On the streets of Havana: an aged Cuban sells his belongings and no matter he can, Havana, 3 June 2025
Yamil Lage · AFP · Getty
On 11 July 2021, whereas Covid social distancing and lockdown measures have been nonetheless in place all through Latin America, crowds gathered throughout Cuba. To cries of ‘Freedom!’ and the strains of the well-known protest track El pueblo unido jamás será vencido (‘The individuals united won’t ever be defeated’), Cubans expressed their misery on the collapse of the nation’s economic system. More than a thousand individuals have been arrested within the wake of the protests, with a whole bunch sentenced to heavy jail phrases.
Four years later, Antonio remembers that day. He stared into area as his mom Gabriela sat by his facet, lamenting that he ‘has became an outdated man’. In a poor neighbourhood on the outskirts of Havana, the household of six lives in a tiny home perched on the prime of a slim flight of steps that leads right down to a loud avenue. The lounge and kitchen are barely ten sq. metres. It was late afternoon and there was no electrical energy — energy cuts have turn into a depressingly acquainted function of life in Cuba.
Antonio was simply 17 when he was imprisoned in July 2021 for participating within the largest anti-government protest since 1959. Although he had little curiosity in politics, he recalled that he ‘noticed individuals exterior. My girlfriend was pregnant. I used to be promoting bread whereas learning however I wasn’t incomes sufficient cash. That day, violence was all over the place. The sky had turned gray. We obtained kettled. I didn’t exit with a machete or a gun or a stick, however I did throw stones.’ Antonio was arrested and swiftly charged with ‘disturbing public order’, ‘contempt of authority’ and ‘spreading an epidemic’ because the nation was seeing a file variety of infections. He spent ten months in jail.
The protests shone a lightweight on social and political opposition to the federal government. Cuba was plunged into deep financial despair by the well being disaster and border closures — notably for the reason that vacationers upon whom the nation is so dependent have been barred from getting into. The state of affairs was (…)
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(1) Sources recognized solely by their given names most well-liked to stay nameless.
(4) See Maurice Lemoine, ‘Miami revised’, Le Monde diplomatique, English version, April 2008.
(6) ‘Memorandum from the deputy assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs (Mallory) to the assistant secretary of state for Inter-American affairs (Rubottom)’, 6 April 1960, historical past.state.gov/.
