MIAMI, United States. –The Cuban ruler, Miguel Díaz-Canel, threatened this Sunday to citizens who protest in the midst of the energy crisis that the country is going through and which worsened last Friday with a massive blackout after the “total disconnection” of the National Electroenergy System (SEN).
In the video of a meeting held this Sunday, which was released by the Presidency’s office, Díaz-Canel assured that his government was not going to accept or allow “anyone to act causing vandalism and much less altering the citizen tranquility of our people.” ”.
“That is a conviction and that is a principle of our Revolution,” concluded the ruler, whose “battle array” After the start of the demonstrations on July 11, 2021, the civil war between Cubans has emerged as a call.
The ruler also assured that there was “all the willingness and all the capacity and all the deployment and scope of the systems” contemplated by the regime “to respond (…) to any concern, as long as it is done in a civilized, organized manner. and in a disciplined manner.”
Immediately, Díaz-Canel’s statements caused a wave of indignation on social networks. “Give an answer to what? If they have not been able to solve anything and, of course, as always, any claim will be considered public disorder, vandalism or alteration of citizen tranquility. “This is how they disguise repression,” wrote on the social network the user identified as Pedro Orlando Guevara Yero.
For her part, the user Gєl remembered that “protest is a right” and addressed Díaz-Canel directly: “What more are you going to ask of the Cuban people? Three days of blackout, no food, no water, no gas and you can’t even complain, really?
Also Romer Moronta Abad stressed “the unhealthiness, the misery, the lack of all types of minimum living conditions” that the people of the Island experience and described Díaz-Canel as a “clown in green”, in reference to his military suit (olive green color).
“cowardly tyrant”, said the Cuban-American doctor Carlos H. Recio to Díaz-Canel. “You threaten a people without electricity, without food, without medicine, without transportation, in an unprecedented humanitarian crisis after 65 years of absolute power and having destroyed the nation. Criminals against humanity,” he concluded.
Also this Sunday, the regime’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, attacked the people who demonstrated over the weekend in several locations on the Island. During a press conference with international mediathe official described the protests as “minimal incidents” and described them as “indecent.” He also referred to the participants as “the coward who does not reason and the one who sells out.”
As revealed in videos on social networks, multiple banging of pots and pans and peaceful protests were occurring during the night of October 19. The demonstrations were concentrated mainly in the provinces of Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
A shared video on Facebook by activist Juan Moreno, director of the community media Havana Dawn, of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), shows dozens of Cubans who stopped traffic in San Francisco de Paula, a street in the capital, made pots and pans ring.
Other published material by independent journalist Daniel Benítez reports on another protest in which Cubans banged pots and pans during this Saturday night in Lawton.
Likewise, very close to that town, in Santo Suarez, Havana residents also made noises with pots and cauldrons, as can be heard in a video shared by CubaNet in X (formerly Twitter).
Consequently, according to the EFE news agency, an increase in police presence has been noted in Havana, with agents located at the main intersections of the city and patrols patrolling the streets.
On July 11, 2021, once the most important mass protests began after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Díaz-Canel said in a televised address: “The order of combat is given, revolutionaries take to the streets.”
“We are calling on all the revolutionaries in the country, the communists, to take to the streets wherever these provocations are going to occur, from now on and in all these days. And confront them decisively, firmly, with courage,” he added, giving his authorization for his government’s followers to attack the protesters.
