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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/03/19/what-the-us-media-isnt-telling-you-about-the-protests-in-cuba/">peoplesdispatch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">What the US media isn’t telling you about the protests in Cuba</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Peoples Dispatch</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">March 19, 2024<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_ltys4yln0" alt="cuban-flag-2.jpg" width="395" height="222"><br><p>On March 17, people in Santiago, a city in Eastern Cuba, took to the
streets to protest the increased blackouts and food shortages they have
been experiencing. The protest occurred as shortages generated by the US
blockade of Cuba have worsened across the island. Instead of lifting
the blockade or taking Cuba off the state sponsors of terrorism list,
the US government and corporate media have once again exploited the
spontaneous protest to launch “a new counterrevolutionary media
offensive”, claim <a href="https://twitter.com/PeoplesForumNYC/status/1769568607950758391">US-based Cuba solidarity activists</a>.</p>
<p>“If Biden really wants to stand by the Cuban people, if the US
government were to actually care about the Cuban people, they would
immediately end this blockade,” <a href="https://x.com/PeoplesForumNYC/status/1769568607950758391?s=20">said</a>
People’s Forum Executive Director Manolo De Los Santos. “In fact, with
the stroke of a pen, they could immediately take Cuba off the State
Sponsors of Terrorism list, which prevents Cuba from accessing financial
services around the world and be able to trade freely.”</p>
<p>Immediately upon learning of the Santiago protest, the US Embassy in Havana <a href="https://twitter.com/USEmbCuba/status/1769531742631727202">posted on X</a>,
“We urge the Cuban government to respect the human rights of the
protestors and address the legitimate needs of the Cuban people.”</p>
<p>In fact, the Cuban government immediately responded to the protests.
Beatriz Jhonson Urrutia, the highest level authority in Santiago, along
with other provincial authorities <a href="https://twitter.com/DvidTwit/status/1769496686349423062">went to the streets to engage in dialogue</a> with those that had participated in the protest and listened to their concerns.</p>
<p>The response is a stark contrast to the “respect to human rights
of…protesters” seen in the United States. For the past six months,
hundreds of thousands have been mobilizing in cities and towns across
the country to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, and national and local
leaders have repressed, ignored, and ridiculed protesters and their
demands.</p>
<p>US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Brian Nichols <a href="https://twitter.com/WHAAsstSecty/status/1769796493706231986">wrote on X</a>,
“The Cuban government will not be able to meet the needs of its people
until it embraces democracy and the rule of law and respects the rights
of Cuban citizens.”</p>
<p>Maria Elvira Salazar, a far-right member of Congress, who in March 2023 <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/03/29/conservatives-in-the-us-want-the-cuban-people-to-overthrow-their-own-government-or-else/">attempted to codify Cuba’s designation</a>
as a state sponsor of terror wrote about the Santiago protest, “It is
65 years of socialism; of repression, prison, death and exile; of
blackouts, sicknesses and hunger. Cuba wants freedom!”</p>
<h3><b>Media war</b></h3>
<p>Meanwhile, international corporate media has also been quick to
capitalize on the Santiago protest to push their own long standing
narrative about Cuba. For example, in its <a href="https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2024/03/18/crisis-en-cuba-la-ocdh-advirtio-al-regimen-que-si-no-hay-cambios-las-protestas-terminaran-en-una-tragedia/">report</a> on the protests, Argentina-based right-wing regional media outlet <i>Infobae</i>
referred to Miguel Díaz-Canel as a “dictator”, and called the
government a “regime” and “a Castrist dictatorship”. It also heavily
quotes a statement from the Madrid-based Cuban Observatory of Human
Rights, which is <a href="https://www.ned.org/region/latin-america-and-caribbean/cuba-2021/">a recipient of funding</a>
from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US government funded
foundation. While the piece is mostly focused on unsubstantiated
allegations of repressive actions carried out by Cuban security forces,
it reserves one line at the end of the article to mention the real
reasons that Cubans are dealing with challenging material conditions:
“The pandemic, the toughening of US sanctions, and endogenous errors in
the economic and monetary policy have intensified the structural
problems of the Cuban system in the last three years.”</p>
<p>This general narrative is repeated in other news outlets across the region like NBC-owned <a href="https://www.telemundo.com/noticias/noticias-telemundo/internacional/cubanos-protagonizan-las-protestas-mas-masivas-desde-el-11j-el-hambre-rcna143889"><i>Telemundo</i></a> which also referred to the Cuban revolution as when “the Castro brothers took power in 1959”. The <i>Telemundo </i>article
stated: ‘The protests, which are a rarity in a Cuba where power usually
quickly suffocates any public outcry, are the largest since July 11,
2021 when thousands of Cubans from the island took to the streets to
cries of ‘We want freedom!’”</p>
<h3><b>Cuba and Latin America reject US attempts at meddling</b></h3>
<p>For many both on the island and outside, the response by US officials
and corporate media to the protest on March 17 represents a clear
attempt to weaponize the real material challenges facing Cubans due to
the tightening of the blockade in order to push regime change. In fact,
as many point out, this is precisely a goal of the blockade.</p>
<p>ALBA-TCP, a Latin American and Caribbean regional platform for economic and political cooperation, <a href="https://cubaminrex.cu/es/alba-tcp-rechaza-intentos-de-desestabilizacion-contra-cuba">released a statement</a>
on March 18 in response to the statements of US officials, to “ratify
our strong solidarity with the government and the Cuban people”. “The
member countries of ALBA-TCP…support their legitimate denunciation
against the enemy campaigns, and we recognize their tireless efforts to
overcome all the difficulties, a consequence of the brutal and illegal
economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the US
government, which since the <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/27400-document-1-state-department-memorandum-decline-and-fall-castro-secret-april-6-1960">Lester Mallory Memorandum</a>
has been causing deprivation for the Cuban people to justify external
intervention.” The regional platform declared it “categorically rejects
the permanent hostility, incitement to subversion and interference of
the United States against [Cuba].”</p>
<p>The Foreign Ministry of Cuba released a statement on March 18
informing that Deputy Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío had summoned
the US Chargé d’Affaires Benjamin Ziff to convey the “firm rejection of
the interference and slanderous messages of the US government and its
embassy in Cuba regarding the internal affairs of the Cuban reality.”</p>
<p>In the statement the ministry declared: “If the US government had a
minimal and honest concern for the welfare of the Cuban population, it
would remove Cuba from the arbitrary list of States that allegedly
sponsor terrorism; it would put an end to the persecution of fuel
supplies that the country needs to import; it would stop pursuing every
financial transaction of Cuba in the world; it would put an end to the
rude persecution against Cuba’s medical cooperation programs in the
world; it would stop intimidating businessmen, visitors, artists and any
person who feels the interest and the right to interact with the Cuban
people.”</p>
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