Thread by @cubacenter

CubaBrief: Castro dictatorship's repressive apparatus and true nature exposed again on #15N. What's next? cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 1/

No one should have been surprised by the Cuban dictatorship's "successful" crackdown on the announced civic marches called for on November 15, 2021. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 2/

Reason that the July 11th nationwide demonstrations took place was that they were spontaneous, caught the secret police, & many activists, by surprise, & officials did not shut down the internet before Cubans across the island saw what was taking place. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 3/

The Washington Post editorial board is spot on in their November 15th editorial:

"The Cuban freedom movement did not succeed in staging the massive 'Civic March for Change' it had planned for Monday." ...

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"Having been put on notice several weeks ago that opposition leaders wanted to take to the streets, the Havana regime of President Miguel Díaz-Canel prepared and carried out an impressively sophisticated repressive strategy." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 5/

... "Though the Cuban regime may portray the suffocation of the planned march as evidence of its strength and the freedom movement’s weakness, the opposite is true." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 6/

"No, its opponents were not able to carry out a more organized reprise of the sudden uprising in the streets that shook Cuba on July 11. " cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 7/

"Yet the vast, expensive mobilization the government required to prevent it showed, albeit backhandedly, that the sentiments aroused and expressed four months ago are too powerful and widespread to be contained otherwise." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 8/

"That is a disastrous failure for a government whose legitimacy rests on its claim to speak not only for the Cuban people but also for downtrodden masses everywhere." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 9/

The image that captures the essence of the Cuban dictatorship was the video of officials using a Cuban flag to cover up Yunior Garcia Aguilera's peaceful protest holding a white rose, and displaying a sign that read "my house is blockaded." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 10/

Secret police would not let him leave his home, and covered up this small gesture of defiance with the flag. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 11/

Yunior García and his wife Dayana Prieto are missing and the Archipelago platform is demanding proof of life, and also denouncing the disappearance of the group’s moderator, Daniela Rojo. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 12/

Edward Pentin in his article published in the @NCRegister on Nov 15, 2021 reported on expatriates protesting abroad, and repression in Cuba. Protests took place in over 120 locations around the world. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 13/

The Center for a Free Cuba, the Patmos Institute, and CubaDecide organized a Prayer Walk on November 14th and a Civic Walk on November 15th. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 14/

On both days we gathered at Meridian Hill Park and in both events recited Jose Marti’s poem “Cultivo una Rosa Blanca”, a prayer, and sang the lyrics of Patria y Vida. Images of the protest appeared in Telemundo’s national news broadcast. 15/

Pentin also reported on the “Appeal to World Civic, Religious and Political Leaders to Help Peaceful Cuban Dissidents and Oppose Cuban Government Violence Targeting Them,” in which "signatories stressed that not since 1989 has the @ICRC been able to inspect Cuba’s prisons"... 16/

... "(this is compared with around 100 visits the ICRC made to the nearby U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay prison from 2002 to 2014)." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 17/

"The statement contained concrete steps to be taken by the international community including establishing an “arms embargo” on Cuba, and “suspend economic and military cooperation agreements with the Cuban dictatorship.” cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 18/

The objective was to stop normalizing the Castro regime, and it's terrible record.” cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 19/

However, the appeal left out a discussion on the press bureaus in Cuba, a critical element on holding Havana accountable. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 20/

The Castro regime's repressive apparatus worked over time across Cuba to silence dissenting voices, and took action to encourage self-censorship by foreign news correspondents. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 21/

Officials on November 13, 2021 revoked the credentials of all journalists working for the Spanish news agency EFE in Cuba. This was a month and a half after the accreditation of EFE's editorial coordinator in Havana was withdrawn. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 22/

The Cuban dictatorship has a long history of targeting and expelling reporters that are too objective in their reporting, and it serves as a warning to others. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 23/

The results can be seen in coverage that all too often present as fact regime claims without pushing back on falsehoods or providing critical context. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 24/

On February 27, 2007 @IBDinvestors reported on @ChicagoTribune's Gary Marx, the @BBC's Stephen Gibbs and Cesar Gonzalez-Calero of @El_Universal_Mx being expelled from Cuba. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 25/

.@TheNation magazine reported on April 26, 2007 that "credentials, when they are granted, are short-term–for as little as thirty days–and the press office is constantly reviewing reporters’ stories. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 26/

Most foreign correspondents I know will try to resist that kind of pressure, however, and stop short of self-censorship. They will write the story as they see it and–as Marx has done–take the consequences. But the pressure undeniably has an effect." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 27/

@IBDinvestors cited an unexpelled @Reuters correspondent as an example of the journalists allowed to remain: cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 28/

"Marc Frank wrote about Cuba's latest failed sugar harvest, making no effort to look up why government price-setting creates the same disastrous result over and over. Like the Soviets of old, he blamed the weather." ... cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 29/

"Not everything Frank does is bad, but the ex-People's Daily World staffer states in many of his reports that Cuba's economic problems are a byproduct of the US embargo rather than the failures of socialism." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 30/

It is no surprise that 14 years later, Marc Frank continues to work in Cuba for @Reuters, but as his co-authored article demonstrates, to someone with knowledge of Cuba, he reports official claims without pushing back on their accuracy. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 31/

For example, Mr. Frank repeats the claim that " cases of COVID-19, as well as deaths, have fallen sharply" without mentioning that "Cuba has a history of not reporting epidemics until they become obvious." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 32/

He also cites "Cuban political analyst & former diplomat Carlos Alzugaray" & his claim that the "timing of the protests - the same day tourism and schools were reopening after pandemic restrictions - touched a nerve with the govt" ... cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 33/

... and that "protest leaders miscalculated in the timing" without mentioning that they'd initially planned to carry out the protests on Nov 20th, but that the Havana responded to the request on that date by calling for nationwide military exercises on Nov 18, 19, and 20th. 34/

Mr. Frank fails to explain that in practice the right to peaceful assembly in Cuba by dissidents is non-existent. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 35/

For example, on June 24, 2020 in Guanabacoa, Cuba 27 year old unarmed Black Cuban, Hansel E. Hernández was shot in the back and killed by the police. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 36/

On social media demonstrations were announced for June 30 to protest Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano's killing. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 37/

Secret police began shutting off internet connections, cell phones and started arbitrarily detaining those that would take part in the non-violent protests. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 38/

Activists who recorded or expressed over social media their intention to take part in the protest action had their homes laid siege to by state security and placed under house arrest. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 39/

Seventy Cubans were targeted and officials successfully "prevented" the non-violent action. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 40/

On June 28, 2020 independent Jorge Enrique Rodríguez was arrested and charged with "Fake news" for reporting on the police killing of a black youth. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 41/

Other journalists in the lead up to the June 30th demonstrations were detained or their homes surrounded in order to stop them reporting on the killing of Hansel Ernesto Hernández Galiano and reactions to his death.

Sound familiar?

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It does to previous generations of Cubans. Below are some highlights of past well-known regime acts of repression, but by no means is it exhaustive. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 43/

The Padilla Affair 1971

Heberto J. Padilla, a Cuban poet, who like many had been an enthusiastic supporter of Fidel Castro ousting Cuban dictator Batista in 1959, became disillusioned when the Castro regime's dictatorial nature became clear, and reflected it in his writings. 44/

On March 20, 1971 Heberto Padilla and Belkis Cuza Malé's home was raided by armed state security agents at seven in the morning and they were arbitrarily detained. Belkis was held incommunicado for three days and released. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 45/

Heberto was interrogated for over a month and psychologically tortured by the secret police and on April 27, 1971 taken to confess before the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba his counter-revolutionary tendencies. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 46/

Government organized lynchings during Mariel 1980
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Forty one years ago, on April 15, 1980, the Mariel boatlift began and would continue over the next seven and a half months bringing over 125,000 Cubans to the United States, ending on October 31, 1980. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 48/

Fidel Castro began by insulting those seeking refuge as “scum” and “worms”, and he took children and youth out of school to take part in acts of repudiation. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 49/

According to @CarlosAMontaner, the students killed a teacher that they had discovered running away. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 50/

This was the first time that acts of repudiation were seen, when Cubans who simply wanted to leave the country were brutally assaulted and forty lost their lives in lynchings. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 51/

The July 13, 1994 tugboat massacre

Wednesday, July 13, 1994 at three in the morning three extended Cuban families set out for a better life aboard the "13 de Marzo" tugboat from Havana, Cuba and were massacred by Cuban govt agents. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 52/

The most extensive international report on what took place is by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and is available on-line. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 53/

Fifteen years later human rights defender Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, reflected on what had happened: cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 54/

"Behind the Christ of Havana, about seven miles from the coast, "volunteers" of the Communist regime committed one of the most heinous crimes in the history of our city and of Cuba." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 55/

"In the morning, a group of seventy people in all, fled on a tugboat, led by the ship's own crew; none was kidnapped, or there against their will. They came out of the mouth of the Bay of Havana. They were pursued by other similar ships." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 56/

"When the runaway ship and its occupants stopped to surrender, the ships that had been chasing them started ramming to sink it." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 57/

"Meanwhile, on the deck, women with children in their arms begging for mercy, but the answer of their captors was to project high pressure water cannons against them." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 58/

"Some saw their children fall overboard under the murderous jets of water amid shrieks of horror." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 59/

"They behaved brutally until their perverse mission was fulfilled: Sink the fleeing ship and annihilate many of its occupants." cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 60/

February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue Shoot down
Carlos Alberto Costa (29), Pablo Morales, (29) Armando Alejandre Jr.(45), and Mario Manuel de la Peña (24) killed February 24, 1996 cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 61/

25 yrs ago on Feb 24, 1996 a Cuban MiG-29UB Fulcrum & a MiG-23ML intercepted 3 US civilian registered Cessna 337s, operated by Brothers to the Rescue while engaged on a humanitarian search & rescue mission over the Florida Straits for Cuban rafters in international airspace. 62/

At 3:21 pm EST the Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N2456S) was destroyed by an air-to-air missile fired by the Cuban MiG-29 military aircraft. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 63/

At 3:27 pm EST the Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N5485S) was destroyed by an air-to-air missile fired by a Cuban MiG-29 military aircraft. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 64/

Immediately killed were Armando Alejandre Jr.,45 years old, Carlos Alberto Costa, age 29, Mario Manuel de la Peña, age 24, and Pablo Morales, age 29. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 65/

This was a premeditated act of state terrorism carried out by Havana on the orders of both Fidel and Raul Castro. cubacenter.org/archives/2021/… 66/

The 3rd Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N2506) escaped. The survivors Jose Basulto, Arnaldo Iglesias, Silvia Iriondo & Andres Iriondo were able to set the record straight countering the propaganda offensive already underway from Havana to misrepresent what had happened. 67/