Karel Poort recalls the frantic minutes when he ran out of his room, with his Nikon F301 in hand
Juan Carlos Espinosa/EFE, La Habana, 4 August 2024 — During his vacation in Cuba, the Dutch photographer Karel Poort began to take photos of a demonstration outside his hotel without knowing that, some time later, they would become some of the most iconic images of the Maleconazo, the first major anti-government protest since 1959, which marks its 30th anniversary this Monday.
In his first interview for these events, granted to EFE, Poort recalls the frantic minutes when he ran out of his room, with his Nikon F301 in hand, after hearing a riot on the street. It was the afternoon of August 5, 1994 in the central Galiano Street.
“I was in the shower and I heard people screaming and ringing their bicycle bells on the street. I immediately took my camera, an extra roll of film and ran down the stairs,” says this 78-year-old photographer.
“I was in the shower and I heard people screaming and ringing their bicycle bells on the street”
The tumult led him to the Deauville hotel, about 400 meters from his hotel and right in front of the Havana Malecón. There, as he recalls, people shouted at the top of their lungs: “Cuba yes, Castro no!” and “Freedom!”
Poort, who at that time worked as a photographer and freelance sound engineer on Dutch television, didn’t know it, but the outburst was the result of weeks of tension.
On July 13, the ’13 de Marzo’ tugboat* sank after its occupants hijacked it to emigrate to the United States. Thirty-seven people died, including 10 children.
The survivors blamed the coast guard for purposefully ramming the boat, while the Cuban government said it was an accident.
In 1994, the Island was in the middle of the Special Period, the economic crisis that hit the country hard after the disappearance of the Soviet Union and the fall of the socialist bloc in Europe.
The rumor of a significant departure of people to heading to the coast of the United States led the authorities to establish a maritime blockade in front of the Cuban capital.
Angry, Cubans demonstrated in numbers that had not been seen since the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution.
Angry, the Cubans demonstrated in numbers that had not been seen since the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution
When the Dutchman arrived at the hotel in front of the Malecón, a Cuban approached him and said: “Keep taking photos and show your country the disaster here.”
“While that was happening, a group of police officers dressed in civilian clothes arrived at the Deauville hotel and started shooting madly,” he recalls.
Among the 30 photos that Poort gave to EFE can be seen several of a man with dark glasses, white shirt and khaki pants, holding a pistol.
In one of them he is in front of the hotel, pointing upwards; in another he points directly towards Poort, and in others he is seen running to where the protesters were.
Half an hour after those events, a patrol stopped behind the photographer: “Three police officers ordered me to give them the rolls and the camera. They grabbed me and, miraculously, I managed to get away and ran as fast as I could to my hotel (…) I was able to take more photos from the window of my room,” he adds.
The next day, he captured a paper with the words “Viva Cuba Libre” on the pavement of the semi-empty road.
A week later, Fidel Castro ordered that Cubans be allowed to leave by sea. That led to the so-called Rafters’ Crisis: more than 30,000 left on makeshift boats for the United States.
Accustomed to protests in the West, the Dutchman was not aware of the magnitude of what he saw until he heard the explanation of a Cuban.
“While that was happening, a group of police officers dressed in civilian clothes arrived at the Deauville hotel and started shooting madly”
When the demonstrations broke out, Poort was in the second week of his first vacation in Cuba. He visited the Island nine other times until 2002.
Years later, he shared some of his photos on social networks, having printed them in a darkroom at home. He prefers to remember what happened as the anecdote of a historic moment that, by a fluke, he was able to capture even before many international media already on the Island.
“I was the only one there. There were no cell phones at that time. That’s why those photos are so special,” he says.
Translated by Regina Anavy
*Translator’s note: Often confusing to “foreign” ears, many names of things (tugboats in this example), and places (schools are common) are named after dates that commemorate historic events. The “13 de Marzo” tugboat’s name commemorates a pre-Revolutionary attack on Cuba’s Presidential Palace.
