By Alien Fernandez
Havana (Reuters) – Hundreds of thousands of Cubans gathered in the Place de la Révolution de la Havana for the traditional May March Thursday, in the midst of an exhausting economic crisis and that tensions are reproduced with the administration of the American president Donald Trump.
Raul Castro, 93, dressed in a military uniform and called the leader of the Revolution started by his brother Fidel Castro in 1959, and President Miguel Diaz-Canel presided over.
Diaz-Canel, in a message earlier this week, had called on residents to occur despite difficult times in a unit demonstration in the face of increased American pressure.
The first Trump administration imposed new sanctions on the country managed by the Communists in addition to the commercial embargo for several decades. The government claims that action was the main cause of the current crisis, which has seen the economy decrease more than 15% in the past five years.
“Everyone knew they had to come because it is a moment of revolutionary reaffirmation in these convulsive and difficult moments, and especially with imperialism intensifying its policies against Cuba,” said Diego Fernandez, 42, walking in the Cuban capital.
Other national leaders have moved across the country to similar events, where a large number of residents have braved power outages, poor transport and a rarity of basic goods in Mars.
“This celebration of the Labor Day in Cuba is a new demonstration of respect for the Cuban people for their revolution,” said Ulises Guilarte de Nacimiento, president of the Cuban Workers' Federation, opening the Havana event.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised to “become hard” with Cuba, the homeland of his parents. Mauricio Claver-Carone, the American special envoy to Latin America, recently said that new sanctions were in preparation and he thought that a change of government in Cuba could be imminent.
The Cuba Ministry of Foreign Affairs has exploded this week the head of the mission mission Mike Hammer for having used his office to promote “subversion” and arrested the high -level dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer, one of the many government opponents that the American diplomat has recently visited.
(Additional report by Marc Frank and Nelson Acosta; edition by Paul Simao)
