They painted the contents this Tuesday in San Antonio de los Baños, cradle of the July 11 protests. The buildings were also decorated, despite the lack of water. To these tasks was added a strong police presence that activists such as Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez attributed to the possible publication this Wednesday of the sentences of the protesters of that day of demands.
The reason for so much preparation is the visit of the secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to the province, which meets this Wednesday to “evaluate how the Party works with the agreements of the 8th Congress, contained in the ideas, concepts and guidelines,” according to authorities announced.
“What I am sure of is that, if it touches the subject of water, a tap will open and a pressurized jet will come out that will split the cement, an action that will be recorded by the NTV technical team”
Among the meetings, in schools and hospitals, among others, that are taking place in the province, the first in the morning was that of Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretariat and head of the Social Sector Department, with science students Doctors of San Antonio de los Baños. Although the neighbors expected more: the arrival of Miguel Díaz-Canel himself.
“Will you dance guaguancó? Will you improvise a tenth?” 14ymedio a resident at the location on Tuesday. “We’ll see. What I am sure of is that, if it touches the issue of water, a tap will open and a pressurized jet will come out that will split the cement, an action that the NTV technical team will record as proof that the repair is progressing and progress is made with quality. It may be that, from that, we get a little bit, “he ironized.
María de los Ángeles Alfonso, a retired engineer from San Antonio, who recounted the drama of the lack of water to this newspaper a week ago, said that the effects of her claims began to be felt last Saturday, when water arrived in her neighborhood for several hours continuously.
“Not the trickle that was reaching us every five days, but water in the sink, sink and even shower. I was checking with old colleagues and I learned that they decided to use the wells and turbines of the Lázaro Peña Tobacco Company, because the harvest was over, and with this benefit a part of the population and palliate the shortage until the work is finished,” he explained.
According to his testimony, barely a quarter of the population benefited from the measure, but some rumors suggest that work is being done to ask other agricultural companies for help to temporarily support the Government in solving the issue “that has brought so much displeasure.”
Other less fortunate sources told 14ymedio that the water was only reaching them every five days, as the authorities announced. But there are still those that are worse off, affirm the neighbors, since there are more days that they have to wait for the supply.
This is one of the reasons that ended up causing the explosion of July 11 among a population tired of living without basic necessities, harassed by covid and fed up with the lack of solutions, in addition to the absence of freedoms. The sentences of the San Antonio detainees are expected this Wednesday, so the group between the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) and State Security is interpreted as a way to dissuade the population to go out on the street again when the sentences are known, he told Cubanet Juan Luis Bravo Rodríguez, member of the Unión por Cuba Libre party and the Emilia Project.
“They took the streets of San Antonio de los Baños and public centers in order to strongly repress any demonstration that existed today in that municipality”
“They took the streets of San Antonio de los Baños and public centers in order to strongly repress any demonstration that existed today in that municipality,” he argued. Many of the defendants who must receive their final sentence this Wednesday militate in the movements of which the opponent is a part, who also denounced that the internet connection and the telephone lines of some activists had been cut.
San Antonio de los Baños was the Cuban municipality where the historic anti-government protests on July 11, 2021. At noon on that Sunday in July, hundreds of people gathered in the town park and from there began a pilgrimage in which they protested peacefully and demanded freedom.
The videos of the protest went viral on social networks and lit the flame of freedom in more than 60 locations in the country. The historic demonstrations have left hundreds of people detained since then, and some of the Cubans who have already been convicted face prison sentences of up to 20 years.
In Miguel Díaz-Canel’s last visit to San Antonio de los Baños, on July 11 to quell the demonstrations, the president was accompanied by black berets and received with empty water bottles, as a symbol of his claims. The neighbors shouted “freedom”, “down with communism”, “homeland and life”, “we want medicine” and “Díaz-Canel singao”, the phrases they chanted during the protest.
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