Thousands of Cuban demonstrators in Havana took to the streets to protest government food and medicine shortages and rising prices, in part due to the continued embargo of U.S. trade to the island prison. Former President Donald Trump instituted some of the trade restrictions lifted during the Obama administration in first attempts to normalize relations with the totalitarian communist state. Conditions on the ground in Cuba have deteriorated much like Venezuela where the once oil-rich nation was one of the richest states in South America. Whether admitted to or not by 61-year-old Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canal, communism, or complete state control of the economy and social order, has failed wherever it’s been tried, robbing the population the opportunity of goods-and-services, something Diaz-Canal readily blames the U.S. for imposing a strict trade embargo.
When communist Cuba’s founder 90-year-old Fidel Castro died Nov. 25, 2016, he handed the reins to his 90 year old brother Raul Castro, reluctantly surrendering power to Diaz-Canal, if, for no other reason, he’s not a Castro. But a younger generation of Cubans no longer care about the old socialist arguments once glamorizing Fidel and revolutionary Argentine-born Ernesto Che Guevera, part of the great 1959 Cuban revolution where Castro’s band of revolutionaries ousted U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista Jan. 1, 1959. Cuba used to be a close trading partner with the U.S. under Batista, encouraging American businesses to thrive on the island paradise only 90 miles from Key West, Florida. But once Batista was ousted, Castro’s band of thugs confiscated personal property and bank accounts of Havana’s pro-Batista population, fleeing Cuba, seeking asylum in the U.S.
Over 5,000 Cuban-Americans rallied in Miami’s Little Havana, waving Cuban and U.S. flags, shouting “Viva Cuba Libre” and “Down with communism,” familiar slogans for the tight knit Cuban exile community, knowing how Castro destroyed their lives before fleeing to the U.S. in 1959. While the Little Havana community protested for Cuba’s liberation, Cuban military and police cracked down on Cuban protesters, after authorities cut their Internet, preventing groups from communicating with each other. Diaz-Canal called for the U.S. to end the embargo on Cuba, without promising any democratic reforms, like free elections, allowing rank-and-file Cubans to pick the kind of government they wants. After years of Soviet-style governance in Cuba, the vast majority of citizens are too young to remembers life before the revolution that brought Marxism to the island.
President Joe Biden, 78, is under pressure to lift trade restrictions imposed by Trump for the purpose of pushing Cuba begin the slow process of returning to a more democratic state. Canal-Diaz wants the U.S. to lift trade restriction without any change to Cuba’s failed political and social system. Left-leaning Democrats don’t understand the upheaval that occurred to Cuban families watching their property confiscated and lives ruined during the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Miami’s Cuban-born mayor Francis Suarez said the protests in Cuba were spontaneous. “The people of Cuba need medicine. They are starving. They are in need of international help. Unless the Cuban military turns on the government, the people of Cuba will continue to be oppressed without any hope of freedom in the future,” Suarez said. Suarez recognized the abysmal failure of Cuba’s 60-year-experiment with communism.
Biden has some real soul-searching before a knee-jerk attempt to reinstate Obama-era trade restrictions, allowing the communist regime to continue without any consequences. Dian-Canal blames Cuba’s problems on the U.S., the same claptrap spewed by the Castro brothers while they seized power in Cuba, promising better days. Castro’s failed experiment may have given free health care and education to Cuban citizens but he had no way of supporting an economy, other than depending on aid from now defunct Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union disbanded Dec. 26, 1991, Cuba lost its benefactor, leaving the coffers drying up. Now that the Russian Federation has its own economic problems, they can’t afford to subsidize the Cuban population. “Sixty years of communist, cruelty and oppression cannot last any longer!” tweeted Suarez Sunday after protests in Little Havana.
Little Havana’s American-Cuban-exile community does not want Biden to loosen trade restrictions unless Diaz-Canal agrees to implement democrat reforms. Many Cuban exiles would like the Cuban regime to return property and assets seized during the Cuban Revolution. Suarez wants the Biden White House to stop the crackdown, bloodshed and arrests of pro-democracy protesters in Havana. “I am very moved because I did not think it could take place,” said Alieda Lopez, a Cuban exile in the Miami area. “The young people have finally said enough is enough. We will do what the old ones could not do,” said Yanelis Sales, a Cuban American. But while there’s hope for reform in Cuba, Biden know the brutal crackdown taking place on Havana streets. Cubans want their freedom but as long as Diaz-Canal hangs onto power using the military, there’s little hope of change unless Biden plays his cards right.
