Gina Montaner: "The situation in Cuba is very delicate, the citizens are fed up with the lack of freedom"
Gina Montaner, a journalist and writer who has published a weekly column in El Nuevo Herald for more than 20 years, spoke on Capital Radio's Atalayar programme to address the situation in Cuba in the wake of the latest citizen demonstrations on the island. The journalist, who lives in exile in Miami, explained what could happen in the near future after the latest protests and how the lack of freedom affects Cubans.
What is happening on the streets of Cuba? From the information you have there, from the exile community in Miami, could the protests continue for a few days? What could happen in the next few days?
As everyone knows, the first thing the regime has done after the demonstrations in different parts of the island has been to block the internet and social networks because this is doing them great harm. In fact, when Díaz-Canel spoke on television, he referred to the influencers, the youtubers, who, according to the government, are the ones driving these counter-revolutionary demonstrations. And the issue of social networks is something that has intensified in recent years and which, logically, makes the Cuban regime more vulnerable when it comes to controlling the population.
Like any good dictator, the first thing Díaz-Canel has done is to cut off the internet to citizens. After the slightest protest in the streets, the first thing they do is cut off the internet so that no information can flow.
There are reports, I've seen it on Twitter, that say that, despite the fact that it is difficult to connect to the internet at the moment, calls are coming in and they say that there are parts of the island where people are going out and that there are demonstrations that are even clashing with the police. It is true that we are now in a moment of darkness. What does the regime want? Well, they want to do what they have to do when it comes to repression, so that as little as possible is seen and nothing is known.
On Twitter there were videos showing that in several cities in Cuba there were demonstrations, arrests and beatings of some of the demonstrators by the police. Some of the police were in plain clothes and were beating and arresting many of the demonstrators.
At the moment there is a blockade by the regime. This is nothing new in a dictatorship, for example, China periodically shuts down any internet channel if it considers that dissidents are mobilising. That's what dictatorships do and Cuba is no different in that sense. I can say that the San Isidro Movement group, which has been so important in recent months, with Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the visual artist at the head of this movement, who seems to be under arrest at the moment, has put out a list of detainees and people who have been arrested or who have been released, people whose whereabouts are still unknown. I've been looking at Infobae and they have a list of people who are currently detained. I think we are living through hours in which all kinds of arrests, imprisonments and interrogations must be taking place. Díaz-Canel said that the non-revolutionaries have to take to the streets and that they are not going to allow this, which is what they have been doing for more than 60 years.
ABC's correspondent in Cuba, Camila Acosta, has been arrested; this is news that the newspaper itself has published on Twitter. Is there any news about how and where she is?
No, not that I know of; for now, I don't think we have any information.
Is the crime that Camila may have committed the crime of reporting everything that is happening there?
Exactly, that of informing. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has also spoken, echoing the words of the White House that they are monitoring what is happening and that they are following it very closely. Of course, the US government is supporting what is happening in Cuba with the Cuban people.
It has to be said that the first thing Díaz-Canel has done as a good Castroist is to blame the United States. The eternal message of looking for the external enemy when there is a problem at home.
This is textbook.
From Miami, the Cuban artist Yotuel has launched a message saying that this is the beginning of the end of the Cuban dictatorship. do you think there is capacity? Because the Cuban army is absolutely controlled by the dictatorship, by the Communist Party, by the power groups around the Castros and who are now with Díaz-Canel. The situation is so desperate on the part of Cuban citizens, can there be another revolution, as happened with the Castros against the dictatorship?
We have to continue to see what happens in Cuba. It is clear that they are in a moment of great fragility in the government. Of course, the economic situation is as serious or more serious than during the special period, in the 1990s, when they no longer had all the aid from the Soviet Union. In Cuba there is a brutal economic crisis, one of the things that Díaz-Canel has said is that everything was going to improve, there are blackouts every day, there are water cuts, the problem of the COVID, of the spread of the virus which in the last few weeks has multiplied. Yesterday alone there were 7,000 new cases of COVID, there are reports that people are dying in their homes, nobody is picking them up, they can't go to the hospitals. The hospitals that exist are in ruins, they don't have the means to attend to the population, we are facing a very delicate and desperate situation for the Cuban people. The citizens are fed up with the lack of freedom, of not being able to advance economically, of being locked up and only having the alternative of fleeing when they can flee the island. It is a delicate time, but we live in a dictatorship, the government and the army are the same and there is no difference. We must remember that Raúl Castro, who has not yet said anything, is a man who watches over everything that is happening and how Díaz-Canel is functioning, who is the man the Castros put in place to ensure continuity and above all to preserve the old commanders because there are very few of them left. The Cuban government must somehow ensure that these historic leaders, and above all Raúl, die in peace.
This dictatorship, as you describe it, is falling down from old age, it's obvious, and that's why at some point it has to collapse. I have always thought that the end of the Castro dictatorship will be the people's revolution in the streets, there is no other way out. The problem is the indoctrination of a number of generations and young people in order to maintain the revolution. There was a renewal represented by Díaz-Canel, who is the visible figure, as has happened in the Chinese Communist Party.
What happens is that China, where of course there are no freedoms for those who want to dissent, has its own way of managing the economy, which is less terrible than what happens on this island. Cubans suffer real hardship and also have hardly any possibility to travel and leave the island. In any case, we can't downplay the fact that we hadn't seen anything like that, not even in 1994, because the "maleconazo" was important, but it was in a small place because there weren't many people in Havana and Fidel Castro immediately appeared and that was put down. That summer many people threw themselves into the sea and came to the coast of Florida. We are seeing this at the moment in many parts of the country. We have seen people confronting the police, throwing stones, objects at them, saying really strong things and with a lot of anger. There is a lot of tiredness, people are fatigued and I also think that it has exacerbated tempers, the very logical fear of entire families with the virus, and they can't control that.
When you have nothing to lose, you are desperate, you totally lose your fear. Besides, it was Venezuela's aid that sustained the island. Venezuelan oil allowed Cuba to continue functioning, but now Venezuela can't even pull the car or Venezuela.
It is another failed state and it has enough to deal with, unfortunately for the millions of Venezuelans who are suffering under the Chavista dictatorship. In fact, Maduro has sent signals to the US government to see if at some point they can come to some kind of agreement because they are totally drowning. Maduro's own government sees what is happening on the island and they are all very connected, with great communicating vessels. We are also seeing it in Nicaragua, with this constant and relentless repression.
Can you comment briefly on the situation in Haiti; last week the president was assassinated in an attack on his residence in Port-au-Prince, and his wife has blamed groups of hitmen hired by some opposition politician. Is Haiti at risk of a civil confrontation in these decisive weeks?
Well, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken out and asked Haiti's political leaders to please come to an agreement and hold the elections that were scheduled for the end of September. We are talking about a country where there are hardly any institutions, an almost non-existent parliament, a failed state, an interim prime minister, the president has just been killed, so it is a very complicated situation in Haiti. It is a very desperate people, with a lot of hunger, with a very big COVID problem, they have not received a single supply of vaccines and they are trying to recover from the last earthquake, which was devastating. Also, an earthquake that destroyed much of the country.
Where did the 13 billion in aid that the United Nations promoted after the earthquake end up?
The aid money, which among the many aids was the famous Petrocaribe issue, which was money given by the Chavista government, did not reach the people. And as for this plot, it's all rather strange, the story of the Colombian mercenaries, the two Haitian-Americans and now this doctor and even a Venezuelan security company, it's not very clear who is behind it all.
The million-dollar question: who benefits from this? Maybe there could also be Chavista interests in Haiti.
I think the president had a lot of political enemies. There was a whole problem about whether or not his mandate was a valid mandate. It was considered that he was not respecting it because he wanted to change the constitution which, according to his political enemies or his adversaries, was a way of perpetuating himself in power. We also have to see to what extent we can trust the information that the Haitian government itself is giving because even the president's own security belt is under suspicion because of the way they entered his residence.