Cuban leader denies there were anti-government protests in Santiago on new YouTube show
By Nora GĂĄmez TorresUpdated March 26, 2024 2:44 PM
Cuban leader Miguel DĂaz-Canel (left), Minister of Energy Vicente de la O Levy and state media journalist Arleen RodrĂguez Derivet during the recording of the show âFrom the Presidencyâ on March 20 at the Palace of the Revolution.
Cuban leader Miguel DĂaz-Canel (left), Minister of Energy Vicente de la O Levy and state media journalist Arleen RodrĂguez Derivet during the recording of the show âFrom the Presidencyâ on March 20 at the Palace of the Revolution. Office of the Cuban Presidency
After hundreds of Cubans recently took to the streets earlier this month calling for food, electricity and freedom, Cuban leader Miguel DĂaz-Canel denied they were protesting against his government, again blaming the United States during a new YouTube show he says he will be hosting regularly because people need better âcommunication.â
The online show, âFrom the Presidency,â is the latest in a genre adopted by populist and authoritarian leaders worldwide who claim to be best suited to communicate directly with the public. But DĂaz-Canel lacks the charisma of the late Fidel Castro, and his effort to spin a positive narrative on the recent protests exposes the limits of an old-fashioned propaganda system in the era of social media.
The show is similar to one late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez hosted named âAlĂł Presidenteâ â dreaded by many Venezuelans because it dragged on for hours â though the Cuban version is shorter and the title less catchy. The Cuban versionâs first episode, released Friday, followed a similar script of government propaganda and attacks on opponents, centered around the governmentâs determination to pin the protests in Santiago de Cuba and a few other cities on U.S. sanctions.
âAs long as there is a blockade and as long as Cuba is included in a list of countries that supposedly support terrorism, we have all the sovereign right to blame the United States government,â DĂaz-Canel said.
In another sign of the escalation of tensions in the relationship with the U.S., Cubaâs Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos FernĂĄndez de CossĂo, who frequently meets with his American counterparts as the top diplomat working on U.S. affairs, called the U.S. embassy in Havana âa sewerâ in a post on X.
The renewed tensions revolve around the protests that erupted in Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, two cities in eastern Cuba, and Santa Marta, near the sea resort of Varadero, on March 17, amid widespread shortages of food, medicines and oil.
The islandâs economy never fully recovered from the end of subsidies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the country plunged into a severe economic crisis known as the Special Period, some market reforms and new subsidies from Chavezâs Venezuela kept the economy afloat. However, mismanagement and botched policies have ruined the islandâs agriculture, and hardliners in government have blocked further market reforms to expand an emergent private sector. The COVID pandemic and U.S. financial sanctions have further limited the governmentâs access to foreign currency through remittances and tourism.
But economists agree Cubaâs problem is simple: the centrally planned Marxist economy does not work.
DĂaz-Canel, the appointed president and head of the Communist Party who ordered a crackdown on islandwide protests in July 2021, struggled to control the narrative of the March demonstrations during the one-hour 11-minute show, at times acknowledging they were expressions of popular discontent, at others calling the protests âan exercise in socialist democracyâ â and then denying there were protests at all.
He said that the people who took to the streets were âupsetâ due to lengthy blackouts, food shortages and problems in the distribution of food rations. But that didnât amount to anti-government protests, he contended. Instead, he said they were merely seeking a government answer to their complaints. And authorities promptly responded by showing up and explaining âthe circumstance that we all know and that has to do above all with the worsening of the blockade in the last four years.â
âThe big news was the massive protests against DĂaz-Canelâs government, and people were not protesting against the government; the people, our people, were raising difficult situations that they are experiencing,â he continued. âBut to whom were they bringing them up? The government that protects our people, that works with our people to find solutions amid the most difficult circumstances.â
Verified videos of the protests show the demonstrators had direct political demands too, at times shouting âFreedom,â ââPatria y Vidaâ (Homeland and Life) and expletives at DĂaz-Canel. Residents of Bayamo walked through the city streets in darkness amid a blackout, singing the national anthem, a gesture carrying a strong symbolism as the town is believed to have been the place where independence fighter Perucho Figueredo wrote its lyrics and music in the late 1860s.
DĂaz-Canel said the events were magnified by the international media, activists and influencers based in the United States and U.S. members of Congress who carry âhate for the Revolution.â In a vague accusation, he said some videos were manipulated with artificial intelligence to make the demonstrations appear of âgreater magnitude.â
But in official meetings, DĂaz-Canel acknowledged his government must urgently deliver if it wants to avoid similar protests. In a short clip shown on state television of a meeting with Economy Ministry officials, he said: âWe must look for ways to get foreign currency because we do have to put food on the peopleâs table; we have to put goods on familiesâ homes and offer better quality services.â
A report in the official news outlet Cubadebate of the same meeting drew over a hundred comments, most complaining that government policies have produced little results and that authorities seem to lack a clear, urgent plan to meet public needs.
âWe are already approaching April, and there is no economic improvement,â said a reader who identified himself as JosĂŠ. âThe worst months of the year for farming are approaching. High food prices will prevail, deterioration in living standards and serious health problems will continue. Summer will be hell for ordinary Cubans, and transportation will remain at its worst. It is not that I am pessimistic; it is a harsh reality.â
The tone of most of the 2,000 comments in the YouTube section of âFrom the Presidencyâ also suggests the show did little to change opinions about the protests.
âIt surprises me how you try to minimize the scope of the popular protests,â wrote Rosa MarĂa SĂĄnchez ObregĂłn. âThe people there were not dissidents or counterrevolutionaries; they were suffering people who could no longer stand the hunger and what they were going through without electricity for 15 hours, without water, food, medicine, transportation and bread.â
âDo you think all these things are the fault of the blockade?â she asked, using the common Cuban expression for the U.S. economic embargo. âWhy donât we talk about corruption, bad planning, and the bad work of the elites who live better than the people? More than the blockade and defamation, corruption is today the greatest enemy of the revolution.â
Unwittingly, the show succeeded in one thing: producing a viral moment when Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy, a guest on the show, implied that despite the extended blackouts Cubans suffered daily, things could be worse because there are countries where the government âdoes not provide electricity the whole year and do not provide electricity to the whole country.â
âVery few countries in the world,â he claimed,âhave the electrification rate Cuba has.â
This story was originally published March 26, 2024, 2:28 PM.
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Nora GĂĄmez Torres is the Cuba/U.S.-Latin American policy reporter for el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. She studied journalism and media and communications in Havana and London. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from City, University of London. Her work has won awards by the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society for Professional Journalists.//Nora GĂĄmez Torres estudiĂł periodismo y comunicaciĂłn en La Habana y Londres. Tiene un doctorado en sociologĂa y desde el 2014 cubre temas cubanos para el Nuevo Herald y el Miami Herald. TambiĂŠn reporta sobre la polĂtica de Estados Unidos hacia AmĂŠrica Latina. Su trabajo ha sido reconocido con premios de Florida Society of News Editors y Society for Profesional Journalists.
