Miami demonstrators block highway to support Cuban protests

Demonstrators backing rare street protests by thousands in communist Cuba have blocked a stretch of a major South Florida highway

Miami demonstrators block highway to support Cuban protestsBy BOBBY CAINA CALVAN and MARTA LAVANDIERAssociated PressThe Associated PressMIAMI

MIAMI (AP) — Demonstrators expressing solidarity with the thousands of Cubans who waged a rare weekend of protests around their island nation shut down a stretch of a major South Florida expressway on Tuesday.

The large group of protesters gathered at a busy Miami intersection in support of the Cubans, who had taken to the streets of several communities around the communist nation on Sunday to air grievances over poor economic conditions, among other complaints.

South Florida is home to the largest U.S. population of Cuban Americans.

News helicopter footage from media outlet WTVJ showed a group of demonstrators in Miami marching to the nearby Palmetto Expressway, where several of them sat down and began blocking traffic in one direction on the major divided highway. Traffic was eventually blocked in both directions, and police weren’t immediately moving demonstrators.

As supporters flooded South Florida streets, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis held a round table with elected officials, including members of Congress. The gathering at Miami’s American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora was closed to reporters, but the governor and others asserted at a news conference later that protests in Cuba were more than just about shortages of vaccines, food and other basic items.

“They are revolting against a corrupt communist dictatorship that has ruled that island with an iron fist for over 60 years, that is responsible for death and destruction, not just on the island of Cuba but really throughout the Western Hemisphere,” DeSantis said, adding the Cubans wanted a “a fresh start” and “a free society.”

Nationwide protests last year, under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement sought to bring attention to racial injustice in the U.S. after the killings of Black people by police. Earlier this year, DeSantis signed into Florida law a measure that enhanced penalties against protestors who turn violent, and bring criminal penalties against those who organize demonstrations that turn violent. DeSantis dismissed similarities between Black Lives Matter and Tuesday’s demonstrators.

“These are people that are rebelling against a communist dictatorship,” the governor said. He said the demonstrations in Miami were “fundamentally different than what we saw last summer.”

DeSantis, who is said to be considering a run for the White House in 2024, declined to directly respond to how Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration should be addressing the Cuba developments. But he said federal officials should not be satisfied with the Cuban government making small accommodations to quell demonstrations.

DeSantis and others urged the communist government to restore internet service so Cubans could share their grievances with the world. Failing that, DeSantis said, he encouraged private businesses to find some way to help Cubans regain internet access.

Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, whose parents were Cuban exiles, said the community needs to speak with one voice in persuading the Biden administration to stand tough against the Cuban government.

“We cannot negotiate with the regime at this hour,” Salazar said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami has been monitoring any activity aimed at increasing “unsafe and illegal” crossings between Florida and Cuba in response to rare street protests on the island.

Rear Adm. Eric C. Jones issued a warning statement Monday night as groups of Cuban immigrants said they planned to travel in boats filled with supplies to Cuba to show support for the Cuban protesters.

In Miami, Cuban social media personalities posted Monday that they would make the 10-hour boat ride to Cuba to show support after rare street protests broke out over the weekend, the Miami Herald reported. The influencers said they would bring aid — and guns — and urged people in Miami to offer up their boats.

One group gathered Monday night at Pelican Harbor Marina near Miami’s North Bay Village, and people brought cases of bottled water, flashlights and boxes of canned pasta, the newspaper reported.

“Water, food, medicine, whatever we can take to Cuba. Whatever we can take to help is good,” organizer Dennis Suayero told WSVN.

The group didn’t get very far on a rainy Monday night.

A message posted on organizer Santiago Rivera’s Instagram account early Tuesday said the Coast Guard stopped his group from crossing the Florida Straits because of “problems with firearms.”

Over the weekend, thousands of Cuban Americans gathered in Miami’s Little Havana district, expressing support for the Cubans who joined street marches against high prices and food shortages on the island. Such unsanctioned protests are extremely rare, and Cuban police were out in force on Monday to control them.

The last such demonstrations in Havana took place in 1994. President Miguel Díaz-Canel accusing Cuban Americans of using social media to egg them on.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a Cuban American, tweeted that he has never “felt such raw emotion from the people of Miami desperate for intervention by the government and by themselves on behalf of Cuba.”