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Why are Cubans protesting? Examining the nation's disappointment with the Communist Party - YouTube
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JUDY WOODRUFF: In Cuba, Police are out in
force tonight in the capital, Havana, after
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thousands of protesters rose up Sunday.
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They took to the streets across the country,
in the largest demonstrations against communist
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rule in a generation.
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Nick Schifrin begins our coverage.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: On the streets of Havana, thousands
of Cubans walked to the center of the capital
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to demand their freedom.
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GEOVANIS GONZALEZ, Demonstrator (through translator):
We are here because of the repression against
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the people. They are starving us to death.
We have no house. We have nothing. But they
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have money to build hotels.
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PEDRO DEL CUETO, Dissident Protester (through
translator): Homeland and life. Down with
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the dictatorship. Down with the Castros. Down
with the communist dogs.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: They filmed on their phones
and spread the call to demonstrate via Internet
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they have only recently been able to access,
first San Antonio de los Banos, south of Havana,
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and then to hundreds of cities throughout
the country.
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It wasn't all peaceful. Ninety miles east
of Havana, protesters overturned a cop car.
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In response, police arrested dozens, and plainclothes
officers administered the state's justice.
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MICHEL RODRIGUEZ, Demonstrator (through translator):
State security beat me and my daughter. They
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beat us because we were walking down the street.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: The nationwide release of anger
from protesters willing to personally yell
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at Cuba's president, the product of acute
shortages of COVID vaccines and other medicines,
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despite a COVID outbreak, and more Cubans
getting sick, anger over inflation that could
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hit 500 percent this year.
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And because of Trump administration sanctions,
Cubans no longer have access to remittances
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that were once their second largest source
of income. But it's also the product of longstanding
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outrage over an economy that for years failed
to lift up working-class Cubans.
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Yesterday, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel
accused demonstrators of being U.S. sellouts.
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Today, he blamed the 70-year-old U.S. trade
embargo.
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MIGUEL DIAZ-CANEL, Cuban President (through
translator): Lift the blockade, and we will
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see what our people are capable of.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: But in the White House today,
President Biden took the protesters' side.
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JOE BIDEN, President of the United States:
The Cuban people are demanding their freedom
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from an authoritarian regime. The United States
stands firmly with the people of Cuba as they
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assert their universal rights.
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And we call on the government, the government
of Cuba, to refrain from violence.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: It's been 27 years since Cubans
protested en masse. But those demonstrations
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were only in Havana. Yesterday's protests
were across the country, spontaneous, and
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leaderless.
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And to talk about the significance of these
protests, we turn to Lillian Guerra, professor
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of Cuban history at the University of Florida.
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Lillian Guerra, welcome to the "NewsHour."
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So, how historic were yesterday's demonstrations?
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LILLIAN GUERRA, University of Florida: Well,
they were really unprecedented.
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We have not seen anything like this in 60
years or more in Cuba. They are not just extraordinary
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in their magnitude, but they are also geographically
vast in terms of the numbers of cities and
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places where they have taken place.
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And the quality of people's denunciation,
the diversity of voices, but also that people
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are openly calling this a dictatorship, and
today even calling for the end of communism
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openly in Holguin, which is far eastern Cuba,
this is all really uncharted waters.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: We reported some of Cubans'
most recent concerns over COVID, over medical
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shortages, inflation, but also long-term economic
hopelessness.
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What do you think lead to yesterday's demonstrations?
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LILLIAN GUERRA: I think this is a culmination
of three decades of the Cuban government making
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reforms that really have most served its own
stabilization and consolidation of control
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over the capitalist sector of the economy
that was created by the Communist Party in
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1991, really because of the collapse of the
Soviet Union and the need to do something
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to maintain power.
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So what we have is a lot of anger. We have
now multigenerational disappointment with
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the lack of change. And, most recently, we
have a lot of hypocrisy on the part of the
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Cuban state that claims it is so humanitarian
and so interested in its people's welfare,
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but really has not even been able to supply
people with Tylenol and basic food, and also
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will not admit -- and that is the real -- the
key here, that the new leadership and the
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old leadership have held hands.
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And they will not admit that anything is wrong
with their model or their one-party rule.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: And, in fact, today, we have
seen the Cuban government blamed United States
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for these protests, also shut off some access
to the Internet.
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Do you believe the government is willing to
make some of the changes that are required
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to respond to those longer -- more medium-
and long-term concerns expressed by the population?
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LILLIAN GUERRA: I think that they are very
unwilling.
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In April, the Cuban Communist Party held its
latest Congress. They said at the Congress
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that they were committed to the idea that
social media and the Internet and all the
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means by which Cubans are expressing them
are an affront to the nation, that they are
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anti-Cuban and that they are a source of subversion.
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So, that was several months ago, yes, but,
so far, the tune has not changed. And the
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story line has pretty much gotten narrower,
as Miguel Diaz-Canel has gone on television
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accusing those protesting of being vulgar
criminals, of being mercenaries.
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And none of that is believable. The people
who are protesting are your neighbors, the
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people you know. There are people of all backgrounds.
And the diversity of that community of Cubans
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in every place that they are protesting makes
it really difficult for this to be discredited
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according to the traditional means.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: Candidate Biden promised to
lift some of the Trump administration actions
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on Cuba. The Biden administration is close
to finalizing its Cuba policy.
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Let me play you a clip from an interview I
did earlier today with Mike Gonzalez. He's
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a Heritage Foundation senior fellow who says,
after these protests, the Biden administration
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should not open up to the Cuba.
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MIKE GONZALEZ, Heritage Foundation: I think
this is now off the table, because it will
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be widely seen and it will be a lifeline to
a thuggish, murderous totalitarian regime
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that has been rejected by its own people.
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So I don't see how Biden can send back an
ambassador or lift punitive measures that
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Trump imposed.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: Lillian Guerra, what do you
think the Biden ministration should do following
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yesterday's protests?
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LILLIAN GUERRA: I really think that they should
do the opposite of what this gentleman just
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suggested.
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If he were to take a position of loosening
the embargo or doing the kinds of things that
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Obama did that really poked holes into it,
that would really call the Cuban state's bluff.
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I mean, all I can say is that everything that
is going wrong in Cuba is the result of the
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United States and the United States' blockade,
as they call it, the embargo, when Cubans
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on the ground know that it's really what they
say is the internal blockade.
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I mean, that phrase has been used now for
more than 30 years to describe the kinds of
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controls that the Communist Party exercises.
And so I think we need to stop being the aggressor.
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We need to stop taking on the scripted role
that has been our role since 1960, at least
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1961. It's time to be a radical friend of
the Cuban people, even as we maintain our
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criticisms and perhaps some of our sanctions
certainly against the Revolutionary Armed
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Forces.
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NICK SCHIFRIN: And that debate over U.S. policy
continues.
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Lillian Guerra, thank you very much.
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LILLIAN GUERRA: Thank you.
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