Where did all of Communist Cuba’s Cheerleaders Go?

Protests erupted across Cuba on Sunday, as people took to the streets with chants of “freedom”,  shouting “down with the dictatorship”. This is a rare sight in Cuba, a country whose authoritarian regime is often reactionary and violent in response to even the smallest and most peaceful of anti-government demonstrations.

“We are fed up with the queues, the shortages. That’s why I’m here,” one protester told The Associated Press.

Despite the glaring contradiction, many so-called freedom fighters in the US, as well as Canada, often praise the Cuban regime; not only the regime of today but often even applauding tyrants like Fidel Castro who engineered the socialist system that still holds down the Cuban people today in a state of perpetual poverty.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been criticized in the past for the following tweet in which he praised, and mourned Fidel Castro after he died in 2016.

Singh’s socialist counterparts in the US appear to have the same level of reverence for this authoritarian regime. In an interview for 60 minutes in 2020, self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders was asked by Anderson Cooper why the Cuban people had not helped the Americans overthrow Castro’s regime, Sanders replied by defending statements he had made multiple times in favour of Castro’s policies.

As we hear largely only radio silence from these supposed supporters of freedom and democracy, the people of Cuba appear to finally be standing up for their rights after being pushed to the brink by the country’s current economic situation; a situation which has only grown direr throughout the pandemic, as food and medicine become evermore scarce. 

Many of these protestors are now asking for President Miguel Díaz-Canel to step down.

The Cuban government has accused Cuban-Americans on social media of stoking the fires that started these protests, the President mentioning this in his address to the nation, with his entire cabinet present, “We’ve seen how the campaign against Cuba was growing on social media in the past few weeks… That’s the way it’s done: Try to create unconformity, dissatisfaction by manipulating emotions and feelings.”

This is the justification used for the government’s crackdown on Cubans ability to peacefully assemble, and access large portions of the internet such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram.

There is now a large police presence in areas where the protestors had gathered on Sunday, including the capital, in order to maintain control.

In his speech addressing the people, President Diaz-Canel stated that the economic hardships felt by the Cuban people are not due to the regime, but rather US trade sanctions. 

US President Joe Biden called on the Cuban government to “hear their people and serve their needs,” going on to say, “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

Ignoring these calls, Cuba’s government has largely blamed these protests on the American government. Criticizing their  “economic asphyxiation” of Cuba, as well as the sponsoring of counterrevolutionaries to start these anti-government movements; a claim which is often used to combat any effective anti-government movements.

The leader of the opposition group UNPACU, Jose Daniel Ferrer, was arrested along with “artivists” Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara & Amaury Pacheco. Díaz-Canel has told his supporters to take to the streets, and confront the protestors, who he sees as an American plot against him “The order to combat has been given… Revolutionaries need to be on the streets.”

Ruiz, Pacheco’s partner, has said “It feels like a dangerous moment… I’m worried about the kind of reprisals they could take against activists, they have been increasingly playing the theory that we are terrorists lately.”

As these protests go on, the media figures and politicians who are known for backing the Cuban regime are largely silent about the blatant political repression. Bernie Sanders is one of few exceptions who has spoken out against the violence protestors have been met with, though he has largely blamed the US embargo for these protests as well; while known defenders of the regime such as Jagmeet Singh and other notable socialist figures remain generally silent, including Justin Trudeau who also had previously soft peddled Fidel Castro’s blood-soaked legacy.

Meanwhile, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez believes US military intervention may be necessary.

It seems only time will tell what fate holds for the people of Cuba. So far the Cuban government seems to be willing to, in a similar fashion to Communist China, violently crushing protests in the full view of the world, betting nobody will lift a finger to protect the Cuban people.