A Bloomberg article appeared on the 14th July 2021, with the title “Cuba Protests Fanned by Worst Economic Crisis Since Fall of USSR”.
The article started: “The deepest economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a spike in Covid-19 infections, power blackouts and increased use of social media all helped fan discontent with the 62-year-old communist regime.”
Lets look at what is actually happening in Cuba.
Though the pandemic is causing frustration amongst the population this is directly related to the blockade, as Cuba lacks certain medical supplies that it cannot import due to the blockade. In fact as far back as April 2020 (last year!) Global Times reported that “More than 30 Chinese enterprises have either donated or supplied anti-virus materials to Cuba since the coronavirus outbreak began, but only a small number of them have successfully arrived in the country, the Cuban Ambassador to China told the Global Times in an exclusive interview.”(Global Times, Most of China’s donations unable to reach Cuba due to embargoes: Cuban ambassador, 15/4/2020)
Social Media has indeed played a role in fanning the protests. In 2014 it was discovered that the US had built a “Cuban Twitter”. The AP News article goes on “The Obama administration project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba’s stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent.
Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes.”(AP News, US secretly built ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest, April 3 2014)
Today the Imperialists have been using their bots on Twitter/Facebook and Reddit, which is little more than tentacles of the imperialist Kraken, to amplify the paltry protestors who are in the pay of US imperialism. We have seen numerous Twitter accounts with long streams of numbers (something to the effect of Rachel343434578) after them tweeting the exact same thing. We have seen viral tweets turning Havana into Catalonia, Buenos Aires, Alexandria and Egypt – without even an attempt to photoshop out the Catalan/Egyptian flags!
The Guardian, Fox News, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Times and Voice Of America were even more brazen – they used pictures of pro government protests for their articles.
Falsely portraying the pictures as “anti-government” protests despite the 26 July flags being clearly visible in them. (RT, Western media use images of PRO-government rally, protest in Miami to illustrate Cuban unrest as Havana warns of ‘soft coup’, 14 Jul, 2021 )
The article returns to a modicum of truth near the bottom where it declares “For the Cuban authorities the protests have two main drivers: The 59-year old U.S. trade embargo and social media.”
As the protests have been fuelled by Social-Media – but not by organic use of Cubans rather Social Media has been weaponised against the Cuban people in the service of Imperialism.
The Imperialist interference runs the same playbook as Nicaragua in April 2018 when they used “SOS Nicaragua” – and the images we see of Cuba today are “SOS Cuba”.
The Cuban people remain defiant though with pro government protestors coming out to defend their revolution. And coming out in such droves Western media has to use pictures of the pro government protests!
If the US government truly cares about the Cuban people – which is a hard sell given the Miami Mayor has demanded that Cuba be bombed – then they should lift the blockade so Cuba has adequate medical supplies from fraternal countries like China and energy from Venezuela. (RT, Miami mayor calls for US to bomb Cuba… because airstrikes have worked so well in the past, 15 Jul, 2021 )
The embargo today represents a collective punishment for the Cuban people for daring to take what is rightfully theirs – a society to run as they see fit and not for the benefit of the Yanqui profits. The Cuban people will uphold their dignity and revolution…
…No matter how many gusanos get together for a photo op in Miami which Mainstream media, I’m sure, will try to pass off as ‘Cuba’.