On September
20, letters began to arrive at eight Cuban municipal or provincial
government headquarters announcing the holding
of “peaceful” marches on November 15 by a group called
Archipiélago.
The motivation for these marches was a call for change. The letter
was not a formal request to occupy the busiest streets of some cities
in Cuba, but rather a notification by the group that they would do so
and they also demanded that the authorities provide them with
security for these marches. By virtue of Cuban laws and obsessive
American support for the marches, the Cuban government denied
permission for holding the protests.
Almost two
months have passed since these letters were sent, but there are few
indications that the march will take place in Cuba. Florida’s
propaganda machine assures the opposite and adds that similar
marches will take place across more than a hundred cities in the
world, a third of them in the United States.
On
November 10, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez warned
the diplomatic corps accredited in Havana that the Cuban government
“will not tolerate an opposition march” and further said
that “Cuba will never allow actions of a foreign government in
our territory, trying to destabilize the country,” while
referring to the U.S.’s support of these marches. The
provocation follows the plot
seen many times before. Meanwhile, this march, which has been
scheduled for November 15, is not what many hope it will be: a
movement for change in Cuba.
The
March Is Not Autonomous
Two days after
the delivery of the first letter to the authorities, a string of
statements
by the U.S. officials and members of Congress began pouring in on
September 22. Until November 10, there had been
several public interventions from Washington or Florida with all
kinds of demands and threats to the island’s authorities. No
other issue in the U.S. domestic politics, in recent weeks, has
received so much attention or been the case of such obsession before
these marches.
The spokesman
for the U.S. State Department, Ned Price, issued a statement on
October 16 condemning
the denial of permission by the Cuban government to hold the march.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) extended his support for
these anti-government protests soon
after
the news about these marches began circulating, while a couple of top
advisers from the Biden administration have threatened
more sanctions on the Cuban government for denying permission to hold
the march on November 15.
As if that
were not enough, more money has been raining in for such efforts
against the Cuban government. In September 2021, the Biden
administration gave
almost $7 million to 12 organizations that almost daily publicize the
“civic
march for change”
in Cuba. Many analysts see the hidden hand of the “color
revolutions” in this, which were exported by the West to the
Russian periphery.
In addition to
“moral,” political and financial support, the U.S.
diplomats offer support in many ways to the anti-government movement
in Cuba and occasionally serve
as chauffeurs to the opposition. The only thing missing in terms of
interference is a show like that of the U.S. Under Secretary of State
Victoria Nuland, who distributed
food to anti-government protesters in Independence Square, in the
capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, in 2013.
The
March Is Not Disconnected from Other Processes
The march is
just another episode in a more comprehensive strategy. The Biden
administration has interpreted the combined effect of the pandemic,
the global crisis and the economic blockade - plus the 243 additional
measures imposed by the former U.S. President Donald Trump - as
exceptional conditions that have hit Cuba even harder. No spies are
required to realize that there are more queues, inflation and
shortages in a country that has been managing shortages for 60 years,
but it is also important to understand that the march does not have
popular support within the country. Cuba is returning to normalcy
with the opening of flights, families reuniting after being separated
for two years, the return of students to schools and the revival of
the national economy.
The
Group Organizing the March Is Not Peaceful
The private
Facebook group listed as the march organizer, Archipiélago,
is anything but moderate. A large number of publications by the group
support symbolic violence and political disqualification of those who
defend the socialist project or celebrate some social achievements in
Cuba. The debate in these spaces is not to modify opinions, but to
stir up prejudices, instill hatred among Cubans as an exclusive
source of legitimacy for a government that has led the country under
very difficult conditions.
The repertoire
is an unbridled McCarthyism and an inordinate impulse to indulge in
stigmatization that are very common communicative practices in the
current political climate of the United States, but alien to the
political, cultural and idiosyncratic character of Cubans. Cuba’s
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, on November 10, assured
that Facebook could be sued for supporting the “dissident
movement” in Cuba, according to Reuters.
The
Marches Are Not Synchronous
There is talk
of the synchronization of the marches inside and outside of Cuba to
promote change. But there is no such thing. In Cuba, there is
definitely no atmosphere to support these marches, while the
organizers of Florida speak of the participation of people from a
hundred cities in the world on November 15, they have not specified
the number of people who will do so.
In reality,
those willing to participate in this type of anti-Castro chaos are
usually few, but that does not matter. On April 30, 2020, an
individual opened
fire
at the Cuban Embassy in Washington with an assault weapon, which led
to the recalling of the foreign minister. On the night of July 27,
two individuals threw
a Molotov cocktail at the Cuban Embassy in Paris.
It’s
Not What They Say
The
conservative ghost of the far-right that travels the world and
arrives in Cuba is not what it seems or what is visible to the naked
eye. Behind the “non-violent march” mantra is the long
shadow of the life-long reactionaries who now combine economic
ultra-liberalism, conservative morality, empty concepts, and creative
use of social media. They dream of ending the Cuban Revolution no
later than November 15, while leaving a moral question unanswered:
How is it possible to talk of a civil, peaceful and independent
protest, if Washington is lubricating the route plan of the protest
with threats and dollars?
This
commentary was produced by Globetrotter.
