Anti-Regime protests roil Cuba as pandemic enlarges Hunger

Cuba: Streets of Havana to Santiago on Sunday filled with protestors against its own government over economic conditions and shortage of coronavirus vaccines.

Notably, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who also heads the Communist Party, blamed the United States (US) for the unrest in a nationally televised speech on Sunday 11th July afternoon.

With machine guns positioned on the back, special forces jeeps were seen in the capital, Havana, and Diaz-Canel called on supporters to confront “provocations."

People are in thousands in number assembled in downtown Havana and along parts of the seaside drive during a heavy police presence. There were a few arrests and scuffles.

A news agency Reuters reporter observed police pepper spray a few protesters and hit others with batons, but there was no effort to directly confront the thousands chanting "Freedom" as they gathered and marched in the city center. Their chants of “Diaz- Canel step down” drowned out groups of Cuban government supporters chanting "Fidel."

The demonstrations burst out in San Antonio de los Banos municipality in Artemisa Province, bordering Havana, by video on social media showing hundreds of inhabitants chanting anti-government slogans and demanding everything from COVID-19 vaccines to an end of daily blackouts.

“I just walked via town looking to buy some food, and there was the number of people there, few with signs, protesting,” local resident Claris Ramirez noted by phone.

“They are protesting blackouts, that there is no medicine,” she noted.

Diaz-Canel, who had just come from San Antonio de Los Banos, said many demonstrates were genuine but manipulated by U.S.-orchestrated social media campaigns & “mercenaries” on the territory and warned further “provocations” would not be tolerated.

There were protests later on Sunday number of miles to the east in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, where the social media video showed hundreds moving through the streets, again confirmed by a local resident.

“They are protesting the harsh crisis, that there is no food or medicine, that you have to purchase everything at the foreign currency stores, also on and on the list goes,” Claudia Perez said.