Anti-government protests in Cuba spark Florida solidarity rallies

© LANNIS WATERS / The Palm Beach Post In April 2000, protesters surround a Cuban flag and shout anti- Fidel and anti-Clinton slogans in the street near the Miami home of Lazarus Gonzalez, great-uncle of Elian Gonzalez, where Elian is staying. (LANNIS WATERS / The Palm Beach Post)

Widespread anti-government protests across Cuba Sunday sparked a wave of in-solidarity street demonstrations across Florida.

Social media accounts — #SOSCuba on Twitter, for example — throughout the day disseminated a steady stream of videos showing the outcry of anger toward the island’s communist government. The core of the opposition was sparked by record numbers of COVID-19 infections and the regime’s inability to respond to the crisis that has exposed the inefficiencies and shortcomings of the state-run public health system.

Cuba’s economy has also been dealt a deep blow by the pandemic’s curtailment of international travel and tourism, which has exposed what has long been the failures of the communist economic model pursued by former leaders Fidel and Raúl Castro in the post-1959 revolution.

Their successor, current President Miguel Díaz-Canel, was the target of the protesters’ ire on Sunday.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Anti-government protests in Cuba spark Florida solidarity rallies