Defiant Guantanameros protest injustice in Cuba regularly

Defiant Guantanameros protest injustice in Cuba regularly
'People of Cuba, wake up! They have fooled you,' protester says
Author: Hatzel Vela, Reporter, hvela@Local10.com
Andrea Torres, Local10.com Reporter, atorres@local10.com
Updated On: Nov 19 2015 04:12:00 AM EST

GUANTANAMO, Cuba -
It takes about 11 hours to drive from the Cuban capital of Havana to the
island's easternmost city of Guantanamo.

Guantanameros, as people from the small city are known, seemed to feel
forgotten about. While they were not afraid to protest over living
conditions, the nearby U.S. Navy base didn't seem to concern them.

At the central park, there was a man holding up a cardboard sign. He
shouted in Spanish: "People of Cuba, wake up! They have fooled you." His
requests to government officials: "Raise the salaries of the people.
Lower the prices in the super markets."

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Cuba photos: Guantanamo province
A man who was watering the plants at the park turned the hose on the
protester and shouted: "Get a job!" Witnesses said the protester is a
regular at the park and has been known to get arrested and detained for
days. One look at YouTube showed that the unidentified man was not alone.

Guantanamo has a list of political prisoners. Miguel Angel Lopez
Herrera, 49, is known for using a wire to stitch his lips together to
protest the detention of fellow protester Rogelio Tavio. Protesters
still talk about the death of Wilmar Villar Mendoza, who died while in
custody in 2012.


The "Protest Guantanamo" video uploaded in 2011 has 26,269 views. About
a dozen people shouted repeatedly: "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" And
while there was a woman who was holding up a little girl, Fidel Castro
supporters started to throw rocks at them.


A couple of Cubans held up two signs and shouted: "Down with Communism!
Down with Fidel! Down with Raul!" One of the signs read "No to Police
Violence in Cuba!" It took four minutes for police officers to arrest
them. The video had 2,477 views.

Earlier this year, a man, a woman and a boy were protesting the lack of
medications available for HIV patients. Yoanny Beltran shared the video
with Marti Noticias. Palenque Vision also reports on regular protests at
Guantanamo's municipality of Caimanera.

There is also a man whose photos were posted on a blog and labeled as "a
young man writes an anti-government sign on his house in Guantanamo."

Members of the Union Patriotica de Cuba (UNPACU) set up a YouTube
account, which had 3,118 subscribers. And shared the leaders phone
numbers publicly on social media. Most recently, the shared a video of
men complaining about the low moral among youth and the need for
recreational parks and pools to exercise.

"Guantanamo is on fire," Jorge Corrales said in Spanish last year
during an interview with Marti Noticias.

Corrales was describing UNPACU actions in front of the police department
to protest charges against one of the leaders, who was accused of
corrupting a minor. Corrales said police detained about 20 people and
some were beaten and later released.

The city of Guantanamo was founded in 1797 in a territory that belonged
to a colonial ranch named Santa Catalina. The city lacks colonial
architecture and tourism, but no one was protesting about that either.

Local 10 News was at the city's Barona Street. And a when it rains and
gets flooded, residents said the area becomes a health hazard. A woman
claiming to live in the area said her main concern was a sewer pipe and
a make-shift cover that needed to be replaced.

She said she has been waiting for "one hundred years" for the Cuban
government to fix it.

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