‘La Vida Loca’: Liberal Activists Descend Upon Cuba for Parties, Five-Star Hotels While Locals Struggle in Darkness

A convoy of progressive activists and influencers turned their latest cause célèbre — America’s renewed oil blockade of Cuba — into a weekend getaway on the Caribbean island, celebrating the vitality of the Cuban people in high style despite blackouts, food shortages, and an energy crisis that has shut down most of the nation’s limited commercial activity.The reported 650 activists from 33 countries and 120 organizations include Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, parliamentarians Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Borgan of the United Kingdom, and an array of politicians from Colombia, Spain, Brazil, and Chile, among others.The participants, including the Code Pink entourage, which traveled by charter jet, arrived on the isolated nation carrying 20 tons of food, medical supplies, and solar panels before proceeding to demonstrate their solidarity with artwork, a punk rock concert, and a night out on the town.“I am helping to leave a gift and vision of humanidad,” one Code Pink warrior was recorded saying Saturday while members of her group painted a mural with love notes on the side of a building.An Irish punk band, Kneecap, shared a video showing its electrified act complete with microphones and speakers. The performers yelled obscenities about President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu as the crowd shouted “Free Palestine.”The group then went out for drinks with the progressive Turkish-American commentator, Hasan Piker.“We went out and drank at a local establishment and we have just been livin la vida loca,” Mr. Piker said in a podcast, noting that the Cuban people are resiliently enduring the rolling blackouts and economic blockade by hosting street festivals and block parties while enjoying the temperate weather. “People are partying, people are partying in the f***ing street,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s an island mindset. I don’t know if that has something to do with it.” Kneecap’s social media later shared another video of the darkness. The Saturday night post accompanying the video says, “Streets of Havana right now. Full blackout across the entire island. Hospitals, nursing homes, people’s lives….all in total darkness. For US imperialism.” The posts earned substantial rebuke from Cuban exiles and others who noted that the band had electricity to perform and was posting video from the Gran Hotel Bristol Kempinski, a Cuban military-owned property that maintained power and wi-fi through the use of a generator.“A gentle reminder that this group of Hamas & IRGC supporters are currently spending their time on an authoritarian regime’s luxury propaganda tour, so that gullible Westerners feel sorry for that failed communist regime rather than for the oppressed Cubans who live under it,” wrote an Israeli-Portuguese writer, Moshe Emilio Lavi, who is known for his advocacy on behalf of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza.“Sitting in first class. Staying at a 5-star hotel. Can’t make this up,” posted Representative Nancy Mace.Staying at the Gran Hotel is prohibited for Americans because it is on a list of properties blacklisted by the U.S. government for being owned by the Cuban military and controlled by a Communist party official or relative. The Cuba Prohibited Accommodations act forced Mr. Piker to choose a different U.S. government-approved five-star hotel.“Even the five-star hotels are not like, you know … it’s what the American government has declared five-star hotels, but regardless in comparison to the situation on the island, it’s prosperity pretty much,” he said in a podcast from Cuba, where access to the internet for ordinary Cubans is highly restricted and prohibitively expensive. Mr. Piker, who is permitted to stay in other lesser-quality hotels or private accommodations, said that the next time he returns there, he will probably violate American law to stay at a Cuban government-owned facility. With the power crisis expanding after two and a half months without Venezuelan oil, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, said Sunday that Cuba’s political system is “not up for negotiation” nor is it willing to be a “vassal state.” Instead, Mr. Fernández de Cossío said Cuba is preparing for the “possibility of military aggression.”“We would be naive if, looking at what’s happening around the world, we did not do that,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We truly hope that it doesn’t occur. We see no reason why it has to occur and we see no justification whatsoever.”In any event, the U.S. Embassy in Cuba says the country is delivering $9 million in humanitarian aid to the eastern side of the island most affected by October’s Hurricane Melissa. Brazil has also said that it will send another 20,000 tons of aid. “The key is that the aid continues reaching ordinary Cubans,” the embassy said Saturday.

‘La Vida Loca’: Liberal Activists Descend Upon Cuba for Parties, Five-Star Hotels While Locals Struggle in Darkness

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