‘Voice for the voiceless.’ South Florida commemorates Patria y Vida protests in Cuba
A year ago, thousands of people in Cuba took to the streets in an unprecedented protest, calling for the end of dictatorship as they shouted “Patria y Vida” and “Libertad.”
For days, people gathered in the streets of South Florida too, with flags, signs and chants as thousands marched to Washington, D.C., to call on the Biden administration to pressure Cuba’s Communist government into meaningful reforms.
On Monday, hundreds gathered at events across South Florida to commemorate last year’s protests, the largest anti-government demonstration Cuba had seen in decades, and to show support for the Cuban people in their fight for freedom. A string of events was planned throughout the day, including a Monday evening mass. Many of Miami’s Cuban-American political leaders also used the anniversary to express support for protesters, call for the release of political prisoners and to repeat complaints that Washington isn’t doing enough to break the regime’s stranglehold.
“That desire for freedom remains in the heart of the Cuban people,” said U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio during a press conference in Doral, where he was joined by Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez, Congressmen Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart and others. “And we stand here today confident that we will not let down our guard, that we will continue to carry that banner for them here in this country and that ultimately they will be successful and that freedom will come to that enslaved island.”
At the Brigade 2506 Bay of Pigs Museum and Library, a group of exiles, former political prisoners, relatives of current political prisoners, and others, including Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, gathered together to commemorate the protests.
“We support you and we will never forget you, all those who demonstrated for freedom,” said Rafael Montalvo, president of the Brigade, during his opening remarks. “That freedom is coming, it is inevitable and no one is going to stop it.”
During the Brigade event, a video was played with interviews of women who are mothers, sisters, and wives of men and young people who were captured for protesting last July. Many of them are still jailed, on sentences of up to 8 years in prison. José Luis García Hernández showed up with a poster to demand the release of two of the prisoners — his brother Lorente Hernández and his wife, who were arrested after the demonstrations.
About 1,484 people were detained following the protests, including 57 teenagers under 18, as the Herald has reported. About 700 people remain in jail, another 622 were tried in proceedings lacking due process, according to a new report by Justicia 11J and Cubalex, two independent advocacy groups that have verified arrests and trials of protesters. Protesters have faced severe punishment.
In Miami, officials raised the Cuban flag over Miami City Hall on Monday morning. During the ceremony, Bay of Pigs veteran Johnny López de la Cruz said an important movement had grown out of the massive protests last summer.
The July 11 movement
“The July 11 movement has grown into a popular civil resistance effort against the narco-communist dictatorship, and the number of street protests is increasing,” López de la Cruz said in Spanish.
Commissioners Joe Carollo and Manolo Reyes joined Suarez for the ceremony, where the mayor said the fight against communism should be a national security priority for the U.S.
“We’re frankly calling upon not only Cubans on the island to continue their heroic struggle but, frankly, the president of the United States and this country that has the means and the power and the ability to have a coherent policy to help those who are suffering in countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, hopefully not Colombia, potentially Brazil, Chile, Argentina and so many others across the world,” Suarez said.
Political leaders at the Doral conference echoed support for the protesters and concerns that American policies had failed to ease the Cuban regime’s grip.
The protests “linked the traditional exile community, the community that came, my parents generation, with a generation of Cubans that don’t know anything other than what that regime has offered them for the past 60 plus years,” said Esteban Bovo, the mayor of Hialeah, the U.S. city with the largest population of Cubans. “Make no mistake, these were the sons and daughters of the revolution that wanted freedom.”
Displayed at the Doral conference was a board with pictures of some of Cuba’s political prisoners. A paper with pictures and names of political prisoners was also given out at the conference.
People on the list included 17-year-old Emiyoslan Román Rodríguez who was arrested on accusations that he shouted “Homeland and Life” during a protest last year. He was initially sentenced to 12 years in prison for “sedition,” but in May 2022 the regime announced that instead he’ll have to work on a forced labor camp for five years, according to a document that was given at the conference.
Other prisoners include Yoandi Montiel Hernández, 36, a popular Youtuber in Cuba who was arrested in April 2021 for criticizing Cuba’s regime and reporting on social cases in Havana and José Díaz Silva, 61, the president of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic in Havana and husband of Lady in White Lourdes Esquivel Vyeto. He was arrested in March 2022 for a fabricated crime of “threats” just weeks after he had held meetings with parents and relatives of people who were arrested following the July 11 protests, according to the document.
In Doral, political leaders pointed to a sharp increase of Cubans fleeing to the U.S. as evidence of declining conditions on the island. The Coast Guard has stopped over 3,000 Florida-bound Cuban migrants at sea since October, more than the last five fiscal years combined, according to the agency. More than 140,000 Cubans have been detained at U.S. borders between October and May, surpassing the Mariel exodus of 1980 when 125,000 Cubans departed from the Port of Mariel near Havana between April and October of that year.
Other South Florida officials took to Twitter to show support for the thousands of Cubans who took part last year in the largest anti-government demonstrations in decades in the Caribbean nation.
U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar, whose district includes Miami, said she will continue to back the Cuban people and advocate for them in Congress.
“As a daughter of exiled parents and a representative of a district in which so many Cuban families live, I don’t forget the brave people that took to the island’s streets last year,” she said in Spanish.
State Sen. Annette Taddeo, whose district includes portions of south Miami-Dade County, said that last year the Cuban people once again stood up against “their tyrannical communist regime.”
“Let’s remind ourselves of their bravery and the thousands of political dissidents imprisoned,” she said. “We must do more to help liberate the Cuban people.”
Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the county “stands fully united with the Cuban people on the island and across our community fighting for freedom, dignity, and basic human rights.”
“May their courageous actions continue to move us closer to the dream of libertad y dignidad in Cuba,” she said.
‘Voice for the voiceless’
In Westchester, while customers bought cafecito at La Carreta, protesters waved Cuban flags alongside Bird Road. Their chants of “Libertad” were amplified by honks in support.
One of the people showing their support for a free Cuba was Giselle Valdes, 40, who was part of the July 11 protests last year in Havana. Valdes, who now lives in Kendall, arrived in Miami in December.
“I’m doing this for the first time,” she said in Spanish. “I was waiting for this day so I can celebrate.”
Cristina Maria Rodriguez Penton, 59, stood outside the restaurant dressed in all white; her dress, her cardigan, her shoes.
Her white outfit is in remembrance of Las Damas de Blanco (the Ladies in White), a group of women whose husbands are political prisoners.
“We are celebrating the day of dignity, the day of justice, the day of the truth,” she said.
A pastor, Rodriguez Penton came from Cuba a year ago through a pastoral training. And she has been active since because of the Cuban government’s discrimination.
She said she wants all nations to stop ignoring the Cuban reality. When they do business with the government, they become complicit.
“We say the dictatorship has fallen” she said. “What is staying by force isn’t legitimate.”
Through her work, she said she educates pastors in the U.S. so they can learn about Cuba and its system. She also informs them about the injustice in Nicaragua and Venezuela.
“It has really been fruitful,” she said. “What we can’t say there; here we are the voice for the voiceless.”
