Miami, Mar 19 (EFE).- Cuban exile organizations in Miami and the mayor of this city expressed this Sunday their rejection of the participation of the Cuban team in the World Baseball Classic, whose semifinals and final will be played in this city of South Florida, because they will do so in the name of “a repressive regime.”
“Our fight is not against the baseball players, our fight is against the regime that enslaves all Cubans. We call on the baseball players to express solidarity with that people who are persecuted, repressed and imprisoned,” said Orlando Gutiérrez, of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, during a press conference held this Sunday outside the LoanDepot Park stadium.
In that venue located in the Little Havana neighborhood, home of the Miami Marlins Major League Baseball (MLB) team, the teams from Cuba and the United States will play tonight one of the two semifinals of this tournament, which will be the first time since 2006 that the Caribbean island disputes this instance.
It will do so in the midst of controversy, because for the first time in the history of this competition, Cuba has allowed professional MLB players to wear the national team’s jersey, to which Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada, from the Chicago White Sox, and Andy Ibáñez, of the Detroit Tigers.
The opposition from exile groups was immediate given that, as they denounced today, this sport, like the arts and other disciplines, is used by the Cuban government for political and propaganda purposes.
“I wish we lived in a world in which all Cubans could support Cuba together,” lamented Gutiérrez, who reminded the political prisoners that he maintains the “wild tyranny” that governs Cuba.
“We hope that the Castro dictatorship will be defeated on that field of play,” said the opponent and former politician Jorge Luis García Pérez, “Antúnez,” who revealed that after the fifth inning of today’s game, the Cubans present in the stadium they will stand up in protest.
‘Antúnez’ acknowledged that he cannot applaud those “players” who will play this Sunday because “they represent that dictatorship wrongly called revolution,” while the exiled Silvia Iriondo pointed out that today “Cuba is not only the one that controls the citizens but also the baseball team”.
“Cuba today is more than a team of baseball players. Today Cuba is hell for millions of Cubans,” Iriondo said during the press conference.
EQUALITY IN POVERTY AND MISERY
The mayor of Miami, Francis Suárez, reported at the conference that the Marlins team has given authorization for fans who wish to enter the stadium with banners, Cuban flags and T-shirts bearing the inscription “Patria y vida”, the slogan of the 2021 protests against the Cuban government.
For its part, the Movimiento Democracia group has called for a rally outside the stadium prior to the start of the game, where a demonstration by the Vigilia Mambisa organization is also expected, which already held a protest on Saturday under the cry of “Castro ball players get out.” of Miami”.
“For me this is much bigger than Cuba, it has to do with the virus of socialism and communism, which is a hoax,” said Mayor Suárez, who expressed concern about the increasing “involvement” of China in the Western Hemisphere.
He said that today’s game is a good opportunity to compare, on the one hand, freedom as a fundamental right in the United States, while in Cuba “people cannot express themselves freely” because of a “false ideology” that promises equality.
“The only equality there is (in Cuba) is that of poverty and misery,” said the mayor, who has hinted that he is considering running for the Republican primaries to choose the candidate in the 2024 elections.
In his turn, Miami city commissioner Manolo Reyes pointed out that the media and institutions that in recent days have asked not to mix sports and politics extend this claim to Cuba, where “everything is politicized, from sports and culture to The education”.
