Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Monday blamed historic protests this weekend on U.S. “economic asphyxiation” and social media campaigns by a minority of counter-revolutionaries while U.S. President Joe Biden said he stood with the Cuban people.
The protests erupted amid Communist-run Cuba’s worst economic crisis since the fall of former ally Soviet Union, with the tightening of decades-old U.S. sanctions exacerbating shortages of food and medicine as well as power outages amid a surge in COVID-19 infections.
A minority of counter-revolutionaries were fomenting unrest, he said, denouncing vandalism that took place across various cities on Sunday in Cuba’s biggest anti-government demonstrations in decades.
Biden in a statement on Monday said the United States stands with the people of Cuba in their call for freedom and relief from the coronavirus pandemic and decades of repression.
