Miguel Díaz-Canel led this Thursday the "Youth Anti-Imperialist Parade Here, with Fidel", a march organized by the Young Communist Union (UJC) and the José Martí Pioneer Organization (OPJM) in Havana, as Cuba faces one of the worst crises in its recent history.
The procession started from the Malecón in Havana along G Street to La Punta, in the Plaza de la Revolución, with approximately 100 young people and children on bicycles, skates, scooters, and electric tricycles carrying Cuban flags and slogans such as "EndTheBlockade," "100 years with Fidel," and "Centenary Anti-Imperialist Torch."
To ensure the parade, the authorities closed the Malecón starting at four in the morning, along with roads in Vedado and Centro Habana, affecting the mobility of thousands of citizens.
This Friday, Díaz-Canel posted a video of the event on X with the text: Yesterday, I returned to my years as a youth leader. On the eve of another anniversary of the José Martí Pioneer Organization and the Young Communists' Union, new generations of Cubans took to the streets and squares in an innovative Anti-Imperialist Youth Parade "Here, with Fidel".
The leader added that the participants "denounced the criminal nature of the blockade, declared their love for life; and then, in a caravan of bicycles and tricycles with flags, proclaimed to the world Cuba's stance: we are and will always be on the side of human dignity."
The event is part of the official campaign for the "Year of the Centenary" of Fidel Castro's birth, which will be celebrated on August 13, 2026 and was declared by the National Assembly of People's Power at the proposal of Díaz-Canel himself.
The contrast between the parade and the reality experienced by the Cuban population is stark.
The National Electric System completely collapsed at least three times in March: on the fourth, the 16th —during 29 hours and 29 minutes, the most severe blackout in decades— and on the 22nd of that month, leaving more than nine million people without electricity with outages lasting up to 22 hours daily.
The energy crisis worsened after the capture of Nicolás Maduro on January third, which cut the Venezuelan supply by between 27,000 and 30,000 barrels per day, followed by the suspension of the Mexican supply on January 27. A single Russian tanker, the Anatoli Kolodkin, arrived in Matanzas with 740,000 barrels —barely enough for one or two days of needs— as the only temporary relief.
Social unrest has manifested in a wave of pot-banging protests in Havana, Ciego de Ávila, and Santiago de Cuba, with at least 14 people detained. In Morón, the pot-banging protests escalated on March 14 to the occupation and damage to the local Communist Party headquarters.
On the same day as the official parade, residents of Tamarindo Street in Luyanó held a pot-banging protest in response to the power outages and shortages.
The weeks leading up to the event also included other forms of indoctrination: on March 31, children in school uniforms staged "anti-imperialist tribunals" in schools in Havana with the participation of real judges from the Provincial People's Court.
While the regime mobilizes children and young people under ideological slogans, Cuba loses between 250,000 and 350,000 inhabitants per year, mostly young people aged 20 to 40 — precisely the segment that these mobilizations aim to capture — in an exodus that has surpassed one million people since 2021.
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