Welcome back.
Despite warnings of incarceration or worse,
Cuban dissidents on the island are once again,
planning to stage massive protests on November 15th.
The same day COVID related travel restrictions
will be eased for visitors there.
While some thought the protest of July 11th
were a cry for more COVID vaccines,
others recognized the calls for freedom
among the demonstrators.
I spoke with Alian Collazo,
the executive director of the Cuban Freedom March,
to discuss what's happened in the months
since the initial uprising
and what more can be done to help the Cuban people.
Alian, thank you so much for being with us here
on Facing South Florida this Sunday morning,
it's been almost, at this point,
four months since the July 11th protest
that took over the streets of Cuba.
At the time, people thought, "This is it,
this is the turning point, that moment of change."
But has anything really changed in that timeframe?
Well, first of all,
thank you for having us and me today.
For me, a lot has changed, actually.
What has mainly changed is that the world now knows
that in Cuba, undoubtedly, there is a repressive regime
who although over the last 62 years,
they've been able to really mask
what they say to be as a humane government
that stands for equality of people,
for equality of races, for all of these equality things,
that is no longer the case.
People have seen that anyone who has a difference of opinion
in Cuba, is gonna go to jail, is gonna be beaten,
is gonna disappear.
And they do not have the right to liberty
which is what the Cuban people
went out on July 11th to protest.
And with that said, right?
What we've seen is a grassroots movement inside of Cuba,
led by Cubans, supported by the Cuban Diaspora
outside of Cuba, right?
Who is now awake and fully understanding
that they have a power.
They said it in the streets of Cuba,
"We don't have fear anymore, no tenemos miedo,
we don't have fear anymore."
And those powerful words are exactly what is leading up now
to this upcoming November 15th protest,
which is this grassroots movement within Cuba,
that they've lost fear of this regime.
It doesn't change that the regime is oppressive, though.
The Cuban people are dealing with it every single day
and they've been dealing with it, quite frankly,
for 62 years.
And the Cuban Diaspora
has been telling the world that, right?
But now it's not just the Cuban Diaspora,
now it is the Cuban people from within
that could be heard thanks to the internet, right?
That's the big part.
Tell me what it's like from what you've heard,
from people actually on the island right now.
I've spoken to some people with family there
who've said it's gotten worse in how they're being treated.
They're glad that people around the world know about it now
but that it hasn't actually changed
for the better for them, yet.
There was a recent article that said
things have gotten worse on the island for the people there.
How so?
So things have gotten worse in terms of
every aspect of life.
You have the pandemic,
you have the government who is repressive and dictatorial
at its core, right?
And all of this is coming together
at a time when the Cuban people are asking for freedom
for libertad.
And this is a government that does not take well
the idea of anything that challenges
its authority to power.
And what we've seen is a playbook, right?
A playbook of dictatorial response
to the freedom that the people of Cuba are calling for.
And this repression has gotten worse
and the Cuban people's reaction to it,
instead of being scared, as they've been in the past,
instead of shutting up,
as they've done in the past 62 years,
what has their response been
and why I am hopeful that this is the moment
of the Cuban people?
Is they're not giving up.
They're asking and telling the government,
"We're gonna go back out to the streets.
We're gonna do it because it is our human right
and we want a change of system.
We want a change of government."
They're not going out there from January 11th until today,
asking for medicine or all of these things.
All of which, by the way,
are things that they need because the government controls
all apparatuses of everything.
So they control vaccinations,
they control access to healthcare, education, everything.
But what they're asking for in these protests, is freedom.
All encompassing, freedom.
Freedom of expression, individual freedom, economic freedom.
Freedom means everything to the Cuban people.
For many on the outside,
the protests of July 11th seem very spontaneous,
but of course there were rumblings
and there was action happening on the island
that nobody knew about.
But now, we have this November 15th protest
that people all over the world have already heard about.
How do you think that's gonna compare
to what we saw back in July?
Well, there's two elements.
One, there's a positive element that it is,
they say that the activists in Cuba saw
that they need the world to know ahead of time,
who are the people organizing this?
So that the regime and its apparatus of repression,
when they go and they try to jail these folks
for doing what they're doing,
at least the world knows,
so that there is some type of accountability.
That's the positive side.
And that is why they're organizing it this way.
The negative side is that it won't be spontaneous.
That the Cuban government, unlike on July 11th,
that was reactionary, the regime was reactionary
to this shocking, unbelievable thing they couldn't imagine,
Now they are prepared.
But the differences here that the activists inside of Cuba,
and this is why this is different
because since the Varela Project in the '80s
when there was collection of signatures inside of Cuba,
by the thousands, right?
Under the Constitutional System of Cuba at that time,
there hasn't been any other civic project
that wants to work under the system,
under the constitution that is currently implemented.
These activists have put the Cuban dictatorship
against the wall.
They're saying, "We're taking you
and we're letting you know months ahead,
under the constitution that you guys are implementing,
this is our right.
What are you guys gonna do about it?"
And the Cuban regime's response has been,
"We don't care about the law,
not even about the laws that we pass.
We don't care about it.
We don't want any dissent, any differences of opinion."
And that's why it's different this time
because for the first time in over 20 years,
the regime is against the wall
within its own, I would say unlawful system of laws.
How can people here support on November 15th
if they so choose?
So the number one thing is taking on to Twitter,
taking on to social media and amplifying
whatever is happening that day in Cuba,
no matter how big or how small it is.
It is a day of activism for the Cuban community
and for the world, okay.
You do not have to be Cuban-American.
You do not have to be Cuban.
You just have to be a human being
who cares about the individual rights
of self-determination of others
to stand by the Cuban people's call to action.
We'll be right back after this break.