MADRID.– He Cuban Conflict Observatorycounted 626 spontaneous public protests in Cuba in January 2024, exceeding by 97 the 529 registered by the OCC in December 2023, for an increase of 15.50% in social demonstrations.
In the first balance of the year, the OCC indicated that citizen insecurity was the main driver of the demonstrations, in addition to rejection of the “economic package” promoted by the Díaz-Canel dictatorship.
Through its report, the Observatory indicates that “for the first time, expressions of discontent related to citizen insecurity and the growing wave of social violence in the country led all other categories of the registry, with 144.”
The protest figures compiled for the month reflect that not only do the numbers of femicides (5), murders or homicides (18), assaults and robberies (47) and cases of missing persons (22) remain worrying, but that they have reached a shocking level of cruelty and gore
A notable jump took place in protests based on repressive acts, from 68 in December 2022 to 133 in January 2024 (third place by category). The increase seemed to reveal the government’s tension and fear of a probable social outbreak, in view of the growing popular rejection of the current hardships and those that a new package of economic measures will bring, condemned to worsen the situation.
The report highlights “the redoubling of repression was seen at all levels: against political prisoners and their families, opponents, protesters awaiting trial, commentators on the networks, private economic actors, transporters and even philanthropic activities conducted by independent civil society. ”.
The “Paquetazo”, a set of measures announced by the regime that predict an increase in the cost of goods and services, a probable inflationary explosion and less money in the pockets of Cubans, fueled resentment against the communist leaders, in parallel with top postponements carried out in the delivery of the basic food basket quotas. These two factors placed the Food, inflation, agriculture category in third place, with 114 protests.
Problems with public services continued in January (29), especially those of sanitation, water supply and electricity, with the return in recent weeks of blackouts that obscured up to 30% of the country. Sad stories related to housing problems led to 27 protests.
Cuba – queues – fuel shortage – AP
AP/Ramón Espinosa
The situation inherited from 2023 in the first month of the year was summarized as follows by priest Alberto Reyes in a post: “2023 has been hard, with a continuous crescendo not only in the difficulty of acquiring what is necessary to live, but in the amount of emigrants and the desperation to emigrate, and in the apathy of the government, which increasingly ignores the daily life of these people, while mobilizing its energies towards control and repression. (…) Our rulers are either blind, and do not see the reality that surrounds them; or they are clumsy, and see, but do not understand; or they have allowed evil to enter into them, whereupon, they see, they understand, They are aware of the suffering of these people, but they do not careand they have chosen to eternalize it.”
As a counterpart to the intensification of repression, 88 challenges to the police state were registered (fourth place), including the burning of a doll representative of Díaz-Canel at the arrival of the new year; a collective protest over the milk quota for children in the center of Palma Soriano (Santiago de Cuba); a coachmen’s strike in Bayamo (Granma); publications on networks about the multilateral crisis and the mismanagement of leaders; the burning of a garbage dump by residents of the Havana neighborhood of Lawton; and the effective sit-in of a mother in front of a prison demanding medical attention for her political prisoner son.
Source: EDITORIAL/EUROPA PRESS
