Exclusive video of the 11J protests demonstrates the innocence of political prisoner Luis Frómeta.

The video shows Frómeta holding the camera with a dialoguing and peaceful attitude, trying to explain to the police officers not to throw stones at the protesters, please.

Translating Cuba, July 12, 2024

Two Books Point Out That the ’11J’ Protests Put an End to the Idyllic Vision of the Cuban Revolution Abroad

By Xavier Carbonell,  Translated by Regina Anavy 14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 10 July 2024 — Three years after the massive protests of 11 July 2021 (’11J’), many Cuban readers wait to read two books: a historical study that defines the caliber and meaning of the demonstrations and an anthology of the chronicles, reports and photographs that – regardless of ideological position – were published during those days. Now, on the eve of its third anniversary, bookstores have received valuable personal testimonies and many studies about the event that changed the citizen landscape of the Island. One is the Spanish edition of Cuba… Homeland and Life! (Ecúmene Ediciones), by the French reporter Francis Matéo, whom 14ymedio interviewed about his “chronicle of a revolt.” A year after that conversation, Mateó explains to this newspaper the need to “not forget what happened” on 11J. “It has been weeks, months and years (we should add: days and hours) of suffering and agony for the victims of the repression that followed these demonstrations. Thousands of families were mistreated, violated and destroyed by the harassment inflicted on their loved ones. Innocent victims were imprisoned or condemned to exile, if not to the despair that continues to worsen on the Island,” he says. The situation, he says, “has only become worse.” Many of those who were arrested in those days “continue to languish in prison” and “almost 600,000 Cubans have emigrated since the summer of 2021.” In his book, the journalist undertakes a study of the root causes of the crisis that led to the eruption, including the erosion of the methods of control of the Cuban regime, the indebtedness of the leadership and the collapse of the economy. According to the press release that accompanies the launch, the book recounts a series of events for which citizens “paid dearly. For the first time in more than sixty years, the Castro dictatorship is openly condemned in the streets of the entire Island, and the fear imposed by the repression of any form of protest yields to the courage of the peaceful but determined demonstrators,” he summarizes. Matéo traveled to Cuba after the coronavirus pandemic and collected the testimonies of dozens of demonstrators, including several from the Havana neighborhood of La Güinera, one of the main focuses of the protest and where Diubis Laurencio Tejeda was shot dead at the hands of the police. He also came into contact with journalist Iliana Hernández, who at that time lived in the capital under strict police surveillance. Matéo’s book represents a critical trend within European journalism that, according to the author himself, seeks to counteract the idyllic vision that many have of the Island. Annihilating the “romanticism about the Revolution” is the declared objective of Cuba… Homeland and Life!, which takes its title from the song that became the soundtrack of the protests. In 2022, a few months before his death, the Uruguayan journalist Carlos Liscano wrote about the idealization of the Island, which crumbled for many foreigners on 11J, and the silence over Cuba’s reality. In his book, Cuba: Better Not to Talk About It (Fin de Siglo), he settled accounts with a Revolution to which he himself dedicated much enthusiasm; he was a Tupamaro guerrilla in his country and a political prisoner, in addition to covering the invasion of Playa Girón [Bay of Pigs]. He defined the complicity of Latin American intellectuals about the Island in one sentence: “We didn’t know because we didn’t want to know.” The demonstrations of 11J broke the silence for many “ideological tourists,” a term with which Liscano defines those who travel to a Havana that is decorative and prepared by the regime, diametrically opposed to the real life of the Cubans who protested. Cutting the internet, arresting journalists, beating citizens and imprisoning thousands of people are among the methods that made the difference – according to the Uruguayan – between silence and denunciation. An attempt at an academic approach to 11J was made by Alexander Hall, compiler of Cuba 11J: Counter-hegemonic perspectives of the protests (Marx21.net). The volume brings together a group of voices, mostly left-wing or with some degree of commitment to officialdom, who in recent years have radicalized their positions on the Regime. This is the case of the historian Alina Bárbara López or the economist Miguel Alejandro Hayes. The volume also includes essays by intellectuals of such disparate approaches as Julio César Guanche, Mauricio de Miranda, Zuleica Romay, José Antonio Fernández Estrada, Dmitri Prieto and Leonardo Romero Negrín. The book, which aimed to point out the birth – or at least the awakening – of a “critical left” on the Island, lamented the country’s poverty but subscribed to some of the causes that the regime attributes to it, such as the US blockade.* It was right, however, to define the economic triggers of the protest – the package of measures imposed in January 2021, accelerated inflation and the financial defenselessness of citizens in the face of the pandemic – and to diagnose the moral bankruptcy of the Regime. The Cuban government itself promoted the drafting of an official history of the protests – Cuba 11J. Protests, responses, challenges (Elag) – in which it totally blamed Washington for the outcry and washed its hands of the debacle by pointing to the person responsible: Donald Trump. The value of the book lies in the fact that it collects the documents issued by the Regime during those days, which attest to the calls for repression by Miguel Díaz-Canel. In addition, there are the speeches given by the president, “with Raúl Castro by his side,” in the so-called acts of revolutionary reaffirmation after the protest; the messages of several writers and artists in defense of the regime; an interview with Silvio Rodríguez in which he criticizes the demonstrators; and the opinions of citizens close to the leadership. For July 11, the Government had a slogan from the beginning: “Nothing happened.” Nothing happened in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, says Francis Matéo, sarcastically. “It is true that nothing seems to have changed in Havana, apart from this palpable and increasing sense of despair,” he admits. The reality, however, is different: there is growing “anger and resentment” towards the Government of Díaz-Canel, Patria y Vida has become an alternative national anthem and the country is ready – with the spirit that began on 11J – to achieve its liberation. *Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force. Translated by Regina Anavy

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, July 11, 2024

A Silent Cry for the Victims of Castro

If any event exemplifies the perverse essence of the Castro brothers’ gangster regime, the sinking of the “13 de Marzo” tugboat in July 1994 would undoubtedly be one of the most infamous, despite the long list of crimes committed by Cuba’s communist dictatorship. In the early morning of July 13, 1994, 68 Cubans attempted to flee the island by boarding the “13 de Marzo” tugboat in Havana’s harbor. The mission was carried out by the vessel’s own crew, who methodically prepared and fully agreed on the escape plans for themselves, their families, and friends. As the group set sail, they were immediately pursued by two regime vessels that began to ram the “13 de Marzo.” According to eyewitness accounts, high pressure water cannons were then used to sweep overboard women and children pleading from the deck for their attackers to stop. It is clear that the regime’s objective was to sink the vessel and kill its occupants. They succeeded when the tugboat capsized, its holds flooded by the water sprayed from the cannons. The remaining passengers were quickly swallowed into the depths of the Florida Straits as the vessel sank just seven miles from Havana’s harbor. In total, 37 people were killed, including 10 children and nine teenagers. Helen Martínez Enríquez, who was only six months old, was the youngest victim. 31 people survived, but they were never able to recover from the harrowing trauma. This brutal crime was executed with total impunity by “volunteers,” as Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, leader of the Cuban opposition Christian Liberation Movement, described the pilots of state tugboats that sunk the “13 de Marzo” amidst the indifference of the Cuban coast guard. In the aftermath, Fidel Castro publicly supported the culprits and even decorated them for their actions. Payá, who would later be murdered by the regime’s political police on a road in eastern Cuba along with young activist Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012, drew a parallel between the cruelty and mercilessness of Fidel Castro’s most ardent supporters and those peninsular and Creole individuals during the Spanish colonial era who committed atrocities against the Cuban people in the name of the Crown without consequences. The Castro regime’s malice, arrogance, and cowardice on July 13 was, unfortunately, not unprecedented. If anything, the Cuban communist system has maintained its disregard for human life over the last 65 years. In 1962, during the Barlovento massacre, 20 people were arrested and six were killed while attempting to escape Havana. In 1980, a boat fleeing the island was strafed with machine gun fire, killing 53 people, including children, in what became known as the massacre of Río Canímar. In October 2022, the Cuban coast guard sank a vessel attempting to rescue relatives from the island, killing seven Cubans, including a two-year-old girl. Decades after the sinking of the “13 de Marzo,” the Cuban Communist regime and the mafia-like clan that administers it remain in power, free from the consequences of these crimes, while they continue to violently oppress the Cuban people and prevent them from exercising their rights. The deaths of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in 2010 and Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero in 2012 also remain unpunished. Meanwhile, 1,100 Cubans are currently held as political prisoners on the island, and more than half a million Cubans have fled in the last two years alone. All of this occurs while the Cuban people continue to demand their rights and the world turns a blind eye to their plight in order to maintain the status quo and relationships with the mafia that mismanages Cuba. Therefore, we urge people of good faith who stand in solidarity with the Cuban people to sign the petition to expel Cuba from the UN Human Rights Council and to observe 13 minutes of silence, a silent accusatory cry, for the victims of the “13 de Marzo” tugboat massacre on Saturday, July 13, at noon, record it, and post it on social media. Regis Iglesias Ramírez is the spokesperson for the Christian Liberation Movement. John J. Suárez is the Executive Director of the Center for a Free Cuba. All opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institutions they represent or VOC.