Washington D.C.:Accusing the Cuban Communist government of stifling its people’s voices through arbitrary detentions and secret summary trials lacking due process guarantees, the United States today stated that it will continue to support the Cuban people’s desire for freedom and to determine their own future.
Calling on the Cuban government to respect Cubans’ demands for universal human rights, the US Secretary of State, Antony J. Blinken, said today, democracies around the world are coming together to support the Cuban people.
Beginning on July 11, 2021 tens of thousands of Cubans across the island took to the streets to demand their fundamental freedoms and a better future. The demonstrations that began in the sleepy town of San Antonio de los Baños that had been hit by a recent string of long power cuts, soon spread to other parts of the country. The demonstrators shouted slogans such as “Patria y Vida!” which meant “Fatherland and Life”—the title of a banned but extremely popular rap song that riffs on a slogan coined by the late Cuban President Fidel Castro: “Fatherland or Death.” The protestors also shouted “Libertad!” (Freedom).
These public demonstrations in Cuba are supposed to be the largest mass action by the public since 1994. The Cuban government responded with violence.
Secretary Blinken used US President Biden’s words to say that the Cuban people made a “clarion call for freedom.” He also referred to yesterday’s joint statement issued by the international community – Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Guatemala, Greece, Honduras, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Korea, besides the USA. He said this joint statement “demonstrates that the Cuban people are not alone in their aspirations”.
In the joint statement, these nations had condemned the mass arrests and detentions of protestors in Cuba and call on the government to respect the universal rights and freedoms of the Cuban people, including the free flow of information to all Cubans. They had called on the Cuban government to respect the legally guaranteed rights and freedoms of the Cuban people without fear of arrest and detention. “We urge the Cuban government to release those detained for exercising their rights to peaceful protest. We call for press freedom and for the full restoration of Internet access, which allows economies and societies to thrive. We urge the Cuban government to heed the voices and demands of the Cuban people,” they had stated.
Blinken today said the United States and the international community will continue to provide support to the Cuban people as they seek to exercise those universal human rights and freedoms to which all individuals are entitled.
Earlier, accusing the USA of instigating, “through lies and distortions”, social unrest and violence in Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs had said at a meeting of Foreign ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Mexico on July 24, 2021 that “A superpower must not be allowed to destroy small countries and impose its domination”. Parrilla had claimed that there was no social turmoil, and the Cuban people overwhelmingly rejected and defeated the attempt through the unity and broad majority consensus of all citizens.
“I reaffirm that the Cuban people and their government shall defend the socialist and social justice rule of law and shall persist in the construction of an independent, sovereign, socialist democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation. Let us all struggle to change and democratize the international order,” he had asserted.
– global bihari bureau
