Protest March in Cuba, November 15, 2021
Will November 15, 2021, become a day of infamy or the birth of freedom 90 miles from our shores? FACE, Facts About Cuban Exiles, unites in brotherly love with everyone in the island of Cuba who seeks to live in freedom and normality. We represent the ideals of millions who left Cuba as well as those of their descendants. Neither of these two groups have ever forgotten the reason for this mass exodus from an island used to taking in immigrants and refugees from Europe and the Caribbean. The eldest among us recall how people used to live normal and productive lives there. And the torch of freedom that our “greatest generation” brought to the U.S. still lights the path of newer arrivals and of Cuban Americans who have thrived in the open system that is the U.S.
On July 11, 2021, for the first time in generations, the Cuban people from east to west came out into the streets in protest, shouting Libertad! But “the streets belong to Castro” as in the time of the brown shirts in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. The dictator always reserved them for himself, and later his brother and his protégé have continued to mobilize their mobs to keep it so. Baseball bats will be swinging on November 15th, but not to play our national pastime, rather to violently repress the people’s desperation.
The people have replaced Castro’s slogan Patria o Muerte (Fatherland or Death) with the popular song Patria y Vida (Fatherland and Life). The profound significance of this song born out of the creative process of people born under the yoke of the dictatorship succinctly represents the aspirations of a people who yearn to be like anybody else in the world. We at FACE eagerly extend a warm abrazo, our traditional bear hug, to the Cubans who will lose their jobs, or their freedom, or perhaps their lives, simply for demanding their God-given natural rights. But despite this very real threat, people will march, and the regime will not be able to hide its actions from the world. And to those that will brutally repress them: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34.
Sincerely,
Eduardo J. García, FACE Chairman