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Protests Erupt in Cuba

Of course, he didn't.

Without the title page and final blank page, the nine-month review is summed up in just seven pages, barely acknowledging the devastating humanitarian impact of US sanction regimes. Covid-19, the global fight against the pandemic, and vaccination aren’t mentioned at all. “Frankly, I’m disappointed by the sanctions review,” Representative Chuy García of Illinois told The Nation. “A 933 percent increase in the use of sanctions over the last 20 years merits a real investigation, not a nine page memo.”

During the pandemic, US sanctions worsened devastating supply shortages in Cuba and restricted access to vaccines and medical treatment in countries like Venezuela. A month after the administration launched the review, dozens of congressional Democrats wrote to Biden urging him to reconsider sanctions that impeded Covid-19 relief, and to take a broader look at sanctions as a foreign policy tactic overall.
(...)
Just look at what the House Foreign Affairs Committee is up to this week. The committee is marking up a Myanmar bill that includes sanctions, a resolution on Ethiopia that recommends sanctions, and a bill to sanction whoever “directed or carried out” Havana Syndrome attacks.
The Biden Administration’s Sanctions Review Is a Joke (The Nation, Oct 22, 2021)
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Cuba-U.S. tensions mount over pending protests on Communist-run island (Reuters, Oct 25, 2021)
As activists plan nationwide protests, Cuba accuses U.S. of involvement (NBC News, Oct 27, 2021)

I think that protesters, if they do show up in November, will be an outnumbered minority:
Cuban workers denounce poorly concealed objectives of mercenary ruckus (Granma.cu, Oct 20, 2021)

And they can no longer refer to a failed pandemic strategy like they (and the OP of this thread) did in July:
100% of Cuba's eligible population has received at least one dose of a nationally developed COVID-19 vaccine (Granma.cu, Oct 27, 2021)

Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
Cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people
 
How to get those protests going:

The United States is a military superpower whose plans for political subversion are a shame and a scandal, and there is no indication that Washington will now achieve what it has failed to do in 60 years.

The piggy bank was rattled again. In September 2021, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave $6,669,000 in grants for projects aimed at “regime change” in Cuba, a euphemism to avoid saying “direct intervention by a foreign power.” The United States’ current Democratic administration has especially favored the International Republican Institute (IRI) with a bipartisan generosity that Donald Trump never had. Other groups in Miami, Washington, and Madrid that have also received generous amounts have been among those calling for an invasion of the island. These groups paint an apocalyptic panorama in Havana to secure greater funding next year.

Public funding for the anti-Castro industry in the United States seems inexhaustible. In the last year, at least 54 organizations have benefited from the State Department, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and USAID programs for Cuba. In the last 20 years, this agency has given Creative Associates International, a CIA front, more than $1.8 billion for espionage, propaganda and the recruitment of agents of “change” including on the island. One of its best-known projects, the so-called “Cuban Twitter” or ZunZuneo, resulted in a superb failure that unveiled a plot of corruption and flagrant violations of US law. ZunZuneo cost the USAID director his job, but Creative Associates International continues to operate, only now undercover.
The US has an unhealthy obsession with Cuba (Latin America in Movement, Oct 31, 2021)
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newyorkguy said:
Public protests in Cuba, normally unthinkable, have erupted as widespread anger and frustration grows at the current situation. The Miami Herald reports:


A 14-second video shows people marching in protest.



With a population of 11 million people -- thirty times smaller than the United States -- Cuba is now recording more new Covid-19 cases per day then in the U.S. :(.
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We have already (in post 97) established that Cuba never had more new Covid-19 cases per day than the USA, but let us take a look at the situation today, two days before the protests that have been announced for Nov 15 and were meant to coincide with Cuba's reopening of the tourist trade.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 39.75, USA 238.06 (On July 11, it was: Cuba 432.25, USA 60.25)
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.25, USA 3:45 (On July 11, it was: Cuba 2.35, USA 0.71)
Cuba has one third of the cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people of the USA: Cuba 731.52, USA 2,290.43. Thus, Cuba is at #97. The USA at # 20.

And without the U.S. blockade, Cuba would probably have fared much better.
 
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"protest plans fizzle in Havana"

The only protests erupting in Cuba this weekend appeared to be against U.S. backed Yunior Garcia:

The rally in Miami took place around the same time as Yunior Garcia, a playwright and dissident leader, was expected to march alone, with a white rose in hand, down a central street in Havana to underscore the non-violent nature of his movement.
But government supporters surrounded Garcia's apartment complex early in the afternoon, and shortly after draped the building in Cuban flags, obscuring the view of Garcia's window from the street.
A bus blocked access to Garcia's street, and supporters shouting "I am Fidel" - a reference to the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro - gathered around his home, preventing him from leaving.
Later in the evening, dissidents had called on supporters to bang pots from their homes in a show of solidarity for government critics, but several Reuters witnesses in Havana, the country's largest city, heard no pot-banging in their neighborhoods. Residents contacted by Reuters in eastern Granma and Santiago de Cuba provinces, as well as San Antonio de los Banos, in Artemisa province where the July protests began, also reported no incidents on Sunday and no pot-banging.Cuban Americans rally in Miami while protest plans fizzle in Havana (SwissInfo.ch, Nov 15, 2021)
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It doesn't come as a surprise that the people protesting against Yunior Garcia outside his house are referred to as "a violent crowd":
Cuba: A Violent Crowd Surrounds Yunior Garcia’s House and Threatens the Foreign Press (TranslatingCuba, Nov 14, 2021)
But fortunately, NBC News has footage of the alleged violence:
Standoff between Cuban government and activists begins ahead of march (NBC News, Nov 14, 2021)

It is also no surprise that most Cubans don't approve of Yunior Garcia'a attempt at having new riots one day before Cuba opens up to tourism, which they hope will help revive the Cuban economy, which took a severe battering from the pandemic. It is obvious that Yunior Garcia's backers in Washington and Miami would like to see him ruin these attempts at an economic revival. After all, that is the reason why they forbid Americans to go there, isn't it?!
 
Yes how surprising that the only people allowed to "protest" unmolested in Cuba are the thugs who "protest" on behalf of the country's cruel ruling dictatorship that oppresses anyone who tries to assert their own freedom.
Naturally secret police goons and corrupt police officers join this "protest" in solidarity with those opposing political freedom.

As despicable as these scum of the earth are, their actions are in a sense at least reasonable if utterly self-centered and amoral. The same can not be said for the insane nutcases who see obvious oppression take place and then somehow completely mistake oppressor for the oppressed. That takes a very special kind of crazy.
 
Yes, nationalist Swedes will obviously be offended by a country that does its utmost to protect children as well as adults from contagion during a pandemic. The freedom to infect is held in high regard in Sweden, a country where even outdoor demonstrations (of more than 20 (!) people) were forbidden - be it BLM demonstrations or protests against Sweden's lax recommendations.

Placing insane nutcases in charge of a country's pandemic response, condemning the vulnerable to isolate month after month because the state epidemiologist considers going for herd immunity to be common sense and even after the introduction of vaccines still lets children be exposed to and transmit the infection, that is truly the pinnacle of statesmanship and unselfish morality.

That Cuba arrests rioters, not participants in ordinary demonstrations as long as they are peaceful, is not exactly insane. The Jan 6 'protesters' are still being rounded up, too, and not for participating in the peaceful part of the rally. But in Cuba, Western nationalists see rioters as freedom fighters, which is not at all surprising. That is how QAnon cultists see themselves.
 
In recent weeks, Cuba got a new national hero, Dr. Carlos Lorenzo Vázquez, a Cuban physician and first degree specialist in general comprehensive medicine and oncology. A little like the Cuban Five, who infiltrated terrorist groups in Miami, but not quite as dramatic, he pretended to be a dissident to gain access to U.S. financed workshops aimed at training mercenaries to destabilize Cuban society by promoting confrontations between the Cuban armed forces and the Cuban people. At these workshops, he got to know Yunior Garcia, the leader of the failed attempt to have new riots in Cuba this month, akin to the ones in July.

In his appearance on the program Razones de Cuba, he referred to Garcia’s links with terrorists who have a history of aggressions against the island and think tanks that promote political subversion from U.S. territory.
He also warned about international programs for the training of leaders to promote regime change on the island, in which he participated together with Yunior Garcia.
Tribute in Cuba to doctor who denounced organizer of illegal march (Prensa Latina, Nov 2, 2021)
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And Dr. Carlos is just one of many: Médicos que han salvado a Cuba de la CIA y sus cómplices (+ Video) (Granma.cu, Nov 15, 2021)

People in NY and NJ rally in support of Cuba: NY coalition members support Cuba and ask for the end of US blockade (Prensa Latina, Nov 15, 2021)

The most recent SARS-CoV-2 numbers:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49.
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38.

Since it takes three jabs to be fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99.

And even at this point, Cuba is still vaccinating much more than the USA:
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30.

For some reason, Cubans appear to have confidence in the Cuban vaccines.
 
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Excellent YouTube video about the July protests in Cuba:

We all saw the news coverage of the supposedly massive anti-government protests in Cuba during the week of July 11th, but if you were paying attention, you may have noticed something strange. In this episode, we'll analyze the protests and take a look at the US' long history of meddling in Cuba.
The Truth About The Cuba Protests (Second Thoughts, July 30, 2021)
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Some of the footage from the July demonstrations presented as protests against the Cuban government were actually manipulated footage from pro-government rallies with the text of the signs blurred out. In combination with footage from what appears to be Miami protests, it gives the impression that there were more anti-government protesters than was actually the case.

 
The numbers still seem to be going down after Cuba's reopening:

dann said:
The most recent SARS-CoV-2 numbers:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49.
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38.

Since it takes three jabs to be fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99.

And even at this point, Cuba is still vaccinating much more than the USA:
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30.
Click to expand...


Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 28, USA 261.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.15, USA 3.50.
Only the vaccination numbers are still going up, pretty fast, at this late stage of the vaccination campaign:
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 77.83, total 89.20; USA: fully 57.72, total 67.84.

COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99. --> Cuba 243.59, USA 132.25

Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30. --> Cuba 1.41, USA 0.34.
 
The playwright Yunior Garcia apologizes for taking a vacation in Spain after having upset his neighbors in Havana:

“I beg your pardon for being a human, for thinking of my wife and of my life, for considering escaping what would have become death in life. Because that’s what was awaiting me in Cuba: death in life,” García told reporters in Madrid.
“I will try to pardon myself for not being courageous enough to become a bronze statue.”
Yunior Garcia: Cuban activist who fled promises to return home (Nov 18, 2021)
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He must have tried very hard because he seems to have forgiven himself already. Notice his use of imagery: "death in life." That is a great way to work death into the narrative when nothing remotely deadly actually happened.
And the dramatist is already busy writing a new version of the old story about communists eating babies:

“It has become an abusive husband that beats his wife. It has become the Saturn that has already devoured his children and, right now, is swallowing his grandchild.”
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Cuba could at least have done him the favor of trying to prevent him from leaving (what happened to the angry mob?!), which would have made the whole thing seem heroic, but ...
“I suppose that (Garcia) is exercising the right that any Cuban has to travel and move freely,” Rodriguez [Cuban minister of foreign affairs] told The Associated Press during an interview on Wednesday.
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CNN writes:
... a mob of hardline pro-government supporters surrounded his house on Sunday, a spokesman for Archipelago group said on Tuesday.
Cuban activist Yunior Garcia Aguilera arrives in Spain (CNN, Nov 18, 2021)
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As always, when you hear claims like this, I recommend that you ask to see the footage of the hardline mob (post 108). Many Cubans have smart phones nowadays, in particular the ones who earn a living reporting to the international media.
 
I talked to Cubans who had second thoughts about the usefulness of street protests. They came into the streets on July 11, spontaneously, with all kinds of legitimate gripes: the scarcity of food and medicines, the long lines for basic goods, the rapid spread of COVID-19, the hard currency stores they didn’t have access to. But in the intervening months between the July protests and November, many realized that street protests only created division when the country needed unity. They realized that despite all the social media hype, the government was not about to fall, and that even if it did, there was no telling what would follow. If it was chaos and civil strife, or a rush of voracious Cuban Americans trying to grab waterfront island properties, their precarious economic situation might be even worse.

“I was out protesting on July 11,” a young mother in Old Havana told me. “But since then, I’ve been weighing the pros and cons. The food situation here is terrible — we have to stand in lines for everything. On the other hand, we are safe. People don’t have guns and go around killing each other; the police don’t shoot people; we don’t have to worry about our children when they are outside playing, and they get a good education for free. If this government really collapsed, I’m afraid we might lose more than we gain.”
Cubans Don’t Want Regime Change (The Jacobin, Nov 16, 2021)
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This is in line with what I have heard from Cubans who are not politicized. I have listened to people complain for most of an hour about what they thought was wrong with Cuba, most of all the low wages, but then ending with: 'But if the Americans come here, I'll get hold of a gun and fight them!'
And speaking of guns: When la cubana in the quotation says, "the police don’t shoot people," she knows what she is talking about. She has seen the videos of police brutality in the USA, and she knows about police shootings and gang violence in other Latin American countries. She knows that Cuban police aren't trigger happy. And she knows about the U.S. blockade as well ...

And at this point, she also knows that "the rapid spread of COVID-19" is no longer a problem in Cuba. She knows about the vaccines developed by Cuba, and she herself has no doubt already been vaccinated with one of those vaccines at this point. That's the major difference between now and July 11. The food is on the way along with tourism, and with the sale of the Cuban vaccines and licenses to produce them abroad.

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average.
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average.
 
The Yunior Garcia story:

By last week, state-run television began running segments saying Mr. García was aiming to violently overthrow the government. He took it as a warning that he would soon be arrested.
Though he had obtained a 90-day visa from the Spanish government, Mr. García still planned to join the Nov. 15 protests. But he was blocked from leaving his home as the government stopped demonstrators from gathering.
Shortly afterward, Mr. García said, two friends sneaked him out of his home to a safe house where he spent two days before arriving in Spain. The government had posted guards in front of his home, but Mr. García said he believed he was not stopped because officials wanted him out of the country.
The reactions to his departure have been mixed on the Facebook group he founded. The group’s leaders, apparently unaware at first that he had fled, posted messages suggesting he had been kidnapped. Some commenters said they felt betrayed that he had left.
Playwright Is in Exile as Cuba Uses an Old Playbook to Quash Dissent (NYT, Nov 21, 2021)
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He allegedly fled because of threats, but he just happened to have already obtained a 90-day visa to Spain, which he hadn't mentioned to his friends, to whom Spain had issued no such visa. And two friends sneaked him out of the house past the security guards, who didn't stop him because they wanted him to leave? What is it? Did they sneak him out, or was he just allowed to leave? And if they wanted to arrest him, why let him leave?!
Cuban satire: Paisaje después de la batalla (Granma.cu, Nov 21, 2021)
 
Tortured and imprisoned in Cuba for 20 years without a charge and no end in sight

Protests, anyone?!

There are 39 detainees remaining at the center; more than two-thirds of them have never been charged with a crime; it costs $540 million a year to keep it open; and there is “no end in sight” for military commissions that have stalled in part because of the government’s use of torture on enemy combatants.
(...)
“And we’re talking about releasing people. This is nuts,” Graham said. “One thing I can say about the 39 people that are at Gitmo, not one of them has attacked the United States. And if I have my way, none of them ever will.”
(...)
Brig. Gen. John Baker, the chief defense counsel for military commissions at the Department of Defense since 2015, testified that the government would need to start making agreements with the defendants because the commissions have been a “failed experiment” under four presidents that have produced only one final conviction.
The government’s push for the death penalty, violations of attorney-client privilege and overprotection of information about the use of torture have added up to none of the active cases having a trial date set, Baker said.
“We’re further from trial today than we were when I started,” Baker said. “This legal quagmire, I don’t see a way out. The status quo is not working.”
Afghanistan complicates new push to close Guantánamo Bay (Roll Call, Dec 7, 2021)
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Nearly two decades since the creation of what had been constructed as a temporary holding facility for prisoners of the war on terror, 39 men remain indefinitely detained.
Of those still held, 27 have never been charged with a crime and 13 have been cleared for transfer or release to another country. Some detainees were previously subject to the intelligence community’s then-secret torture program, described as “enhanced interrogation.”
(...)
“The ultimate source of the commissions’ problem is their original sin: torture,” Baker said. “This torture impacts and undermines every aspect of these prosecutions.”
Divided lawmakers weigh future of Guantanamo Bay prison (Military Times, Dec 8, 2021)
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Since last month, Nov 16:
dann said:
The most recent SARS-CoV-2 numbers:
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49.
Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38.

Since it takes three jabs to be fully vaccinated in Cuba, the difference is even bigger if we look at
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99.

And even at this point, Cuba is still vaccinating much more than the USA:
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30.
Click to expand...

Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 33, USA 251. --> Cuba 6; USA 357
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths per million people. 7-day rolling average. Cuba 0.23, USA 3.49. --> Cuba 0.03; USA 3.98
The Cuban trend is still decreasing numbers of new cases and deaths.

Share of people vaccinated against COVID-19. Cuba: fully 73.41, total 89.07; USA: fully 57.58, total 67.38. --> Cuba: fully 82.06, total 90.37; USA: fully 60.72; total 72.23
COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Cuba 238.92, USA 130.99 --> Cuba 257.04; USA 147.6
Daily COVID-19 vaccine doses administered per 100 people. Rolling 7-day average. Cuba 0.98, USA 0.30 --> Cuba 0.44; USA 0.40

Since Nov 22, the rates of new vaccinations in the two countries have been very similar. After Cuba finished vaccinating the kids, it has more or less run out of shoulders but has started to administer booster shots to health-care workers and vulnerable groups.
 
Comparing the COVID-19 Responses in Cuba and the United States (American Journal of Public Health, Aug 16/Dec 8, 2021)

The short version:
Until July 15, 2021, the cumulative rate of cases in the US is more than four times higher than that of Cuba, whereas the mortality rate and excess mortality rate are approximately 12 times higher in the United States, the source noted.
Cuba has the lowest Covid-19 death rate in Latin America, with 0.9 percent, according to the Pan American Health Organization.
It also ranks first in Latin America and second in the world regarding immunization against the coronavirus, only surpassed by the United Arab Emirates, according to the digital site Our World in Data.
Cuba has handled the Covid-19 pandemic better than the United States (Prensa Latina, Dec 23, 2021)
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