Cuban Protesters Shut Down Highway, Demand More from Biden in Fight Against Communism: 'Joe Biden Should Help Us'
On Tuesday, Cuban-Americans desperate for help to free Cuba said it is time for U.S. President Joe Biden to do more than issue empty words about Cuban freedom.
Hundreds of protesters blocked the Palmetto Expressway in Miami on Tuesday and called upon Biden to help the protesters in Cuba who took to the streets Sunday, prompting a crackdown to begin in the Caribbean country.
“We need Biden’s support,” said one protester draped in a Cuban flag, according to Fox News. “We haven’t gotten support from the president. So, we are trying to fight, to finish with the communism.”
“Biden, you should listen to the people here, the elected officials that are Cubans and know what is best for the people in Cuba,” a woman in the march said. “So just hear us out and try to come together to see what we can do.”
Protesters were adamant that whatever the White House does, it must be more than feeble words.
“We are facing tremendous genocide in Cuba. Joe Biden should help us. That’s what we are here for, asking for the White House to pronounce in favor of the people of Cuba,” another protester sporting a necklace engraved with the Cuban flag said.
Cuban solidarity protests shut down the Palmetto Expressway near Miami last night.
Photos: Noah Brooks. pic.twitter.com/TmGFxATKuU— Noah Brooks (@NoahBrooks99) July 14, 2021
Multiple protests in Miami were held on Tuesday to support Cubans seeking freedom.
“We have hope that we can have justice. We have hope that the U.S. will intervene so that our people can finally be free!” said Jorge Luis “Antúnez” García Pérez, a political prisoner in Cuba for 17 years, according to the Miami Herald. “The Cuban government needs to go to hell!”
Orlando Gutierrez-Boronat, a member of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance and spokesperson for the Cuban Democratic Directorate, said the Cuban people need support.
“God has simultaneously lifted up the people in 30 Cuban cities,” Gutierrez-Boronat said during a demonstration near a memorial to the Cubans killed during the communist regime of Fidel Castro. “Prayer is our only armor, our only weapon.”
A former Obama administration official said talk alone is not enough.
“The easy political thing to do is to issue demands for freedom from America while doing nothing,” said Ben Rhodes, a senior aide to former President Barack Obama, according to Politico.
“I just don’t think that’s the approach that’s going to be constructive here,” he said.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Biden has not gone far enough, given the president’s lukewarm comments supporting the protesters, according to NPR.
The regime has shut off the internet,power & water in #Cuba
They are barging into homes & killing in the streets
On Monday I asked @potus to immediately mobilize an international response
If he doesn’t,we will see a bloodbath 90 miles off our shores.
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) July 14, 2021
The senator said America should provide free satellite internet access to ensure protesters can communicate with the outside world and said Biden should use this vaunted power of partnerships “to coordinate a strong rejection and condemnation of the repressive actions taken by the Communist regime against the unarmed people of Cuba.”
“We should make clear nothing [from Trump-era policies] is going to change,” Rubio said Monday during a Senate floor speech. “There’s not going to be any sanctions changed as a result of this — on the contrary. I hope the Biden administration will now announce they have finished their review of Cuba policy and everything that’s in place will stay in place.”
Activists who marched at the White House were desperate for any sign of response from the president.
“Mr. Biden, a bunch of us supported your cause, and now it’s your turn,” said protest leader Emilio Fajardo, according to the Washington Times. “We have the right to demand a little more firm action from the president.”
Fajardo said Biden needs to align himself with protest leaders in Cuba.
“The first thing the administration should be doing is establishing a conversation [with the Cuban protesters],” he said. “That needs to be established because everybody knows that a revolution without a conscience is a perfect recipe for chaos.”
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