SAN ANTONIO DE LOS BANOS, Cuba ¨C Without warning, the sleepy Cuban farm town of San Antonio de los Banos burst into protest one morning nearly five years ago, triggering a series of copycat demonstrations across the country that shook the Communist government unlike any event in decades.
Frustrated by chronic shortages of food and medicine and lengthy power outages as the COVID-19 pandemic lingered, protesters marched in the streets chanting ¡°Patria y Vida,¡± or ¡°Homeland and Life,¡± the title of a popular song that inverts the Communist slogan ¡°Patria o Muerte,¡± or ¡°Homeland or Death.¡±
The phrase became a rallying cry for a movement that was quickly crushed by state security forces.
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