The signs of discontent in Cuba in 2022 outnumbered those of 2021 – the year in which the massive demonstrations of 11J took place – according to the count of the Cuban Conflict Observatory (OCC). The Miami-based NGO reports in his last reportmade public this Monday, a total of 3,923 protests in the year just ended, compared to 3,300 the previous year (an increase of 16%).
In December, the organization registered 692 demonstrations on the island, 366 of them spontaneous and the other 326 as part of “permanent organized campaigns” (for example “A better Cuba is possible” or “Without a field there is no country”). This number exceeded that of October by more than a hundred, which already set a record with 589, recalls the Observatory.
However, none of them was street. The OCC argues that this was because the regime, “assisted by Russia and Turkey, achieved a temporary remission of the long blackouts that broke the cup of public patience from mid-July to mid-October.”
In its report, the Observatory includes the booing of the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, when he made an appearance at the Latin American Festival in Havana
The previous months, yes, from mid-July to mid-October, there was what the organization calls “a reissue of 9J11”: “more than 90 nights of marches and street pot-banging triggered by blackouts”, which included “angry appeals to the ruling caste and cries of ‘freedom’, ‘patria y vida’ and ‘down with the dictatorship'”.
In its report, the Observatory includes the booing of the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, when he made an appearance at the Latin American Festival in Havana, as well as the screams in a queue shouting “we want chicken” or a “sit-down strike” at Santa Clara fairs after the imposition of new capped prices on fruits and vegetables.
Similarly, they point to the letter sent to the National Assembly by 500 Cuban citizens to approve a law that “clearly” guarantees the exercise of the rights to protest and assembly, included in article 56 of the 2019 Constitution.
Of the 692 protest acts in December, the majority (418, 60.4%) had to do with economic and social rights, such as the dire state of public services, the scarcity or inflation –the third highest in the world according to the Hanke index, of 175% in December–, and the rest (274, 39.6%), with the demand for political and civil rights (against the system or against the repression).
The OCC underlines citizen insecurity as a “hot topic” in the last month of the year. In this regard, they put as an example the nine robberies with intimidation that took place in the city of Pinar del Río, from November 1 to December 7, as well as the beating of an elderly man in Havana, in broad daylight, to steal four packages of sausages recently bought in the market of Cuatro Caminos.
“Now they understand ─even on the crest of the wave of police-judicial-media terror unleashed after 9/11─ that they have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, shaking the monkey”
“Cubans continued to protest against the calamities caused by a system that is only efficient in terms of repression, propaganda and diplomacy, which have been worsened in recent years by a crisis that could well be called Special Period 2.0,” says the NGO. , which also has critical words for the current US Administration. “If the needle that marks the pressure of the Cuban social boiler swings towards the red limit, hundreds of thousands of disaffected Cubans are offered to emigrate en masse and without visas to the United States, through the southern border, and Washington does not object.” , they regret. Since the “great migratory stampede” began, they say, in November 2021, when Nicaragua and Havana agreed to free transit for Cubans, the US authorities have registered the arrival of more than 284,000 island nationals through their borders.
For the OCC, the increase in protests is directly related to the massive demonstrations on July 11, 2021. “Would an open criticism of the totalitarian regime like the one that took place at the Chaplin Cinema in December during the Latin American Film Festival, with boos against the repressive Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso, statements of support from actors and filmmakers on social networks for the censored film by Carlos Lechuga Vincent B. and a fine but bold and forceful criticism at the Chaplin of the ICAIC and even the Ideological Department of the Communist Party, by the actress Andrea Doimeadiós?”, the organization wonders.
And he concludes: “In the time of Fidel Castro, Cubans articulated any public criticism in a sly way: ‘Oh, if Fidel found out’, they said. It was an unwritten law that one could play with the chain, but not with the monkey Not anymore: now they understand ─even on the crest of the wave of police-judicial-media terror unleashed after 9/11─ that they have nothing to lose, and much to gain, shaking the monkey”.
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