Cuban dictator Raúl Castro made a guest appearance at the first communist May Day parade in Cuba since the pandemic, expressing “hope in the management of the Party” as it struggles to contain mounting pro-democracy protests.
Castro, 90, did not formally deliver a speech at the occasion as he had once done. The keynote for the day went to Politburo member Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, a sign of recognition of the extreme unpopularity that Castro’s figurehead “president,” Miguel Díaz-Canel has among the Cuban population. He instead made some brief remarks supporting Díaz-Canel and emphasizing that he believed that young communists were doing a good job of keeping alive his brother Fidel’s legacy of violent repression, poverty, and foreign destabilization.
“People like me, and millions of Cubans, have hope in the management of the Party, of the new generations managing the Party, especially in the president [Díaz-Canel] who is working well and very much, sometimes more than expected,” Castro said in a video shared by the Communist Party of Cuba on Twitter, as shared by the Spain-based publication Diario de Cuba.
The diminutive repressor appeared beside Díaz-Canel in a tan military uniform and hat, incorrectly wearing a sanitary mask on his chin.
#Cuba "Tengo el corazón lleno de alegría", dijo Raúl instantes después de que concluyera el desfile en la capital cubana. Como él, tenemos esperanza, confianza. Hay que seguir batalllando #CubaViveYTrabaja pic.twitter.com/Y3nQFYLn2H
— Partido Comunista de Cuba (@PartidoPCC) May 1, 2022
“My heart – now that I am 91 that I will turn on June 3 – is full of happiness,” Castro affirmed.
Castro appeared marching for a short distance and waving a Cuban flag at the parade next to Díaz-Canel, who has eschewed the faux-military uniforms that the Castro brothers prefer in exchange for ill-fitting t-shirts and traditional country fedoras.
May Day, sometimes known as “International Workers’ Day” or “Labor Day,” is an annual celebration of communism. Communist regimes around the world typically mark the day with parades featuring homages to the mass murderers who brought communism to the country – the Cuban parade featured many holding up photos of Fidel Castro, while Chinese events typically celebrate Mao Ze-Dong, for example. In the free world, leftists typically observe the day by engaging in violent riots.
Cuba had canceled its annual parade for two years in response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic was front and center at this year’s event, as the march began with a group holding up banners reading “long live the health workers,” and some communists held up models of coronavirus cells appearing to be injected by a vaccine. Cuban government scientists have developed several dubious coronavirus vaccine candidates whose efficacy the international scientific community has not had the chance to prove. Cuba also actively promotes its healthcare system – which is barely functional at home – to sell friendly countries doctors and other health workers as slaves for billions in annual revenue.
Guilarte de Nacimiento, the keynote speaker at the parade, celebrated “Cuba’s victory against the pandemic” in addition to proclaiming the alleged continued popularity of the regime on the island. Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, published verbose homages to the parade, declaring that the streets of Havana were “brimming with enthusiasm” and the crowd was “happy and committed to the Fatherland and the international festival of workers.”
The May Day parade has been the source of some frustration for the regime in the past, as dissidents often do not participate and, on at least one occasion in 2017, have actively called for the regime to fall in the middle of the parade. Turnout appeared to be a major concern this year as multiple reports from the island revealed that Communist Party officials and their local neighborhood henchmen heavily “pressured” citizens to attend.
“The marches in the [national] capital and in the regional capitals were convened by the Workers’ Central Union of Cuba and consisted of [members] of mass organizations subordinate to the PCC [Cuban Communist Party],” the independent outlet Cubanet reported this weekend. “Various independent media informed in prior marches of the pressure exerted over workers in various sectors to make them participate in marches, considered by the regime ‘acts of political reaffirmation.'”
Several anonymous workers told the outlet ADN Cuba that they felt personally harassed or threatened to attend the event.
“It was a forward and direct threat: those who do not participate will not be able to sign up for lists for when they bring in trucks that the bank takes care of,” an anonymous source said, referring to foodstuffs imported and distributed to Cubans. Cuba has suffered for the entirety of Díaz-Canel’s time as figurehead of major food shortages, as well as the lack of basic medicines and other goods.
Outside of the cities, ADN Cuba cited a report from the U.S.-based Martí Noticias quoting farmers who said they were threatened with losing access to the land they live on if they did not attend the rallies. As Cuba is a communist country, farmers do not own their land.
“They pressure them with taking away the contracts for their land … others of them are indebted to the bank, the state has totally lost its power to convene,” Esteban Ajete Abascal, the head of the League of Independent Farmers in western Pinar del Rio, told Martí last week. The outlet cited another local expert who said that the regime was even struggling to excite Party members about the parade: “it’s not just the people, regime sympathizers who are unhappy are included and at this moment the authorities are using all sorts of pressure to make them march.”
On-the-ground reports this weekend indicated that the regime bussed in large numbers of people from around the country out of fear that not enough locals would show on Sunday. The independent news site 14 y Medio reported that locals saw lines of buses long enough that they could not see the end of them in Havana.
“I walked for 13 minutes, timed by my watch, and the line of buses wouldn’t end,” an anonymous Havana resident told the newspaper. “They brought out all the buses that we hadn’t seen in months here.”
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