Over the weekend there were mass demonstrations in Cuba against the Communist regime. Thousands took to the streets in Havana and elsewhere to protest against oppression and Marxism.
The Cuban Communist dictator hilariously blamed the Biden administration for engineering the protests. The fact is that at least half of the Biden administration and many Democrat members of Congress (Sanders, AOC, Tlaib, Omar, etc.) support the Cuban Communist Party and its dictator. Diaz-Canel, the dictator, knows this. He just wanted a traditional scapegoat.
Why are they protesting now? Several reasons. Covid is still rampant on the island. Trump sanctions have crippled the economy. They can see and hear American society from Miami and know how well Cuban immigrants have done there. And perhaps they have finally had enough. There has been no major violence as of yet, could be coming soon, but the dictator has urged Marxist mobs into the streets to counter the demonstrations.
Could this be the spark all of Cuba and the Cubans of South Florida have been waiting for since the end of the Cold War and then the death of Castro? Will the imprisoned island soon be free?
I have a very personal stake in this. My dad was born in Havana. My mom grew up in Cuba. I was actually born during the Bay of Pigs invasion and grew up in South Florida amongst the Cuban emigre community. Though my blood is Colombian, I’m adopted, as a Latin I am more than anything else a Cuban.
I remember in 1983, while I was in the Army, hearing that we were invading a Caribbean island. We had no info initially at the First Infantry, but I hoped it was Cuba because I desperately wanted a piece of that action. No dice. It was Grenada. Thus sadly, I couldn’t liberate the Hotel Nacional, quaff daiquiris, and bag a couple of boxes of cigars in the bargain.
Do these protests have a chance to topple the Communists? Well, I’m a political cynic. I thought the Stasi was going to put down the kerfuffle at the Wall. They didn’t and eureka. So there is a possibility that the Communists will pull a Gorbachev and go rather peacefully into the night. But don’t bet on it.
Cubans as a culture are stubborn. They hate to admit they are wrong. A typical Cuban would rather eat broken glass than back away from an issue. So it is with the people of the island. Communist power is all they know. They’d have to throw off sixty years of conditioning, longer than the Cold War, to free their country. I hope like the Dickens they can do it. But history shows us that the bad guys, sometimes for a long time, will continue to run a show they have produced for decades.