“They put a policeman every ten meters around the block where the Party’s hotel is located”
14ymedio, Mercedes García/Juan Diego Rodríguez, Sancti Spíritus, 26 July 2024 — This Friday there is no rebellion but much reluctance and indifference to the most important anniversary of the regime. Cubans will not feel like celebrating, but the Police and Security remain as active as ever and have demonstrated it, not only in Sancti Spíritus – the site of the regime’s celebration – but also in other cities of the Island. July 26 has become National Surveillance Day.
Pablo lives a few blocks from the place where Miguel Díaz-Canel and the other hierarchs of the regime are staying, who held a kind of vigil this Thursday for the anniversary. Pablo witnessed a “strong operation” that began in the afternoon. “They put a policeman every ten meters around the block where the Party’s hotel is located,” he tells 14ymedio.
The secured area occupied 500 meters, estimates Pablo, who also saw agents in the vicinity. “We feel very well cared for in the neighborhood,” he says, sarcastically, referring to how the neighbors had to ask for permission to enter and leave the perimeter. “They asked us where we were going and other details,” he explains.
“They,” says Pablo, alluding to the main leaders of the country, “arrived around 5:00 pm.” The meals were not made there. They had lunch at the Cayería Norte, according to one of his neighbors, a hotel worker who saw how the traffic in the area was interrupted for the entourage to pass.
Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés Mesa participated in the event, and the official press reported that 5,000 people had been summoned
“The Party’s hotel is not a big deal,” Pablo clarifies, “but they always stay there by protocol. The building was fixed and painted recently. New lamps and fence, repairs in the pool, and more comfort inside.”
At the event, for which the official press reported that 5,000 people and 140 foreign “friends of Cuba” were summoned, there were Raúl Castro and Ramiro Valdés Mesa, two of the few survivors of the group that, led by Fidel Castro, failed to take the second most important military barracks in the country. Castro transformed that defeat into a propaganda machine that, 71 years later, is still active although agonizing.
Like last year, the leaders again waited for dawn in between long speeches and the play of lights projected onto the plaza. It was Cuban Vice President Salvador Valdés Mesa who was in charge of the celebration, which focused on Raúl Castro and the U.S. embargo. Less proactive than his government colleagues, Valdés Mesa said that Cubans will have to work “without waiting for miracles.”
This Friday, in the Cuban streets, no one expected a party or, even less, a miracle. On Obispo boulevard in Havana, only three people celebrated July 26. With the appearance of state workers or agents dressed in plainclothes, they walked the street again and again wearing red sweaters. On the back, a sentence on the fabric: “Nothing is impossible for those who fight. Fidel.”
In Havana there was little festive spirit, but there was a lot of garbage that no one will take care of “in greeting” to the anniversary. One of the most formidable trash dumps in Havana is on Trocadero Street, next to the battered house – today a museum – of the Cuban writer José Lezama Lima. Enthusiastic about the Castro Revolution in his first months, Lezama wrote a small text about July 26 in which he affirms that the date “brings happiness” to Cubans. This Friday, however, it has only brought garbage. And continuity.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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