With hunger and all kinds of shortcomings, with more and more hours of blackouts, discomfort and desire for change do not stop growing.
Havana, Cuba.- I did not know about the boardwalk until the dusk of that August 5, 1994, when my friend Coqui arrived at my house to know of me, to see if I was still alive and I had not died of depression. It could happen to a type of 38 years whom his until then very very wife of 22 had left him unexpectedly and without explanations a week ago. I could also be imprisoned, which would not have been weird, taking into account my declared rejection of the regime.
My friend told me of the thousands of people who a few hours before threw stones, broke stained glass and shouted freedom! by the Malecon and the streets Galiano and Infanta. I did not amazed myself too much, because the atmosphere was very heated for weeks with the kidnappings and deviations of boats, and particularly after 37 people, including 11 children, died when the being sunk the March 13 tugboat to prevent him from leaving the Cuban waters.
On the night of August 5 there was no blackout so that Cubans could see on the television news how Fidel Castro appeared at the Malecon, a couple of hours after the state security and men of the Blas rock contingentdepending on parapolial minions, they had everything under control by the force of distributing sticks, heads and shots. They were not reported dead, but wounded there were enough.
When there was no danger that bottles, pots or bricks were thrown, because even the balconies and the roofs of Half Centro Havana were taken by the repressors, the commander walked orondo through the boardwalk, so that his flatterers created another of his myths: that “Fidel was acclaimed by some of the same ones that minutes before shouted against his”.
That night, I went for a walk on the viper, to take a little fresh, but I had to return home immediately. The police were nervous, requested identification and recorded the packages and bags of the few who walked down the street and loaded with whom they were suspicious.
Through the October 10 road, they passed, in both sense, patrol cars, trucks and jeeps with armed military. And the next morning, when I was going to work along Porvenir Avenue, heading to the Avenida del Puerto, several artillery and military cars with submachine guns and camouflage uniforms passed.
With the passing of the days I knew of the various dozens of injured and detained. But people no longer wanted to talk about the boardwalk – as the first street confrontation was baptized that had to face Castroism – but to leave the country, since the maximum leader had announced his decision that the guardian troops would no longer monitor the costs and allow them to be thrown into the sea and enroll all those who wanted to be launched into Florida.
It was seen on Calle people with planks, steel tanks, trucks. Everything that served to make a raft and throw yourself into the sea. Screaming. Looking for a car, a truck that will take them to the coast. As if suddenly everyone had gone crazy to get out and they didn’t have to hide it more than sneaks and police.
Thus, Fidel Castro, as in 1980 left the refugee crisis in the Peru Embassy Opening the port of Mariel, he managed Exodus of Balseros. Subsequently, to mitigate hunger and scarcity, he reopened peasant markets.
Thirty -one years later everything is much worse in Cuba than in the summer of 1994, when the so -called special period reached its climax and the boardwalk occurred. And – Castroism is always able to overcome for worse – it is also worse, much worse, the situation, in every sense, that four years ago, in July 2021, when on July 11 and12 the massive protests occurred throughout the country that made the boardwalk pale.
Since then, the conditions for another outbreak are created. The amazing thing is that it has not already happened. And if it happens, it is more violent than the previous ones: there is much anger and resentment of the oppressed and too much the arrogance and intolerance of the oppressors, which most likely do not hesitate to give the combat order again for the fratricidal clash.
The mandamases of continuity fear that the outbreak will occur, but it is little and bad what they do to avoid it. As Fidel Castro’s cunning is not remotely or remotely to get the storms and know that today it would be impossible to resort to a new exodus that takes steam to the pot, appeal to repression, increased surveillance and hardening of the laws of a Nazi -inspired criminal code, to intimidate and deter the people of rebelling.
But with an economy that was a long time, he went to pique, hungry and all kinds of shortcomings, with more and more hours of blackouts, discomfort and desire for change do not stop growing. No one believes in the promises and pretexts of the mandamases. His spent slogans, their exhortations to sacrifice every time they adopt a more antipopular measure than the previous one, their scolding for how ultimately we are, their unbelief lies, they only get us to detest them more.
They have repressive force. But there will come a time when it will not be enough to contain a desperate people.
