The Cuban Observatory of Conflicts (OCC) recorded 691 protests and public denunciations in Cuba during August, a figure that evidences an increase in social discontent and questioning of the regime's ineptitude in solving the suffocating crisis the people are experiencing.
According to the report published by the OCC this Monday, the protests that took place in the eighth month of this year represent a 24.61% increase compared to the 521 recorded in July and a 38.64% increase compared to the 424 that occurred in August 2023.
The document states that August was “a month in which the multilateral crisis experienced by the majority of Cubans deepened, and the notion that the Communist leaders do nothing because they ‘have everything’ and the hardships of the people ‘do not hurt them’ echoed like a refrain in the streets and on social media.”
In the eight months that have passed in 2024, the OCC compiled expressions of dissatisfaction in all 15 provinces, except in the special municipality Isla de la Juventud. The highest number of protests occurred in Havana, with 154; followed by Santiago de Cuba (61), Villa Clara (35), Holguín (30), and Guantánamo (30).
Most of the expressions of discontent in the country -540 (78.14%)- were related to economic and social rights, evidence of the disapproval of Miguel Díaz-Canel's government management in vital sectors such as public health, services, citizen insecurity, food, social issues, and housing.
The crisis in the public health service triggered protests and complaints to 115, motivated - the report claims - by the helplessness and abandonment of the population in the face of national epidemics of oropouche and dengue; the lack of equipment, medications, and basic supplies, and dependence on the black market, social media, and public charity to obtain them; and the lack of well-trained doctors, exacerbated by the export of health professionals to other countries.
Additionally, the observatory registered medical negligence in at least nine hospitals and an increase in requests for humanitarian visas to "receive treatments that the so-called medical power cannot provide."
The worsening situation with water, sanitation, and -once again- electricity triggered an increase in complaints (111) regarding public services.
"The discomfort due to the lack of drinking water in the capital for weeks or months overflowed into a march and a pot-banging protest in San Francisco de Paula," the OCC pointed out, while emphasizing the worsening of power outages, "with generation deficits exceeding 1000 megawatts, due to the gradual shutdown of the obsolete thermoelectric plants" in the country.
The document also highlights the unfortunate scenario of unsanitary conditions in the country, due to the accumulation of garbage not collected for weeks in dozens of cities, to the detriment of the living conditions of the population.
In August, the food vulnerability of Cubans worsened even further, leading to increasing protests and public complaints (107) about the lack of essential foods and rampant inflation, which prevents the vast majority of Cubans—especially the elderly, children, and sick individuals—from being able to feed themselves properly.
"The month brought back images of people eating from the garbage," pointed out the OCC report, which even cited reports of cat meat consumption, which "has become a desperate solution" amid the food crisis.
Citizen insecurity registered 108 protests and reports in August, a month in which the wave of violence affecting Cuban society has intensified due to the rise in violent crimes, such as murders -homicides and femicides- and assaults with knives, as well as muggings, thefts, scams, and disappearances.
The OCC also reported 151 protests related to civil and political rights (21.85%) in Cuba. Among these, those motivated by repressive acts totaled 100, while the "challenges to the police state" amounted to 51.
"The repression in the prisons and on the streets maintained its pace, as evidenced by 100 protests and reports related to political prisoners and their families, activists, dissidents, and independent journalists, but also to other members of civil society such as entrepreneurs, religious leaders, theater artists, social media users, military recruits, and even an elderly man who dared to plant corn on the grounds of an abandoned school," the text detailed.
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