Cuba: July 11th, Five Years Later

"They killed him!" "They killed him!" "Murderers!" It was the afternoon of July 12, 2021, and Second Lieutenant Yoennis Pelegrín had just emptied the magazine of his gun on citizens who were calling for freedom and who, according to his own statement, were approximately 30 to 40 meters away. The bullet entered through the back, and the enforcer claimed he fired in self-defense.

The head of the sector of the PNR in Mantilla, Arroyo Naranjo, stated that he heard someone shout: "You hit one." And indeed, one of the 8 rounds from his Makarov pistol entered through the back of Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, traversed the thorax, and injured the trunk of the pulmonary artery, causing a fatal internal hemorrhage.

Diubis Laurencio, alias Pikirí, or simply Piki, was not the only person shot during that day of massive protests against the Castro-communist regime, but he was the only fatal victim acknowledged by the dictatorship. Following the murder, the political police arbitrarily imposed themselves throughout the entire funeral, even forcing the family to cremate the body. The official media, as they always do, lied and portrayed him as a common criminal.

Five years later, this crime remains unpunished. The family awaits justice for Piki, a humble 36-year-old Cuban, an aficionado of reggaeton, whose "crime" was filming with his mobile phone the protest of the outraged people in La Güinera, municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, in the capital of the largest of the Antilles. The killer officer is still at large and remains in the police force, according to sources consulted in recent days.

But it all began on the morning of the previous day in San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa. The people of this town in western Cuba decided to take to the streets to protest against the healthcare collapse, extreme poverty, and the lack of freedoms. The protests quickly spread to Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Palma Soriano, Holguín, Bayamo, Camagüey, Santa Clara, Cárdenas, and dozens of other towns. Hundreds of thousands of us took to the streets shouting: “Liberty!”, “Homeland and Life!”, and “Down with the dictatorship!”.

Amidst the largest protests in six decades, frightened, the Castros instructed their puppet, Miguel Díaz-Canel, to give the order for brutal repression: “The order for combat has been given, revolutionaries to the streets,” said the administrator of the royal family, as police, special troops, military in civilian clothes, and paramilitary brigades attacked the protesters. There were beatings, gunfire, injuries, thousands of violent arrests, many temporary disappearances, and internet outages.

I had started the day working and coordinating a document with several opposition leaders about the serious crisis the country was experiencing and the need to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable. I went to bed around 7 am intending to rest for a few hours.

My wife Nelva Ortega woke me up, explained what was happening, and I decided to go out into the street to join the protests. Shortly after, my son José Daniel Ferrer Cantillo and I were arrested. For a month, I witnessed in the political police unit of Versailles, Santiago de Cuba, how hundreds of detainees came in and out, many of them severely beaten.

Independent organizations documented over 1,500 arrests. Other estimates place the number between 5,000 and 8,000. The regime's prosecutor's office acknowledged 790 cases in court. Sentences ranged from 20 to 25 years and more. In that detention center, during the first few days, the agents of the repressive forces could not hide the fear evident on their faces. Later, they began to feel more secure, like a resident of a vulnerable home during a storm, as they watched the hurricane move away.

Hundreds of young people imprisoned, including women and minors. A new and the most terrible phase of Cuban political imprisonment began: extreme hunger, severe malnutrition, poor hygiene, high risk of contracting infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, bedbugs, scabies, almost no medical attention, beatings, physical and psychological torture, long confinements in punishment cells, isolation of the most rebellious, and harassment of family members. Six have died, and many reports have emerged of death threats and sexual assault. At least three reported assaults.

Five years after July 11, 2021, more than 300 individuals who were arbitrarily sentenced for those protests remain behind bars in the worst prisons in the Western Hemisphere. In total, there are currently around 800 political prisoners in Cuba's regime's prisons and over 1,300 people sentenced. The repression and extreme misery imposed by the dictatorship have led to an exodus of more than 1.3 million Cubans during this time.

But neither the brutal repression nor the constant emigration have been able to extinguish the Cuban people's yearning for freedom and dignity. Today, the nation remains in a crisis even deeper than that experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic in the summer of 2021. The endless blackouts, extreme poverty and hunger, the healthcare crisis, and the lack of freedom and opportunities continue to affect the majority of the population. This, coupled with the growing credibility crisis among the leaders of the Communist Party, has turned the streets of the country into a stage for increasing civic protests.

A year after those historic protests, Cuba is a powder keg ready to explode. Even many who serve the dictatorship are convinced that only deep political and economic reforms can save the nation. The majority of Cubans urgently desire a serious process of democratization that ends in a free homeland, “with everyone and for the good of everyone,” as dreamed of by Martí.

Either the Castros and their clique abandon power, or soon we will witness a new and definitive July 11, from Maisí to San Antonio, and whoever gives the order to massacre the people will end up like Nicolás Maduro or Ali Khamenei.