The lies that Fidel told in his books and that Silvio sang in his songs could not explain or predict how the paradise revolution in the Caribbean had become an earthly hell. The protests of July 11, 2021, showed that Cuba was only perfect for revolutionary tourists from Europe and the United States, but not for the 11 million Cubans imprisoned by the failed policies of the Castro brothers.
More than economic protests, a cry for freedom. The demonstrations sparked by a severe economic crisis and prolonged power blackouts were just the straw that broke the camel’s back of decades of brutal repression and ongoing human rights violations. Nothing could stop the July protests, not the suffocating summer heat, the COVID-19 pandemic, much less the terror of more than 60 years of criminal dictatorship.
The sanctions work did their part. Although the sanctions are not very nice for many, it was shown that international pressure, added to the internal actions of citizens, have a powerful effect in bringing about real change in dictatorial systems. Sanctions and external pressures affect the only thing that dictatorships venerate and respect more than God, the dollars, the blessed dollars.
The youth of the island are not isolated. Internet access and the increasingly frequent use of social networks was an essential tool for communication among young people in Cuba before and after the protests. These networks helped to demonstrate and viralize the weariness and discontent of thousands of young people in more than 60 cities and towns in the largest of the Antilles.
Dialogue, tolerance and democracy. In Cuba these three elements live as orphans, they have disappeared, however, the people themselves are forging and managing this right, which is not a gift or a gratuitous concession from the so-called revolution and its octogenarian leaders.
It is not enough to put on new faces, you need new ideas and new leadership. Havana’s marketing machinery, which has been successful marketing the benefits of the island such as prodigious medicine and free education, tried to launch another advertising marketing product called Díaz Canel, however, it was not successful, because it is not enough to put on masks new to the old dictatorship, real change and new ideas are needed.
Releasing all detainees is essential. Following the July protests, the dictatorship arrested more than 1,450 people and has already sentenced more than 500 protesters to more than 4,000 combined years in prison or other punitive measures. It should be noted that at least 20% of those detained were minors between 16 and 18 years of age.
Brutality of the Cuban dictatorship naked. Although many say that a year after the protests nothing has changed and the dictatorship continues to cling to power with all its claws, the truth is that the struggle had irreversible and irrefutable results. The Cuban people have rekindled their desire for freedom and the world has once again set its sights on the island. Cuba is not the perfect communist showcase that we were told, much less an egalitarian and happy society. The Havana regime is the oldest, cruelest and most sophisticated dictatorship in the Americas, however, this time its propaganda system has failed and fewer and fewer believe its dissimulations and lies.
*The author was Nicaraguan Ambassador to the OAS.
“The opinions published here are the sole responsibility of their author.”
