Extreme Street Theater

Some of us were a little disappointed and frustrated to see that on International Human rights Day Dr. Darsi Ferrer demonstrated in a Havana park with only 11 other supporters.
Sunday, Ray Sanchez over at The SunSentinel’s Cuba Notebook had something to say on the subject:

That organizers drudged up a dozen souls for a peaceful march on International Human Rights Day was a feat in itself.
In the days before last Monday’s march and other unusual rights demonstrations here, state security agents had rounded up and jailed as many as 80 dissidents to prevent them from attending the events, according to rights observers. About 30 others in the provinces who had planned to participate were prevented from leaving their homes.

So the regime had to prepare a full scale crackdown operation to prevent the demonstrators from reaching over 100. They also had to mobilize their security agents and their quick response thug brigades to go harass and abuse the demonstrators that overcame the intimidation and the dragnet and managed to join Dr. Ferrer. And, they even had to schedule a competing event to announce that they would be signing two UN rights covenants.

Cuba’s state press dismissed the demonstrations as “street theater” orchestrated after “frenetic subversive activity” between dissidents and U.S. officials here.

That’s an awful lot of preparations and mobilizations to counteract “street theater” Fortunately, since the “street theater’s” performance was well publicized, the actors knew beforehand that they were in for an extreme R-rated -for profanity and violence performance- and the audience abroad would be able to see the horror movie that Cubans have to live everyday. And the reviews for the castro brothers weren’t good since the world has finally decided to recognize that “frenetic subversive activity” means wearing a wristband with the word CAMBIO.
CAMBIO