United States Department Of State Comments About Cuba: 15 July 2021 And 15 November 2021
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
26 October 2021
Briefing with Ned Price, Spokesperson
QUESTION: On Cuba.
MR PRICE: Sure.
QUESTION: President Diaz-Canel has said that the U.S. is fomenting the protests by dissidents (inaudible) for mid-November. Diaz-Canel said this behavior by the U.S. is not new. What’s your comment on it, and how is it affecting the review of the Cuba policy by the Biden administration?
MR PRICE: Look, the Cuban people’s protests, peaceful protests on and after July 11th and with the upcoming plans for November 15th, the Cuban people are voicing their concerns about freedom, about democracy, and the failures of that very regime, the Cuban regime, to meet their own needs, the needs of the Cuban people. We support, as we have said, the rights of the Cuban people and people everywhere to exercise their freedoms of expression, their ability to assemble peacefully. We call on the Cuban Government to respect these rights and to see this not as an attack but as an opportunity to listen, to listen to their own people and to do what is right for Cubans and for Cuba.
The Cuban regime is failing to meet the people’s most basic needs. That includes food. That includes medicine. Now is a chance to listen to the Cuban people and to make a positive change. Again, we commend the people of Cuba for peacefully showing the strength of their will and the power of their voice, which, after the protest of July 11th, the government has consistently attempted to silence, including through violent oppression, including through unjust detentions of hundreds of protesters, including through the detention of journalists, of activists, internet censorship, and other tactics that we reject. We stand with every Cuban seeking a government that respects their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
QUESTION: So the U.S. is not behind – is not, like, supporting these kind of protests?
MR PRICE: We stand with the right of the Cuban people and the right of people everywhere to assemble peacefully, to have their voices heard. But what we have seen in Cuba since July 11th, what I suspect we will see mid-next month in Cuba, is a demonstration not of the desires of the United States Government. What we have seen, what we will say – what we will see is a manifestation of the unmet needs, of the unmet aspirations of the Cuban people, and the Cuban people’s clear attribution of responsibility for those unmet needs and unmet aspirations to the Cuban Government.
