Cubans in Italy: “62 years of fear, now we are ready to demand freedom”

“A people who have lived in fear for 62 years, this is the reality of Cuba, where from day zero of the first demonstration, last July 11 in San Antonio de los Banos, people take to the streets to demonstrate to ask for a change of system, to have freedom, free elections, and protest against repression “. To underline this from Rome is Luis Ernesto Hernandez Mena, one of the leaders of the Cuban groups in Italy and vice president of a nascent voluntary association, ‘Todos por Cuba’. (VIDEO) “This is not an economic problem, at the base of the protest there is no economic crisis, the lack of drugs, Covid, which are all more problems – he says, speaking with Adnkronos – We understand from the slogans that are pronounced by those who demonstrate, men, women, children, and the elderly, that is, people who by age are closer to the revolution. In the demonstrations we are witnessed through videos, a more open economy, food and drugs are not asked , they do not say ‘we can no longer cope with Covid’, they shout ‘freedom’ and ‘down with the dictatorship’. This is the message that the people are launching “.” And taking to the streets – he continues – was one thing huge: we have never demonstrated against the government. Not because we didn’t want to, but because we have always been imprisoned, fined, there are risks, consequences, despite the fact that the current constitution provides for the right to demonstrate. Then it happened that after the first protests of which we had news at through social media, other young people, other Cubans in other cities have joined and have given continuity to the initiative, which has extended to other locations to involve more than 25 cities at the same time. And they still go on today. After so many years in which we have been motionless in front of the repression, now we feel ready “. Having understood all this, he adds,” the government has strengthened the measures against the demonstrators, involving special forces, also involving those who perform military service and those young people who receive specialized education in military schools aimed at practicing their profession from within the army, such as doctors for example. Shootings, deaths, arrests, people taken from their homes, people, even women and children, beaten. And they took away the Internet “.” The pandemic – he continues – and its economic consequences, were more things, which were added and led to exasperation. But economic freedom, of expression, of movement and of private property would facilitate trade and help the economy. Furthermore, a change, greater freedom would also have effects on relations with the United States – which will, as they always have been, willing to help – and therefore on the embargo “. Faced with the situation in which the country finds itself, the Cuban groups in Italy, he finally explains, are working to “make the reality of their country known and ask for aid.” And Italy, in particular, is asked for support, and “an intervention to promote international humanitarian aid directed to the island”. aware of the difficulty, of the brakes that all the countries and institutions involved in this dramatic situation perceive. The end of the regime in Cuba would represent the end of an historical era, of an idea of ​​society dreamed of by many but our people are dying in the total indifference and we are not ready to let this happen with the same immobility we have been forced to for years. They will have to listen to us. repressions, much less we outside of Cuba will do it. We are a people ready and finally determined to enter the 21st century, free “, concludes Hernandez Mena.