WORCESTER — Dr. Matilde Castiel, a Cuban American, believes people in Cuba should have the rights people in Worcester have: access to food, education and proper health care, and jobs that pay livable wages.
“Whatever it takes to do these things, that’s what needs to happen,” Castiel, Worcester’s commissioner of health and human services, said. “I certainly don’t like people suffering because they have a pandemic and they don’t have vaccines, they don’t have testing. Those are the things, here and there, that we have to be able to provide.”
Thousands of Cubans staged the biggest anti-government protests in decades Sunday against their country’s current economic crisis, where dozens of activists were detained.
The slogan “¡Patria y vida!” — “Homeland and life!” — has been shouted by protestors during the demonstrations in Cuba, the Associated Press reported, pulling from a verse of a song that has become the anthem of the protests and as artists have begun to express their disagreement with the government publicly for the first time.
“I’m hoping this conversation they’re having throughout different areas in Cuba will bring that recognition and awareness that something needs to change, and that people need to have access to all of this, including Internet access, including the ability to know what’s happening around the world,” Castiel said.
Food, medicine shortages plague Cuba
Cuba is facing political and social unrest as protests since July 11 continue through a shortage of food and medicine while cases of COVID-19 continue to rise.
Cubans are protesting over hunger, sickness and the overall inadequate response to the pandemic by their government. Power outages and shortages of food and medicine have come at a time when the island is seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases numbers, with over 6,400 new cases Thursday.
Cubans have mainly been gathering in streets over basic economic security for their families, food and increased access to vaccinations.
U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Worcester, said he thinks the U.S. should work with Cuba to provide equipment such as syringes for vaccines, and help find a solution for hunger.
“I think we should engage with the Cuban government on our differences, but we have much more ability to be able to make a difference in terms of addressing some of those areas where we are far apart if we have normal diplomatic relations, if we’re not doubling down on an economic embargo designed to economically strangle the island and hurt the people of the country,” he said.
Despite the embargo, the U.S. is allowed to export agricultural products, food, medicine, medical equipment and humanitarian goods to Cuba.
In the first six months of 2021, Cuba imported $123 million worth of chicken from the U.S., according to the U.S. State Department.
McGovern is a strong advocate of creating positive U.S.-Cuba relations, having visited the island frequently and met its late communist leader, Fidel Castro, to discuss the countries’ relations, as well as traveling to Cuba with President Barack Obama in 2016.
McGovern has been vocal about his disappointment regarding President Joe Biden’s inaction toward Cuba since taking office.
McGovern said Biden should take steps to reverse former President Donald Trump’s executive orders and strict embargo on Cuba, including Trump’s restrictions on amount of remittances sent to Cuba.
Push to reverse current embargo
During his presidential campaign, Biden promised to immediately reverse the Trump-era restrictions on travel and trade with the country, but in his seventh month as president no such action has been taken.
While he recognizes this reversal won’t solve all Cuba’s problems, McGovern said it will ease hardships and make it less difficult for Cuban Americans to visit and help their family on the island.
“Our Cold War policies have failed miserably, and what they’ve done is increased hardships on the Cuban people, and it has also closed up political space,” McGovern said. “When I look at the many decades of dealing with Cuba, political space has opened up during times when the United States has actually engaged Cuba. Conversely, it has shut down during intense hostilities, and I don’t want to go back down that road again.”
President Biden said Thursday he’s prepared to send vaccines to Cuba, but he is not considering easing the policy around sending remittances to the country. Remittances to Cuba are believed to be around $2-3 billion annually, Cuba’s third biggest source of currency after the services industry and tourism.
McGovern said comments by his congressional colleagues in the press remind him of sentiments made during the Cold War, reiterating the same harsh rhetoric. He mentioned the mayor of Miami’s posed solution of using military action in the country, and McGovern called recent speeches by fellow congresspeople and senators on the floor of the House or the Senate “belligerent militaristic speeches.”
“How does that help the Cuban people?” McGovern asked.
McGovern said lifting travel restrictions and finding common ground through discussions with the Cuban government and civil societies about improving human rights will do more to help relations between the two countries.
He said his friends in Cuba and Cubans in his district have strong views on all sides. Some people like his position while others have certain reservations, he said.
Protests likely to continue
With the political and social unrest on the island, Cubans are sending a message to their government through their protesting.
“If they don’t have access to food, appropriate health care, vaccinations, I think that’s what they’re trying to say (to their government),” Castiel said.
Both Castiel and McGovern compared the protests to international protests which have occurred globally, as well as the protests in the U.S. over the past few years.
“Protests are happening not only in Cuba. They’re happening all over the world,” McGovern said. “We have protests here in the United States because people are frustrated over lack of progress in certain areas. I think protests are important. Governments need to listen when people take to the streets, and I think the Cuban government clearly isn’t listening closely enough.”
“They’re trying to find equity, they’re trying to find justice,” Castiel said. “That’s part of what people do, and I think governments need to respond to the situations when our community isn’t part of the process.”
Born in Cuba, Castiel came to the U.S. at age 7 with her brother in 1962, during a phase of extradition called Operation Peter Pan. Castiel and her brother were kept in foster care until their parents immigrated.
As a health care professional, Castiel said getting Cubans vaccinated and mitigating the effects of the pandemic is essential at this time.
“They haven’t had much of a pandemic response,” she said of Cuba’s government. “We’re lucky in the United States to have vaccines and have the testing that we had. Again, this is a global pandemic and we need to think about how all of this is brought to the country, but at the same time you have to be able to bring access to healthcare, food, all of that has to be part of the process.”
Right now, McGovern said we should be asking ourselves, “How can we best help the Cuban people?”
“As somebody who believes that peaceful and legitimate protests ought to be respected, I hope the Cuban government will cease some of the strung-up tactics to end these protests,” McGovern said. “Instead they should be engaging with people to try to find a way forward, and find things that can be done to ease some of the hardships.”
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