As the Cuban regime accuses the United States of pulling the strings behind the scenes, Washington has reacted.
Joe Biden warned Havana against any crackdown on the Cuban people's "vibrant call for freedom", in the aftermath of anti-regime protests on the island, which were unsurprisingly applauded by the Republican camp, Donald Trump on your mind.
"We call on the Cuban government to refrain from any violence and any attempt to silence the people of Cuba," Joe Biden said on the sidelines of a meeting at the White House, devoted among other things to the problem of firearms. in the USA.
He had previously, in a statement, supported the "vibrant call for freedom" of the Cuban people, confronted according to him with "the dramatic grip of the pandemic", as well as "decades of repression and suffering. economic imposed by the authoritarian regime ”of Cuba.
"Serious error"
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told him on Monday that Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel would make a “serious mistake” in attributing responsibility for the demonstrations to the United States.
"They simply remain deaf to the voice and the will of the Cuban people - a people deeply weary of the repression which has lasted only too long", continued the head of the American diplomacy, questioned by journalists.
He also said that the protests were aimed at the "mismanagement" of the pandemic and the economy by the Cuban government.
"The American embargo allows the passage of humanitarian aid," said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Miguel Diaz-Canel accused Washington on Monday of carrying out "a policy of economic suffocation to provoke social unrest" on the island, the day after historic demonstrations.
Exasperated by the economic crisis, which has worsened food and drug shortages, and pushed the government to cut electricity for several hours a day, thousands of Cubans spontaneously took to the streets on Sunday in dozens of towns and villages across the country. country, with cries of "We are hungry", "Freedom" and "Down with the dictatorship".
An unprecedented mobilization in Cuba, where the only authorized gatherings are generally those of the Communist Party (PCC, single).
Trump "100% behind the Cuban people"
Unsurprisingly, these demonstrations received the enthusiastic support of the tenors of the Republican Party in the United States, traditionally very hostile to the Communist regime, and who did not hesitate to scratch the Democratic camp in the process.
"I am 100% with the Cuban people in their fight for freedom," former President Donald Trump said in a statement, making sure to recall his "very hard position" against the communist regime. During his mandate he had tightened the sanctions against Havana, going back on the policy of Barack Obama. The former Democratic president, of whom Joe Biden was vice-president, had chosen a policy of historic openness with Cuba, which had allowed a brief improvement in relations between the two countries.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered a rising star in the Republican camp, at the head of a state where there is a large Cuban diaspora, accused him of the leaders of the communist island of "trying to silence those who have the courage to speak out against (disastrous) policies ”.
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