Cuba Erupts in Anti-Communist Protest; Biden Official Suggests ‘Rising COVID Cases’ the Cause of Unrest

Minnesota Sun Staff
by Debra Heine

 

Massive protests broke out in Cuba on Sunday, with citizens shouting “freedom!” as they demonstrated against the corrupt and incompetent Communist regime. Cubans trapped in dire economic conditions took to the streets in over 32 Cuban cities, according to the Washington Times.

“Down with the dictatorship,” “We want liberty!” protesters reportedly chanted.

“We have NEVER seen a day like today in #Cuba 62 years of misery, repression & lies boiling over into organic, grassroots protests in over 32 cities,” tweeted Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a Cuban-American. Rubio said the people’s anger has been “building for months,” and has finally boiled over.

“The people are dying of hunger!” one woman shouted in Spanish during a protest in Artemisa province, as posted on Facebook. “Our children are dying of hunger!”

In a curious tweet about the unrest, a Biden administration official seemed to suggest that the protests were a reaction to the COVID pandemic, and related medicine shortages, not an uprising against Communist tyranny.

“Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages,”  tweeted Julie Chung, acting assistant secretary of state of Western Hemisphere affairs.

American leftists, including former President Obama and members of his administration, have invested much effort in painting the Cuban Communist dictatorship in a positive light.

“This is a ridiculous tweet,” Rubio wrote in response. “People in #Cuba are protesting 62 years of socialism, lies, tyranny & misery not “expressing concern about rising COVID cases/deaths.”

The senator dinged Joe Biden for neglection to acknowledge the protests Sunday. “Why is it so hard for @potus & the people in his administration to say that?” he asked.

Rubio said that Republicans would be raising the issue with the United Nations National Security Council and working to put “the full force of the United States government” behind the protesters’ efforts.

Rubio called on the Biden administration to demand that the Cuban military not fire on their own people.

In its Trending News section, Twitter absurdly described the mass protests as an effort “to spread awareness about the impact of COVID-19 in Cuba.” Rubio said Twitter’s reportage was “surreal but not surprising.”

Rubio noted that the Cuban secret police usually go after opposition leaders when night falls, but because the uprising was grassroots, and spontaneous, there were no leaders to abduct.

“The dark of night is when the regime in #Cuba carries out the abduction of leaders of the opposition to the evil socialist dictatorship. But this is a leaderless, grassroots & nationwide movement,” he tweeted.

The senator went on to predict that protests would continue. “The anger has been building up for months & it’s just getting started,” he wrote.

AP photographer Ramón Espinosa was reportedly seized and beaten by Cuban police while covering the protests in Havana.

https://twitter.com/JimenezEnoa/status/1414378199996305410

Rubio said Espinosa was “attacked and seized by in Cuba thugs in the socialist regimes security forces.”

The senator blasted Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, accusing him of “openly calling for bloodshed” in his remarks about the protest.

According to the Washington Times, Diaz-Canel went on Cuban TV and “urged government supporters to defend the regime on the streets and blamed the U.S. embargo for the widespread shortages.”

He called the demonstrations “systemic provocation” by dissidents and said the U.S. was trying to damage Cuba’s economy to “provoke a massive social implosion.”

Carolina Barrero, a Cuban activist, called the protests “spontaneous, frontal and forceful,” and a challenge to a regime that has kept an iron lid on dissent since taking power when Dwight Eisenhower was U.S. president.

“It is the most massive popular demonstration to protest the government that we have experienced in Cuba since ’59,” she told the Times by text message.

“What has happened is enormous,” she added.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sunday tweeted his support for the people of Cuba in their fight against the tyrannical regime.

“Florida supports the people of Cuba as they take to the streets against the tyrannical regime in Havana. The Cuban dictatorship has repressed the people of Cuba for decades & is now trying to silence those who have the courage to speak out against its disastrous policies,” DeSantis wrote.

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Debra Heine is a reporter at American Greatness.
Image “Cubans March for Liberty” by Movimiento San Isidro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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