After unrest and arrests Cuban government holds flag-waving rally as show of strength

Last week, Cuba erupted in some of the worst unrest seen in the country in decades, with protesters in dozens of locations calling for “freedom” and chanting “yes, we can.”

But on Saturday, pro-government forces â€" including both President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his 90-year-old predecessor, Raúl Castro â€" took to the streets in Havana a very different show of strength.

Waving Cuban flags and photographs of Fidel Castro, the late revolutionary and Raul’s older brother, tens of thousands of Cubans voiced support for their government and laid blame for Cuba’s woes, such as a plunging economy and soaring coronavirus rates, on its enemies.

In a speech, Díaz-Canel railed against the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba and accused international media of spreading a “malicious interpretation” of the events that showed an entire country rising up against the government and the government repressing them.

“Right now, what the world is seeing from Cuba is a lie,” Díaz-Canel said, according to a lengthy account of Saturday’s rally in Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba’s Communist Party.

The large demonstration appeared to be an attempt by the government to save face after scenes of protest had broken out across the country last Sunday.

Though Havana has long had a small but vocal activist community, these protests seemed to be founded upon the support of many average citizens, spreading at first from the city of San Antonio de los Baños, largely through social media.

An Internet blackout soon followed the protests. As service began to return on Wednesday, there were signs of an immense crackdown by authorities, with lawyers’ group Cubalex estimating 460 or more people had been detained or were missing.

The Cuban government acknowledged Tuesday that one person had died in the protests, though rights groups say the real number may be higher.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for release of the protesters on Friday. “All those detained for exercising their rights must be promptly released,” Bachelet said in a statement.

Though smaller protests continued on Monday and Tuesday, they have largely subsided since. On Saturday, dissidents told Cubans not to attend the pro-government rally in Havana and pledged to hold their own counterdemonstrations later.

A man shouting anti-government slogans was removed from the crowd shortly before the rally began in Havana, according to reporters at the scene.

Some activists said Internet access was again being throttled on Saturday. Yoani Sánchez, an anti-Castro blogger who runs the independent news site 14ymedio, tweeted that she was unable to share videos showing crowds being bussed to the pro-government protests.

Cuba continues to see a surge of coronavirus cases, with a record 6,460 new ones reported Friday. At the rally on Saturday, Raúl Castro and other participants wore face masks.

Cuba is also in the grip of a number of dire economic spirals, like food shortages and blackouts.

Díaz-Canel’s government has blamed most of these problems on foreign influence, including not only the long-standing U.S. trade embargo but also the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and kept in place, so far, under President Biden.

Government loyalists have also criticized Cuban American groups, alleging they have distorted the protests in Cuba for their own purposes.

But there are some slim signs of reform in the face of public discontent. Díaz-Canel, who at 60 years old, lacks the revolutionary pedigree of the Castro brothers, said in a televised speech on Wednesday that the government needed to learn from the anger.

Cuban ministers subsequently relaxed restrictions on travelers seeking to import food and medicine and allowed citizens to use ration books outside their hometowns.

As he spoke on Saturday, Díaz-Canel concluded his remarks with the long-standing Cuban slogan “Homeland or Death!”

The phrase, once uttered by the revolutionary icons like Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara, has been repurposed by protesters, but with a twist: They shouted “Homeland or Life!” as they gathered last week.

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