‘We don’t need food. We need intervention,’ protesters in Sarasota demand for Cuba
A few hundred people gathered in downtown Sarasota on Saturday to show solidarity with protests in Cuba against the totalitarian communist dictatorship. Local Cuban Americans and others have held similar marches and rallies since July 11 when thousands of Cubans took to the streets in cities across the island country demanding freedom.
The protesters’ chants of patria y vida, meaning “freedom and life,” and “freedom for Cuba” echoed in downtown as they marched down Main Street, undeterred by rain.
Businesses were quiet on the rainy Saturday afternoon, but patrons and staff came out of bars and restaurants to show support.
“Our children are dying this week. They have all been killed by the Cuban government. They are going into their houses, taking them away. We don’t need food. We need intervention,” Jennifer Shaffer shouted on a megaphone. “All we ask for is freedom, for freedom of speech to all the human rights that we were all born with. We just want freedom like all of you that are standing here.“
In the Tampa Bay area, similar rallies were held in St. Petersburg and Tampa. In Miami, where rallies have shut down roads and a major highway, thousands gathered outside the Freedom Tower on Saturday.
Meanwhile in Washington D.C., hundreds gathered outside the Cuban Embassy and later the White House shouting, “Joe Biden do your job” and “Joe Biden, Cuba needs your help.”
“Your kids are free in this country. Ours are not. The Cuban people don’t have weapons. The Cuban people don’t have nothing but sticks and stones. Have you seen the videos? Go on Facebook. You’ll see all the genocide,” Shaffer also screamed through the megaphone as the crowd stood behind her on Main Street in Sarasota. “We are frustrated. We don’t want medicine. We want freedom.”
Shaffer, 30, came to the United States when she was 11 years old and now lives in Sarasota. But like many of those gathered Saturday, she still has family in Cuba. One of her cousins was detained after participating in the recent protests in Cuba.
“He got taken to jail when the protests started, but they wouldn’t tell us his whereabouts,” Shaffer said, adding that he was released finally on Thursday.
Others have not been so lucky.
Hundreds in Cuba remain detained or missing since Sunday — including activists, academics and journalists — when the regime deployed police and special forces to silence the anti-government protests. Most of those detained remain incommunicado and internet access in the country remains shutdown.
Mey Paredes, 41, has not heard from relatives since they were participated in the protests on July 11.
“I am absolutely terrified of what’s going on with them. I don’t know where they are,” Paredes said. “We’re their voice right now. The government has shut off the internet so they cannot communicate with each other or the outside world to express their feelings. So we are their voice right now. It’s the least we can do from afar.”
Born in Cuba, Paredes emigrated to the United States in 1986, moving to Sarasota, where she lives today.
“They are fighting for their freedom. They want freedom of speech. They want freedom of religion. They’re tired of it,” Paredes said of the more than six decades Cubans have lived under a totalitarian communist dictatorship. “They want freedom. They want to be able to exercise their human rights, basic human rights, that we all get to enjoy in this beautiful country called the United States of America.”
Protesters also shouted, “Si Cuba está en la calle, Sarasota también.” “(If Cuba is in the street, so is Sarasota”)
Along U.S. 41, cars honked in supported as they drove past. One man got out of his car in the rain to join in screaming, “Freedom for Cuba. You deserve it. Freedom for Cuba!”
“We’re here today to try and create social awareness and create political pressure,” George Ortega said. “People are getting murdered. People are dying so we need help. We need internet right now so they can organize and connect.”
Ortega’s aunt has been in hiding since participating in the July 11 protests in Camagüey.
“They went to her house and tried to get her to suppress the uprising and said she wouldn’t participate,” Ortega said. “So they fired her from her job and they went to her house at night and tried to pick her up at night, but thankfully she wasn’t there. She was able to go away and hide.”
But his aunt is among the hundreds of brave men and women in Cuba risking their lives and that of their families in the pursuit of freedom.
“People are getting tortured and killed every day. We need help from the U.S. government and the Biden administration to help these people,” Ortega said. “They are trying to make it about COVID and food and access to things and high prices. But that’s just the straw the broke the camel’s back. In reality what the people are asking for on the street is freedom. I haven’t seen any Cuban in any demonstration asking for food yet.”
Ortega, 38, was born in Cuba but lives in Sarasota now and works for local financial institution. He and other local Cuban Americans have have formed a group called SRQ SOS Cuba.
The group plans to gather at 5:30 p.m. Sunday for a protest on Siesta Key Beach.
This story was originally published July 17, 2021 at 10:42 PM.
