Dave Sherwood

HAVANA, Reuters – Cubans poured into the streets to celebrate International Worker’s Day, Sunday. This was the first parade of its kind since the outbreak of coronavirus. They wore flags and posters of Fidel Castro, and chanted “Cuba Lives and Works”.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel and Raul Castro were dressed in military fatigues and wore a white mask to oversee the rally from an elevated platform overlooking Havana’s Plaza de la Revolucion.

These marches are held every year in the Communist-ruled country before the pandemic. They include a celebration and rebuke to the Cold War-era embargo that was imposed on Cuba by the United States.

Juana Garcia was a Cuban Institute for Philosophy worker who held a small Cuban flag and waved it on a stick. She said that the march exceeded all her expectations. It was a gesture of solidarity for the cause.

The revolution is supported by the overwhelming majority of Cubans, despite so many obstacles. Cubans strive to resolve their own problems. “We don’t want interference of any type,” she stated.

They were also the first anti-government rallies since July 11, 1959. It was an important test for the government of the island, the first non-Castro-led since the beginning of the revolution.

At midday there wasn’t an official estimation of how many people marched at the early morning rallies.

Cuba is a Caribbean island with 11 million inhabitants. It’s currently in a severe economic crisis, which has caused food and medicine shortages, and has forced a massive exodus from its north neighbor the United States.

According to Customs and Border Protection data over the past months, more than 80,000 people have fled the island for the United States. They traveled by plane from Nicaragua to Mexico, then north by land to the U.S./Mexico border or by boat or craft across the Florida Straits.

The Cuban government has slammed the United States for its trade embargo, as well as the tightened sanctions that have been imposed on the country. The United States has long accused Cuba’s communist leaders of mismanaging the economy.