‘Feelings of dissatisfaction:’ Cuba’s leader blames U.S. embargo for unprecedented protests

Without making any acknowledgment of the deep discontent with his government shown by protesters chanting “down with the dictatorship” across the island on Sunday, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel said Monday the massive uprisings were the “cumulative” result of U.S. policies.

He said the majority of people participating in the massive protests across the island on Sunday, which he referred to as “events” rather than protests, had some dissatisfaction with the electricity blackouts proliferating during the hot Cuban summer and the lack of food and other necessities, all because of the U.S embargo.

Díaz-Canel said U.S. financial sanctions had made almost impossible to pay for goods abroad, just when the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched resources to the limit.

“All this discontent, these feelings of dissatisfaction, what is the ultimate cause of all that? It’s the blockade,” Díaz-Canel said during a press conference that was broadcast live on Cuban TV and live-streamed on YouTube on Monday. “This is part of the U.S. playbook to destabilize us, to generate chaos, to break our will and spirit.” He said social media has allowed the U.S. to amplify its “genocidal” campaign against Cuba.

The Cuban leader said the U.S. and what he called members of the “Cuban mafia in Miami” were deploying the same tools of “non-conventional war” that they used against the Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, especially the “manipulation of feelings” through social media. He mentioned that Maduro called him Sunday to express his “solidarity.”

Díaz-Canel called the press conference after thousands of people marched in several cities across the island on Sunday to demand the end of Cuba’s authoritarian regime and denounce the lack of food and medicine. The unprecedented demonstrations spontaneously grew as the day progressed and were met with a large presence of Cuba’s special forces in certain areas. Several videos of violent arrests were posted on social media but the Cuban leader denied the police used force against the demonstrators.

“Where is the repression?” he asked, adding that he didn’t call for violence but rather that “the people reacted to the violence to defend their rights.”

New videos of the Sunday protests circulating on Monday show police and military officers arresting, beating and even reportedly shooting at demonstrators. In one video, a man can be heard yelling, “Don’t shoot, that’s worse.”

Another video shows a man injured with what appears to be a gunshot. The number of injured is still unknown.

The Cuban leader said that Cubans have the right to protest and voice their opinions as long as they do it in a peaceful way. He said the few instances of confrontation with the police on Sunday were due to a few “delinquents” who stole appliances and electronics from stores that sell goods in dollars, and a group who overturned a police car.

Díaz-Canel said the “economic asphyxiation” created by the tightening of the embargo under former President Donald Trump led to energy shortfalls as power plants were forced to go offline due to difficulties in purchasing parts that needed to be replaced. He said the situation was exacerbated by higher demand in the summer, when power use is traditionally heavier.

He also said the worsening of the COVID-19 pandemic led to more demand on the electrical grid, as Cuba has had to open dozens of health centers and convert schools into hospitals to treat sick patients as the health system was stretched to the limit.

While the press conference was still going in the afternoon, the U.S. diplomat in charge of Latin American affairs tweeted U.S. support for the demonstrators. Earlier in the day, president Joe Biden had called the uprising “a clarion call for freedom.”

“Cuba’s people continue to bravely express yearning for freedom in the face of repression,” State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Julie Chung wrote on Twitter. “We call on Cuba’s gov’t to: Refrain from violence. Listen to their citizens’ demands. Respect protestor & journalist rights.The Cuban people have waited long enough for ¡Libertad!”

On Monday, the information coming out of Cuba was limited, because the government has been shutting down access to the internet. Washington Post columnist Abraham Jimenez Enoa, who is in Havana, tweeted Monday morning that he heard protests were ongoing in some Havana suburbs.

“At 4:05 pm local yesterday, we saw the entire country of Cuba go offline for less than 30min. Afterwards we saw several hours of intermittent but large (by traffic volume) outages,” said Doug Madory, an analyst internet tracking outages worldwide.

“Until very recently, large internet outages were very rare. Internet shutdowns are new to Cuba in 2021 but yesterday’s wasn’t the first. There was an outage in January just for mobile service following the “27N” protests,” last year, Madory told the Herald. Tor’s Open Observatory has documented censorship targeting the apps Signal, Telegram and Whatsapp, he added.

On Monday, family members were trying to get information about their loved ones who have been detained by Cuban police.

Ariel Falcon, who first posted images of a protest in the Malecón, was arrested and his whereabouts are unknown, his brother Arnaldo Falcon, who lives in Madrid, told the Herald.

“My brother was part of the young people who came out to demonstrate in a peaceful and spontaneous way yesterday. After a while, we no longer heard from him since he was violently detained by three people wearing civilian clothes,” Arnaldo Falcon said. “They took the phone from him and threw it to the ground violently“

Falcon said he learned of the details because his brother was able to briefly get a hold of another phone while being detained at a police station in Zanja, in Havana. His brother was then moved to another police station in El Cerro, another Havana neighborhood, where he spent the night. His parents were told to come back on Monday morning to see him, but then they were told he had been moved again to an undisclosed prison.

“They don´t want to tell us where he is,” Falcon said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.