Two years after the anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, for which 500 people were heavily condemned, the communist island remains mired in a deep economic and social crisis which is fueling discontent, but also repression against dissenting voices.
The streets of Havana were calm on Tuesday and the inhabitants went about their business, under the discreet surveillance of the police and plainclothes agents, noted Agence France-Presse.
On July 11, 2021, after months of strict confinement due to the pandemic and in an economic situation made critical by the absence of tourists, thousands of Cubans took to the streets of the island to protest in an unprecedented way, chanting “We we are hungry! » and « Down with the dictatorship! “.
More than 1,500 of them have been arrested, of whom around 700 are still imprisoned, according to the NGO Justicia 11J, whose headquarters are off the island. Nearly 500 have been sentenced definitively, to sentences of up to 25 years in prison, according to the latest figures released by the authorities.
The communist power accuses Washington of having orchestrated these protests to overthrow it. “The United States has guided, financed and encouraged acts of violence and provocation against the authorities in Cuba,” Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio repeated on Twitter on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called in a statement for “the immediate release of political prisoners” and “the international community to join us in demanding that the Cuban government release the hundreds of students, journalists, artists, young people and other people unjustly imprisoned”.
Opponents and activists on Tuesday denounced the presence of the police outside their homes.
“Since early this morning, a political police device has been deployed on the ground floor of our building in Havana to prevent us from going out on the streets on July 11”, denounced in particular on Twitter Yoani Sánchez, founder from the independent news site 14ymedioin this country where the press is linked to the Cuban Communist Party (single party).
” Worse “
Despite the promises of President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who assured a year ago that the country of 11 million inhabitants would extricate itself from the “complex economic situation” it is going through, Cuba is struggling to get out of the rut .
Uncontrollable inflation, partial recovery of tourism, fall in sugar production, high international prices which increase shortages, tightening of American sanctions, record emigration: internal and external factors combine, plunging the island into its most serious crisis since the 1990s.
“The economic situation is the same as before July 11, or even worse, because there is even less food, less medicine, the prices are very high”, relates to Agence France-Presse Yaneysi, 31 years old. , who declined to be named.
“The economy has deteriorated a lot lately. […] we suffer in our flesh,” laments Ana Maria Hernández, a 65-year-old accountant.
Faced with the difficulties, the government has accelerated the opening of the economy, essentially state-owned, to the private sector, which relieves certain shortages, but widens inequalities.
Despite the heavy sentences against the demonstrators on July 11, the Cubans, caught in particularly precarious material situations, are less hesitant than before to express their dissatisfaction with the authorities.
The economic situation is the same as before July 11, or even worse, because there is still less food, less medicine, prices are very high
In 2022, sporadic protests against power cuts erupted in several provinces as well as in Havana. In May, dozens of people protested against shortages in Caimanera, a small town in the east of the country.
At the same time, opponents and activists regularly denounce arbitrary arrests, harassment or pressure to leave the country. The NGO Justicia 11J recently launched a campaign to draw international attention to the fate of “ten Cuban activists and dissidents” arrested during a “new wave of repression”.
Many young activists, leading figures of protest, such as playwright Yunior García and art historian Carolina Barrero, have been forced to leave the country. Others were arrested, such as the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, sentenced to five years in prison and on hunger strike since Friday.