A long caravan of cars surrounded the Versailles restaurant in Miami on Thursday night, where dozens of exiles gathered to protest against a new rapprochement between the United States and Cuba.
The march was called by the influencers Cuban Alexander Otaola following the bill presented on March 6 by various senators from both parties to end the embargo on Cuba and create new business opportunities for US businessmen.
Gathered at the doors of the famous establishment located on Calle 8, they carried banners and chanted slogans against the Cuban regime, headed by exile figures such as Otaola himself and Rosa María Payá, one of the founders of Cuba Decide.
Before reaching the emblematic corner, the number of cars that were part of the caravan was striking, honking their horns and carrying Cuban and US flags, surrounded by numerous police officers. Up the street, down the street, a truck passed with a sign that read: “Patria y libertad, keep Cuba embargo” (keep the embargo on Cuba), with its horns at full volume playing the song Homeland and Life, which became the anthem of the protests on July 11, 2021.
Before reaching the emblematic corner, the number of cars that were part of the caravan was striking, honking their horns and carrying Cuban and US flags.
People on the sidewalks hummed “it’s over” as the vehicle passed. One of the signs, in English, called for “no business with the terrorist and murderous dictatorship” and “freedom for Cuba.” Another read: “Lazo, this is the majority,” alluding to the coordinator of Bridges of Love in Miami, Carlos Lazo, who campaigns for the lifting of the embargo and has met several times in Havana with leaders of the regime.
“We are the majority, we are the Cuban exile, we do not want to oxygenate a dictatorship that oppresses, that has its people imprisoned, that has its people hostage, that has more than 1,057 political prisoners, that has imprisoned minors, that has beaten women , where femicides, violence is increasing,” declared Alexander Otaola to the media, followed by thousands of people through the networks for your program Hello! Ota-Ola. “We don’t want Kansas chicken,” he would ask, referring to the most imported product by the Cuban government from the US “We want unconditional freedom for the Cuban people. Do you want to lift the embargo, do you want to get all sanctions lifted? There is a perfect way to do it: leave power.”
He influencers denounces that the regime “has lobby in Washington, he has henchmen, he has front men who launder his money in Miami and in the rest of the world”, but that “this is over”. “The Cuban people have taken to the streets, they have said it, they have shouted it, the whole world has tried to hear what they want, but we are not going to allow them to continue speaking for us. There is only one cry, and that cry is absolute freedom for the Cuban people,” he reiterated.
In addition, he addressed the congressmen who spearheaded the bill. “Those politicians, who do not want to see this exile, who do not want to see this majority, will never receive the support of this community as Biden did not, as the Democrats will not in the coming years, whoever runs,” Otaola attacked. who last year made public his candidacy for the Republican party for mayor of Miami.
Regarding the embargo, he argued that it does not prevent the purchase of food, medicines or agricultural machinery, and that it is aimed at “preventing the thieves who robbed Cuba from continuing to bleed that town.”
For her part, Rosa María Payá was pleased that the street where the Cuban Embassy in Washington is located can be named after his fatherthe opponent Oswaldo Payá, who died in 2012 together with Harold Cepero in an accident whose circumstances have not yet been clarified. “That the dictators, that the criminals, while they are not yet on trial, have to say their names,” said the activist.
Payá also criticized the fact that the Cuban leaders not only have “friends” in Latin America, such as Colombia, but also in Washington and that they are trying to remove the island from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. “We must continue to mobilize, because that is what they are, they are terrorists, and the more pressure we can put on those terrorists, the faster we will get out of it.”
Surrounded by the crowd, Otaola shouted slogans that were immediately chanted: “Freedom for political prisoners, freedom for the Cuban people, down with the dictatorship, out of power with the communists, down with the terrorist communist party, out with Canel, out with the PCC, homeland and life, freedom”.
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