The Cuban exile organizations in Miami and the mayor of the city expressed this Sunday their rejection of the Cuban team’s participation in the World Baseball Classic, whose semi-finals and final will be played this Sunday in the city, because they will do so in the name of “a repressive regime.
“Our fight is not against baseball players, our fight is against the regime that enslaves all Cubans. We call on baseball players to express their solidarity with this people who are persecuted, repressed and imprisoned,” Orlando said. Gutiérrez, of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, during a press conference held this Sunday in front of the LoanDepot Park stadium.
In this venue located in the Little Havana neighborhood, home of the Miami Marlins Major League Baseball (MLB) team, teams from Cuba and the United States will play one of the two semi-finals of the tournament, which will be the first time since 2006 that the Caribbean island has reached this stage.
He will do so in the midst of controversy, because for the first time in the history of this competition, Cuba has allowed professional MLB players to wear the jersey of the national team, to which Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada, of the White Sox of Chicago, and Andy Ibáñez, of the Detroit Tigers.
Opposition from exile groups was immediate given that, as they denounce today, this sport, like the arts and other disciplines, is used by the Cuban government for political and propaganda purposes.
“I wish we lived in a world in which all Cubans could support Cuba together,” lamented Gutiérrez, who reminded political prisoners that he maintains the “savage tyranny” that rules Cuba.
“We hope that the Castro dictatorship will be defeated on this pitch,” said opponent and former politician Jorge Luis García Pérez, “Antúnez”, who revealed that after the fifth inning of today’s game, the Cubans present in the stadium they will stand up in protest.
‘Antúnez’ admitted that he cannot applaud these “players” who will play this Sunday because “they represent this dictatorship wrongly called revolution”, while the exiled Silvia Iriondo pointed out that today “Cuba does not is not only the one who controls the citizens but also the baseball team”.
“Cuba today is more than a team of baseball players. Cuba today is hell for millions of Cubans,” Iriondo said at the press conference.
Miami Mayor Francis Suárez reported at the conference that the Marlins team gave permission to fans who wish to enter the stadium with banners, Cuban flags and T-shirts reading ” Patria y vida”, the slogan of the 2021 protests against the Cuban government.
For its part, the Movimiento Democracia group has called for a rally in front of the stadium before the start of the match, where a demonstration by the Vigilia Mambisa organization is also expected, which has already organized a demonstration on Saturday under the cry of “ball players Castro”. get out of Miami”.
“For me it’s much bigger than Cuba, it has to do with the virus of socialism and communism, which is a hoax,” said Mayor Suárez, who expressed concern about “the implication” growth of China in the Western Hemisphere.
He said that today’s match is a good opportunity to compare freedom as a basic right in the United States on the one hand, while in Cuba “people cannot express themselves freely” with because of a “false ideology” that promises equality.
“The only equality that exists (in Cuba) is that of poverty and misery,” said the mayor, who hinted that he plans to run in the Republican primaries to choose the candidate for the 2024 elections.
Miami City Commissioner Manolo Reyes pointed out that the media and institutions that in recent days have asked not to mix sport and politics extend this claim to Cuba, where “everything is politicized, from sport and culture to education”.