Cuban dictatorship expected to respond with violence to peaceful protests on November 15

Foreigners showing up in communist Cuba on the island’s official re-opening to tourism November 15 will likely get an up-close look at the brutality and inhumanity of the Castro dictatorship.

Via the CBC:

Cuba’s regime could be headed for a violent clash with opponents — just in time for tourism season

Communist regime and opposition to face off the same day the island reopens to tourism

Manuel Cuesta Morua is used to having police at the door of his home in Havana.

“Sometimes they’re there for two days, then they’re gone for three, then they’re back for three,” he told CBC News.

The government also regularly cuts the well-known Cuban dissident’s phone and internet service. He’s been jailed in the past and the current harassment is not the worst he’s suffered. But if the goal is to frighten him, it’s working.

“Yes, there’s fear,” he said. “We try to operate by managing that fear. We have been through so much that we’ve learned how to control our fears.”

Already briefly detained at the end of last month, Cuesta is bracing himself for a possible return to prison as the Civic March for Change, scheduled for November 15, approaches.

“In the case of the organizers, we will probably be detained the day before, or the day of,” he said. “They know who we are and where we live, of course. And then we’ll probably be put on trial for supposedly violating the constitution.”

Never in the six decades since the revolution has the Communist Party faced such an emboldened opposition.

[…]

Regime arms neighbourhood committees

But November 15 is also a day loaded with significance for the regime. It’s the day Cuba officially reopens for tourism — the mainstay of the island’s economy. And Cuba’s largest source country for tourists by far is Canada. 

“We are aware of the planned demonstrations and continue to monitor the situation closely,” a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada (GAC) told CBC News.

“We’ve published manuals on peaceful protest so that citizens don’t respond to any provocations either from the state or from its followers,” said Cuesta. “That could give them the minimal initial motive they need to unleash violence. We’re expecting that it could be a violent day.”

Cuba’s Communist Party already has stepped up harassment of dissidents, fired members of opposition groups from their jobs and warned the broader population against attending the march.

Read the entire article HERE.

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