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The Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in the province of Granma launched the campaign #MyMailboxAgainstTheBlockade on Friday, an initiative to collect letters and written messages denouncing the U.S. embargo, as part of the activities for Family Day, celebrated every May 15.
The demarcation of Las Mangas was the pioneer in the route, which will extend across all municipalities of the province. The call, open to people of all ages, is presented as "support in rejecting the arbitrary policies promoted by the Donald Trump administration," showed a Facebook post from the athlete María Elena Cisneros Ferrer, a resident of Bayamo.
The handmade white cardboard mailboxes, featuring slogans like "Down with the Blockade" and "End the Blockade," were placed in community outdoor spaces alongside the FMC flag.
The campaign is part of a wave of political mobilizations orchestrated by the regime in recent months, set against a backdrop of extreme polarization in relations between Cuba and the United States and the potential for military action from Washington against the autocratic regime in Havana.
The Communist Party boasted about having collected more than six million signatures in the My Signature for the Homeland campaign, which were submitted to the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel on May 1 at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribune in Havana.
That campaign was marked by reports of coercion. A leaked audio exposed a FAR official threatening civilian employees of the state corporation Cimex that "those who do not agree with that should resign."
The day before, Santiago de Cuba celebrated the official submission of the provincial signatures, collected even in remote areas of the Sierra Maestra, in an event that also sparked mockery on social media.
The public reaction to the new mailbox campaign was no different. The comments on the FMC's post overflowed with skepticism and irony.
Yandy Ogando asked, "Oh, is there paper for letters? And one is writing medical methods on scraps of paper."
Alexandra Rivas Almarares was more direct. "The blockade is the audacity of having a people without electricity for 34 hours while others enjoy priorities that I'm sure many of us do not have," she stated.
Freddy Batista questioned, "Why don't they write letters for political prisoners to have them released? Why don't they write to advocate for human rights, when neither you nor anyone can choose the president of your country?"
For his part, Jorge Félix Castro asked with an ironic tone, "And what do they do with the letters afterwards? Do they use them to cast a spell on Marco Rubio or send them so that their little hearts soften?"
Basilio Sanchez pointed to the core of the problem, questioning: "And what about the internal blockade, which is the main one and can indeed be resolved, when will that be addressed?"
Finally, Leyanis Isabel Silva Jomarrón summarized the widespread perception in one phrase: "This is indeed called indoctrination."
The pattern of epistolary campaigns as a propaganda tool has a recent regional parallel. In January, Venezuelan chavismo organized a similar initiative of support letters for former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores from the plazas Bolívar in the South American country, under the name "I want you back," eliciting an identical response of citizen mockery on social media.
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