A massive wave of protests took place this weekend against the communist Castro regime in Cuba in response to its severe mishandling of the emergency situation caused by the passage of Hurricane Ian.
Cuban citizens in some of the country’s largest cities marched in the streets demanding not just the end of nationwide power blackouts – a growing problem long before the hurricane touched land – but complete freedom from the communist regime that has ruled them for over six decades.
Cubans have been consistently protesting against the communist regime since the wave of national protests on July 11, 2021, that attracted global attention. Human rights groups documented over 30 protests between September 29 and October 1 this year, preceded by dozens of protests throughout August that prompted violent police crackdowns.
The latest wave of protests that began on Thursday intensified after Cuban citizens spent days without power and a severe lack of access to water, food, and supplies.
The protests have mainly taken place in the seat of power of the communist regime, Havana, which prompted the communist regime to shut down the nation’s internet connectivity and assault the peaceful protesters with the regime’s characteristic repression.
Throughout the weekend, the regime deployed its rapid response brigades composed of youth armed with sticks and sent them to repress the protesters with chants of “Fidel, we’re with you!”
Cuban online newspaper 14 y Medio reported on Sunday that the regime deployed hundreds of citizens armed with sticks to assault the protesters. The Cuban civil organization Justicia 11J announced on Monday that it had documented 24 arrests of peaceful protesters between September 29 and October 3. Of those arrested, 17 reportedly remained in police custody. Among those detained was 12-year-old Cristian Hernández Villavicencio, arrested during a protest in Santa Clara. The minor was held by the Castro regime’s Directorate for the Reeducation of Minors for 25 hours.
The website Diario de Cuba collected some of the accounts of the communist regime’s brutal repression against the peaceful protesters, including the testimony of Cuban activist Arián Cruz, also known as Tata Poet.
Cruz, who denounced that his girlfriend was arrested by the regime on Saturday for aiding the protesters and filming the repressive acts of the Cuban authorities, expressed that Cuban police and the regime’s “rapid response” agents began to brutally assault a group of citizens, including 15- to 16-year-old children.
“There was a boy who, if I remember correctly, is called José Antonio … that boy had his face disfigured with blows,” Cruz said.
“There was a boy who was thrown into the air and dropped on the floor,” Cruz continued while crying. “A girl who was being dragged by her hair … We can’t keep putting up with this, family.”
The situation in the Cuban province of Pinar del Río is one of the most dire in the island, with citizens having no access to food and basic services. Hurricane Ian passed through the westernmost region nearly two weeks ago.
Early estimates suggest that there are over 30,000 damaged houses, 2,200 of which were completely destroyed, and at least 228 evacuated Cuban families have no home to return to. In a pre-recorded video published by Cubanet on Sunday, Cuban cultural activist Yoelkis Torres Tapanes reported the dire situation in the Campo Alegre community.
“The food supply has not arrived, there is no bread, there is no water, there is nothing,” said Torres Tapanes, while asserting that many of the Castro regime’s authorities were yet to make any sort of appearance in the area. “No one has come to find out what they need or what they have lost.”
On Monday, Cuban authorities reported that, while 95.3 percent of Havana has had its power restored, only 7.3 percent of Pinar del Río has recovered power, with no estimates given for a complete restoration of the power grid.
Rather than acknowledge the protests and provide proper support to its citizens during the course of the emergency, the Castro regime has opted to downplay and minimize the protests while threatening protesters with retaliation.
The regime’s puppet president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, traveled to Pinar del Río on Sunday, where he denied the legitimacy of the peaceful protests and accused the protesters of committing acts of vandalism and promoting “counter-revolutionary expressions,” that, according to him, are financed by foreign factors.
Díaz-Canel, who took the opportunity to blame America’s “embargo” for “not letting them progress in the socialist construction,” accused the protesters of being influenced by what he referred to as “haters,” threatening the protesters with a response from the regime.
“These people take advantage of these circumstances to make other types of expressions, which are counterrevolutionary; they try to commit acts of vandalism, such as closing roads, throwing stones at economic or social facilities; and that is already out of the law,” Díaz-Canel said.
While the official stance of the Castro regime is that the aftermath of Hurricane Ian is the main cause for the long blackouts in Cuba, the ongoing complete deterioration of the nation’s obsolete power grid is largely to blame.
Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, a regime spy responsible for the deaths of U.S. citizens that former President Barack Obama freed as a concession to the Castro regime, also expressed criticism against Cuban peaceful protesters through his Twitter account on Saturday, while praising the regime’s recovery labor in La Coloma.
Lis Cuesta Peraza, Díaz-Canel’s wife, also used her Twitter account to express on Saturday that, according to her, the Cuban people must do “everything necessary to overcome” Cuba’s current situation — except surrender the Revolution.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.