Cuba: ‘We Were So Hungry We Ate Our Fear’

“Cubans now realize, from the information they have through social networks, that the entire supposed revolutionary ideal is amorphous and that they have been manipulating us for many decades,” says writer Wendy Guerra. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana/Madrid, 12 July 2021 — For the first time in almost 30 years, and as Miami Mayor Francis Suárez said, “the eyes of the world are on Cuba.” Statements by personalities and artists in support of the protesters have been growing as more images of the protests are published.

“What is happening is that we have reached a limit of resistance, of tolerance. Cubans now realize, from the information they have through social networks, that the entire supposed revolutionary ideal is amorphous and that they have bee manipulating us for many decades,” Wendy Guerra told 14ymedio .

The writer points out that “there is no design, there is no economy, neither good nor bad, there is no economic plan,” and “people are literally starving… To buy an aspirin on the black market, which is where it appears,” she also notes, “you have to pay 1,000 pesos ($40 US).”

“The Cubans who are in the streets are unarmed,” says Guerra. “Diaz-Canel’s request yesterday was simply to send armed people, although dressed in civilian clothes, into the streets and confront Cubans with Cubans, armed soldiers but in civilian clothes against the hungry people.” It would be, she said, “a civil war provoked by the president.

Regarding the statements of the Cuban president blaming the United States for fomenting social discontent through the embargo and an orchestrated campaign, the poet and novelist is clear: “Get the Americans out of the conversation because they have not made this internal crisis… This is a problem that has been generated by the repression of a government that does not let the people move, that has been with a single party and a single voice for 62 years, despite the ideological and mental impoverishment of its policy,” she says.

“Cubans on the island have no thought of any annexation [to the United State], as Díaz-Canel claims,” continues Guerra, “and the ’blockade’ is an old issue that must be discussed at another time.”

Now, the writer asks, “it takes the strength of the United Nations to enter Cuba and help people so that they do not continue to die of fever, coronavirus, hunger.”

For this reason, she addresses “all the writers, journalists, bloggers, officials” in the world so that “they realize what is happening in Cuba and the NGOs no longer agree with the Government,” nor will they tell “likes” to “look good” and be able to stay on the Island.

To the correspondents of the international media she exhorts: “Do not worry about being accredited anymore and tell the truth. The International Press Center is weighing what they say for fear of losing their accredation and they [the government] are manipulating them. Let the truth be told, without exaggeration, but let what is happening be said.”

“Hunger mobilized us! Hunger ate our fear,” concludes Guerra, with a reflection similar to that of the reggaetoner Yomil, who wrote on Twitter: “From going through so much hunger we ate fear.”

The singer Leoni Torres, who a few months ago suffered a social network campaign by State Security for the song he recorded with Willy Chirino for Father’s Day, has also expressed himself forcefully through social networks. “Complete Cuba in the streets. It is time to listen to its people!” he wrote on his Facebook wall.

“Do not even think about attacking a single Cuban!!!” he asked, and continued: “I am sorry, gentlemen leaders of this country, if you do not know how to recognize your mistakes and try to fix all the wrong you have done for years you are going to have to kill us.”

Torres announces that he will defend his “people,” “the one from whom you have stolen everything,” in addition to “dreams, lives, joy, the right to claim what is ours,” and concluded: “This is the the only life that is ours to live and it is not how you want us to live. I’m tired of it!!!”

Meanwhile, the arrests in the country continue and the families of many imprisoned protesters have taken to the streets to demand to know about their children, brothers and sisters, partners, nieces and nephews and grandchildren. This happened in front of a police station in Havana this Monday, according to a video recorded by EFE that has gone viral on social networks.

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