WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Monday the United States supports the Cuban people and called their rare protests a “clarion call for freedom and relief” from the pandemic and decades under dictatorship.
“We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime,” Biden said in a statement first obtained by McClatchy.
The president’s response comes one day after thousands of people took to the streets in cities and towns across Cuba, including Havana, to call for an end to dictatorship and demand food and vaccines, as shortages of basic necessities have reached crisis proportions and COVID-19 cases have soared.
