“Cuba is going to live in peace,” promises Díaz-Canel in the face of the opposition’s challenge

President Miguel Diaz-Canel promised on Sunday that “Cuba will live in peace”, By rejecting the challenge of the opposition Yunior García, who is besieged in his house by security agents who seek to prevent him from demonstrating alone in Havana.

With a red shirt and scarf, Diaz-Canel He arrived at noon with his wife Liz Cuesta at Parque Central, where he enthusiastically listened to music sitting on the ground next to some 70 students who support the government and had camped there since Friday.

“Cuba he is going to live in peace and by living in peace we are going to perfect ourselves ”, said the president in brief words, when condemning “The campaigns to subvert the internal order, the media campaigns against Cuba, against the peace of Cuba.”

The president’s meeting took place while the opposition Yunior García was blocked in his house, in the working-class neighborhood of La Coronela.

“My house woke up under siege, the entire building is surrounded by civilian state security agents posing as a town,” Garcia said in the morning in a direct transmission on Facebook.

An AFP team found that their street is blocked by a strong presence of plainclothes officers on the sidewalk and on rooftops.

The officers covered with a giant flag, from the ceiling, the window in which Yunior García was leaning out with a white rose on the third floor of his building, before the gaze of many neighbors.

“I am ready, as you can see, dressed in white with a white rose and when it is time I will leave my house,” said the 39-year-old playwright, in the broadcast with a rosary around his neck.

García, founder of Archipelago, a political think tank on Facebook, had called for a demonstration on Monday in the country’s capital and in six other provinces, but fear of possible acts of violence led him to decide to march alone the day before. .

Archipelago, with more than 30,000 members inside and outside of Cuba, still maintains the call to protest on Monday.

This Sunday the United States urged Havana to allow the opposition demonstration on Monday.

“We ask the Cuban government to respect the rights of Cubans and allow them to meet peacefully and use their voices without fear of reprisals or violence from the government,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, requesting that they be maintain “internet connection” on the island.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez immediately replied on Twitter. The Cuban government rejects “the interference of the United States. We defend the right to enjoy the path to normalcy in peace and face the challenges that lie ahead without interference ”.

“Sanctions to EFE”

Authorities withdrew the accreditations to the team in Havana from the Spanish agency EFE on Saturday, according to AFP Atahualpa Amerise, editor-in-chief of the office, which has three editors, two photographers and a videographer.

But on Sunday morning Amerise said on Twitter that they returned the accreditation to a writer and the videographer.

Earlier, the Spanish embassy made “negotiations with the Cuban authorities to return the credentials” and journalists “can carry out their work,” diplomatic sources in Madrid told AFP.

Reporters Without Borders denounced “a very serious fact.”

At least six coordinators of Monday’s marches were being held by the authorities, Archipiélago denounced on Saturday, while dissident Guillermo Fariñas has been detained since Friday.

Risk of sanctions

State television, which accuses Yunior García of being a Washington-financed agent, pointed him out for attending a seminar in Madrid on the role of the army in transition processes, and revealed shipments of small amounts of money from abroad.

Monday’s demonstration, declared illegal, occurs when Cuba Reopens borders to international tourism, children return to classrooms and Havana celebrates its 502 anniversary.

The protesters demand the release of political prisoners, after the historic July 11 demonstrations shouting “We are hungry” and “Freedom”, which left one dead, dozens injured and 1,270 detainees, of which 658 are still in prison. , according to the NGO Cubalex.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue analysis center, believes that the protesters want to “draw more international attention to the seriousness of the economic, political and human rights situation in Cuba.”

A harsh reaction from the government would imply more international sanctions, he considered.

This march is the topic of conversation at home after-hours, in the queues of supermarkets and work centers.

Guarded and several summoned by the police, the organizers planned the march using the mobile internet, which reached Cuba in 2018. But, there is a fear that the day of the march the internet will be interrupted, as happened on July 11.

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