told Cubanet that the government had given the town “just two little pounds of rice” in May so far.

“We have nothing. They aren’t bringing meat anymore, now it’s just ground meat and only when it comes. In April, we didn’t get oil. It’s all a lie and a farce,” the second witness said.

The protest attracted severe repression by the Black Berets, a group of special forces designed to persecute the Cuban people within the island who reportedly received training from Chinese regime paramilitaries used against protesters in Hong Kong.

Shortly before the documented assaults on protesters are believed to have begun, around 9 p.m. local time Saturday, the government appeared to have shut down internet access for the country. The monitoring organization Netblocks confirmed a “collapse in internet traffic in Cuba” during the protests. The 14 y Medio outlet noted that some Cubans overcame the block by using a VPN.

The Cuban government confirmed an incident in Caimanera shortly thereafter but alleged in a statement that the three men who began the protest were “consuming alcoholic beverages.” In a separate statement on Sunday, the Cuban armed forces ministry similarly dismissed the protests as apolitical.

“In Caimanera municipality, an incident of indiscipline occurred at a public party due to inebriated persons,” the statement read. “The population contributed to the restoration of order.”

The government’s claim prompted mockery from anti-regime Cubans nationwide and in the diaspora. “We can take Havana with four drunks,” one social media user joked. Another popular meme showed a sign outside an unknown residence that read, “I have good rum. With one cup you yell ‘fatherland and life,’ with the second you take the streets.”

Independent journalist Yeris Curbelo, who lives in Caimanera, confirmed the disappearance of five men following the protests: Yandris Pelier Matos and two sets of brothers: Felipe Correa Martínez and Luis Miguel Alarcón Martínez, and Rodi and Daniel Álvarez González.

Curbelo said all were brutalized before their disappearance. In the case of Alarcón Martínez, Cuban state security beat him until he was unconscious and carried him out of the street.

“The dictatorship now says that they were drunk to discredit them, when no one ever saw them with a bottle or glass of drink, or stumbling or slurring their speech,” Curbelo told Cubanet. “They were very clear in what they were saying.”

Curbelo described Caimanera on Sunday as “totally militarized.”

The website ADN Cuba reported on Monday that police forced Curbelo into an “interrogation” on the grounds that he interviewed the families of those arrested.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.