A year after Cuba's protests, crackdowns and migration

(July 11, 2022)

A year after massive anti-government demonstrations in Cuba, economic and political conditions have only worsened. About 700 Cuban protesters remain imprisoned, tens of thousands of people have fled, and shortages of basic food and medicines afflict the population. (New York Times)

The Cuban government committed systematic human rights violations in response to massive anti-government protests that started a year ago, in July 2021, with the apparent goal of punishing protesters and deterring future demonstrations, Human Rights Watch said in a new report today. It documents a wide range of human rights violations committed in the context of the protests, including arbitrary detention, abuse-ridden prosecutions, and torture.

In a detailed new report, Justicia 11J and Cubalex, two advocacy groups that have verified arrests and trials of the protesters, said they confirmed the identities of four people who were shot and injured by the police during the protest, including a 16-year-old, in addition to the one victim recognized by Cuban officials. (Miami Herald)

According to the Cuban government figures, 488 people have been formally sanctioned following last July's protests, including 383 with prison sentences and 105 sanctioned without prison. Human rights group Justicia 11J estimates the numbers of those detained are much higher than official figures: They claim at least 701 Cubans remain in detention and 622 were sentenced to up to 25 years in prison. (NBC)

Government crackdowns demoralized protest organizers, and “demands for political reform, delivered by young, middle-class professionals, did not speak to the most urgent issue for the majority of Cubans: their deteriorating standard of living,” writes William LeoGrande in The Nation.

Nonetheless, the protests and the ensuing crackdown “have shed light on the Cuban people’s struggle for liberty, called international attention to the human rights crisis on the island and mobilized Cubans around the world in support of pro-democracy efforts,” reports the Miami Herald.

“The political environment in Cuba is one of war,” writes Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada in Americas Quarterly. “Cuba is in a state of unprecedented ideological ferment, even deeper than that of the first years after the 1959 Revolution. Although access to the public arena is limited to social media and other digital platforms, repression of calls for reform is fueling political extremism.”

The frustrated protest movement has fed into one of the largest exoduses from the island since the 1959 revolution. Some are activists fleeing persecution, while others are seeking economic opportunities, reports the Washington Post. The migration wave is sapping Cuba of many of its youths, as well as undermining efforts to oppose the island’s government.

The grim economic situation is compounded by U.S. sanctions, and the Biden administration has been slow to revert restrictions imposed by the Trump administration. Cuba’s crackdown on protests likely further hindered such efforts, notes the Associated Press.

The U.S. State Department announced visa restrictions on Saturday against 28 Cuban officials that it said were implicated in the crackdown. (Reuters)

News Briefs

Brazil

• A prison guard shouting support for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro killed a local Workers Party official, Marcelo Arruda, in Foz do Iguaçu this weekend at a birthday celebration. Arruda's death bodes ill ahead of October’s general election, which experts are increasingly concerned could be contested by Bolsonaro in the event of a loss. (Reuters)

• Killings in Brazil’s Amazon, like the recent murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips, often go unnoticed in the rest of the world. But they indicate a period of growing lawlessness in the world’s largest rainforest, in a region that is crucial for slowing climate change, reports the New York Times.

Regional

• “Second-round polarization has become a common theme in Latin American presidential elections,” writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review, pointing to elections in Chile, Peru and Colombia in the past year, as well as predictions for Brazil in a few months. The trend reflects an anti-establishment sentiment rather than ideological extremism, he argues. (See June 23’s post.)

• Mexico’s Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) is working with Guatemala’s Los Huistas crime group to traffic cocaine from the Second Marquetalia, a militia that split from the Colombian FARC after the 2016 Peace Accords, reports El Faro.

Migration

• The U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback who confronted Haitian families last year in Texas, did not strike migrants with their reins but used “unnecessary” force and lacked proper guidance from supervisors, according to a long-anticipated internal report. (Washington Post)

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appears to be moving away from his "hugs, not bullets" strategy to combat drug violence, and is instead deploying security forces against criminal groups, reports Vice.

• Former Mexican president Luis Echeverría Alvarez died at age 100. He may best be remembered for accusations that he was largely responsible, as interior secretary, for the repression of student-led protests in 1968 that culminated in the killings as many as 300 people, reports the New York Times. As president presided over a severe economic crisis and a violent “dirty war” against government opponents, reports the Washington Post.

• Mexican Supreme Court chief justice, Arturo Zaldívar, is a practicing Catholic who was convinced to support abortion by top aides — mostly women — and passionate women’s rights demonstrators. (New York Times)

Critter Corner

• The Spix macaw, a bird that had once vanished in the wild, have made a stunning comeback in Brazil, thanks to a remarkable international rescue project, reports the Guardian.