Havana (EFE).- Five years after the historic social uprising of July 11, 2021 (11J), Cuba finds itself gripped by an economic and energy crisis. Daily protests over critical shortages of food and electricity, alongside a mounting count of political prisoners, define the current landscape as the country marks on Saturday this somber anniversary.
The anniversary comes six months after the escalation of pressure from Washington, including an oil embargo, which has paralyzed the island and severely deteriorated the already precarious living conditions, and new sanctions, which are driving away foreign companies.
This week alone, the island has suffered two nationwide blackouts, bringing the total to four so far this year. However, the situation is not much better under normal conditions: Havana receives an average of just one or two hours of electricity per day, and in the provinces, cuts can last up to three consecutive days.
In this context, protests occur daily, usually involving dozens of people who, peacefully, mainly in Havana, demand basic services from the State, such as electricity, water, and food.
Social discontent is expressed through banging pots (cacerolazos), blocking streets, and burning trash.
Atmosphere of protest
Some voices in the Cuban opposition argued that 11J marked a historic and irreversible rupture in the relationship between society and the State, and that the current atmosphere on the island is one of protest.
“The structural deepening of shortages and inequalities could produce an event similar to 11J,” asserts Cuban opposition member Manuel Cuesta Morúa; while Cuban opposition member Marthadela Tamayo acknowledges that a similar demonstration, «in the sense that it was massive,» has not been seen since 11J, and recognizes that the island could experience another 11J, as «current conditions lead to it.»
Cuesta Morúa also indicates that the protests currently taking place on the island, five years after 11J, consolidate a “reconfiguration of the new type of relationship between Cuban society and the State: a rupture of the historic contract between the people and the revolutionary Government.”
For her part, the director of Cubalex, Laritza Diversent, pointed out in an online discussion that “since the 11J protests, the Cuban civilian population has not stopped taking to the streets” (to protest) and, in turn, highlights a “change in perspective within the citizenry,” which “has created mechanisms for protest.”
However, Cuesta Morúa recognizes, the Cuban Government “is hardening its response by imprisoning and imposing harsh penalties on some of those who protest, as a message about its determination to make manifest citizen discontent more costly.”
In this regard, the Cuban Human Rights Observatory (OCDH) denounced that “a grave repressive situation” exists in Cuba and counted “at least 1,949 repressive actions” in the first semester alone.
Political prisoners
This week marked the end of the prison term for Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, one of the most visible faces of the artistic dissidence and the leader of the San Isidro Movement, who was arrested precisely on July 11, 2021, when he attempted to join the protests.
Despite completing his five-year sentence for contempt and public disorder on July 9, the 38-year-old artist remains in custody.
The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized on Friday that this appears to be «a release contingent on him leaving the country.»
HRW also reported that five years after 11J, about 800 political prisoners remain incarcerated, nearly half of them for participating in those demonstrations.
According to various human rights organizations, the 11J protests concluded with the arrest of more than 1,400 people.
HRW demanded that the Cuban government «immediately and unconditionally» release all political prisoners and end its «systematic repression» of dissent.
Contrary to these positions, the Cuban Government has insisted over the years on calling 11J a “popular victory,” as the Secretary of Organization of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal one), Roberto Morales Ojeda, wrote on social media on Saturday.
«We will never deny revolutionaries that right! The Homeland defends itself,» he insisted. EFE
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