14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodriguez, Havana, March 14,2023 — “Down with the dictatorship, the murderous Castros.” That was the slogan someone had written in sand, in broad daylight, near the intersection of Crespo and Trocadero streets in Central Havana. Its broad letters can be seen stretching across the roadway in a video recorded sometime before three o’clock Tuesday afternoon. The video was posted online by the actor Edel Carrero, who claims to have witnessed the incident.
“I was heading home and saw him doing it,” says Carrero.”I waited for him to finish before recording so that he wouldn’t appear in the video, so that they wouldn’t catch him.” Carrero fears that might happen anyway because, as he notes, “There were other cameras at that corner, too.”
An hour later, a local resident could be seen sweeping up the sand after throwing several buckets of water onto the street from a balcony. The man, who was going about the task indifferently, did not bother responding when an elderly passerby asked, “Who you ordered to throw water on it?”
#Cuba "Abajo la dictadura, los Castros asesinos", escriben a plena luz en La Habana https://t.co/YastBoY6DR
👉Agentes policiales supervisan la limpieza del cartel, escrito con arena sobre el asfalto | Video: Edel Carrero (@CarreroEdel)/Twitter pic.twitter.com/1hAJYHkvDo— 14ymedio (@14ymedio) March 14, 2023
#Cuba “Down with the dictatorship, the murderous Castros,” written in broad daylight in Havana. Police agents supervise cleanup of the sign, written in sand on the asphalt
Meanwhile, the cleanup was being monitored by two policemen, a State Security agent and two people who appeared to be local officials of some sort.
Unlike at other such incidents, local residents distanced themselves from the site, though some could be seen whispering, making critical comments and even laughing from doorways and windows. “For this, they can find water,” said one woman sarcastically to a neighbor, with whom she was discussing the area’s supply problems.
It has been more than a year since anti-government graffiti has been scrawled anywhere, and act which had become common in the aftermath of mass protests on July 11, 2021. In February 2022, a huge sign appeared, painted on the asphalt with the slogan “Patria y Vida” on Gervasio and Enrique Barnet streets in Central Havana. It was erased during a large deployment of police at the site. The incident occurred at dawn.
A few weeks earlier, an entire mob of police as well as military and civilian agents on Suzuki motorcycles, plus a criminology vehicle, were mobilized in response to a sign of considerable size that had been painted on a wall on General Serrano Street, near the corner of Via Blanca, in the Havana district of Santos Suarez. The sign read: “Down with Canel singao [motherfucker].”
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
