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| Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. |
The protests focused on the perennial problems of mass poverty, poor housing, food prices and the lack of basic healthcare – which will no doubt come as a surprise to the swivel-eyed parrots of the Irish left.
The “Cuban health system” has long been the Potemkin Village used to gull the useful totalitarian tourists. Just as once upon a time every western leftie knew that all East Germans had 1.45 colour televisions and Romania had reduced rudeness at bus queues by 86% under the leadership of Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu, Cuba has “the best health service in the world.”
Hitler, autobahns; Mao, more rice than you could shake a stick at … you know the spiel.
To the contrary, unless you are part of a documentary or a high-profile collaborator from the free world who the Castro gang invite to have their gall stones removed in an act of international solidarity, Cubans are subject to long waiting lists for even basic medical care. All of which was exacerbated by the regime’s devotion to the pursuit of Zero Covid. (You will also be familiar with that one.)
Ten of the 21 people put on trial in this latest farce were reported to have started a hunger strike. The defendants include four teenagers, and the prosecutor has demanded sentences of between 15 and 30 years for “sedition.” This would be the equivalent of the Irish state doing the same to water charges protestors or protesting farmers.
The prosecution rhetoric is reminiscent of the ravings of Andrei Vyshinsky at the Moscow trials in the late 1930s: “From the crowd of people, without being able to determine who, counterrevolutionary slogans were shouted that fomented disturbances, as some profoundly lacerated patriotic feelings” being one example.
Estimates of the numbers arrested during the Summer run to over 187,000. According to Cuban freedom activists, over a thousand were being held with information as to where they were being detained or under what conditions. This has given rise to concerns that the secret police are torturing detainees perhaps with the objective of forcing them to confess.
Cuban dissidents – encompassing Catholic social activists, former members of the July 26 Movement that was taken over by the Communist Party after the overthrow of Batista and left wing opponents of the Party – have a long and proud history of resistance to brutality and, despite the shameful collaboration of Sinn Féin and others, the prison protests of Los Plantados – the Immovables who refuse to wear prison uniforms – are similar to those of the Blanketmen in the H Blocks and earlier Irish nationalist prisoners.
The 2021 protests were largely organised by the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and one of its leaders Jose Daniel Ferrer was re-arrested in July, held incommunicado and sentenced to serve the remaining four and a half years of a sentence that had been commuted to house detention.
Some of the protestors were shot dead, including Diubis Laurencio Tejeda who was killed by police in Havana on July 12.
 |
| Diubis Laurencio Tejeda |
One of the focuses of the current resistance among younger people has been the San Isidro , movement of artists and other activists based in one of the most deprived and overcrowded sections of crumbling Havana. One of those associated with the group, Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, was forcibly fed when he went on hunger strike in May last year.
Alcantara is reported to be again on hunger strike along with at least nine other prisoners.
January 28 marks the anniversary of the birth in 1853 of Jose Marti who was killed in the uprising against the Spanish authorities in Cuba in 1895. Marti has been appropriated as the historical symbol of the Communist regime but there is nothing in his vast writings to indicate that he was a socialist, let alone a Marxist. Similar dissimulation of course has been deployed in relation to Padraig Pearse and other Irish nationalist thinkers.
Alcantara is reported to be again on hunger strike along with at least nine other prisoners.
January 28 marks the anniversary of the birth in 1853 of Jose Marti who was killed in the uprising against the Spanish authorities in Cuba in 1895. Marti has been appropriated as the historical symbol of the Communist regime but there is nothing in his vast writings to indicate that he was a socialist, let alone a Marxist. Similar dissimulation of course has been deployed in relation to Padraig Pearse and other Irish nationalist thinkers.
 |
| C: Jose Marti / Via Pixabay |
Cubans who continue to oppose totalitarianism still look to Marti as the inspirational figure of Cuban nationalism, independence and democracy. They continue to fight that monster with little or no support or recognition outside of the exile communities who have managed to keep the ideal of Cuba Libre alive.
The Hunger Strike Against Cuba’s Show Trials
The protests focused on the perennial problems of mass poverty, poor housing, food prices and the lack of basic healthcare – which will no doubt come as a surprise to the swivel-eyed parrots of the Irish left.
The “Cuban health system” has long been the Potemkin Village used to gull the useful totalitarian tourists. Just as once upon a time every western leftie knew that all East Germans had 1.45 colour televisions and Romania had reduced rudeness at bus queues by 86% under the leadership of Comrade Nicolae Ceausescu, Cuba has “the best health service in the world.”
Hitler, autobahns; Mao, more rice than you could shake a stick at … you know the spiel.
To the contrary, unless you are part of a documentary or a high-profile collaborator from the free world who the Castro gang invite to have their gall stones removed in an act of international solidarity, Cubans are subject to long waiting lists for even basic medical care. All of which was exacerbated by the regime’s devotion to the pursuit of Zero Covid. (You will also be familiar with that one.)
Ten of the 21 people put on trial in this latest farce were reported to have started a hunger strike. The defendants include four teenagers, and the prosecutor has demanded sentences of between 15 and 30 years for “sedition.” This would be the equivalent of the Irish state doing the same to water charges protestors or protesting farmers.
The prosecution rhetoric is reminiscent of the ravings of Andrei Vyshinsky at the Moscow trials in the late 1930s: “From the crowd of people, without being able to determine who, counterrevolutionary slogans were shouted that fomented disturbances, as some profoundly lacerated patriotic feelings” being one example.
Estimates of the numbers arrested during the Summer run to over 187,000. According to Cuban freedom activists, over a thousand were being held with information as to where they were being detained or under what conditions. This has given rise to concerns that the secret police are torturing detainees perhaps with the objective of forcing them to confess.
Cuban dissidents – encompassing Catholic social activists, former members of the July 26 Movement that was taken over by the Communist Party after the overthrow of Batista and left wing opponents of the Party – have a long and proud history of resistance to brutality and, despite the shameful collaboration of Sinn Féin and others, the prison protests of Los Plantados – the Immovables who refuse to wear prison uniforms – are similar to those of the Blanketmen in the H Blocks and earlier Irish nationalist prisoners.
The 2021 protests were largely organised by the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) and one of its leaders Jose Daniel Ferrer was re-arrested in July, held incommunicado and sentenced to serve the remaining four and a half years of a sentence that had been commuted to house detention.
Some of the protestors were shot dead, including Diubis Laurencio Tejeda who was killed by police in Havana on July 12.
|
| Diubis Laurencio Tejeda |
One of the focuses of the current resistance among younger people has been the San Isidro , movement of artists and other activists based in one of the most deprived and overcrowded sections of crumbling Havana. One of those associated with the group, Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, was forcibly fed when he went on hunger strike in May last year.
Alcantara is reported to be again on hunger strike along with at least nine other prisoners.
January 28 marks the anniversary of the birth in 1853 of Jose Marti who was killed in the uprising against the Spanish authorities in Cuba in 1895. Marti has been appropriated as the historical symbol of the Communist regime but there is nothing in his vast writings to indicate that he was a socialist, let alone a Marxist. Similar dissimulation of course has been deployed in relation to Padraig Pearse and other Irish nationalist thinkers.
Alcantara is reported to be again on hunger strike along with at least nine other prisoners.
January 28 marks the anniversary of the birth in 1853 of Jose Marti who was killed in the uprising against the Spanish authorities in Cuba in 1895. Marti has been appropriated as the historical symbol of the Communist regime but there is nothing in his vast writings to indicate that he was a socialist, let alone a Marxist. Similar dissimulation of course has been deployed in relation to Padraig Pearse and other Irish nationalist thinkers.
|
| C: Jose Marti / Via Pixabay |
Cubans who continue to oppose totalitarianism still look to Marti as the inspirational figure of Cuban nationalism, independence and democracy. They continue to fight that monster with little or no support or recognition outside of the exile communities who have managed to keep the ideal of Cuba Libre alive.
|
| Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland. |
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