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Demonstrators Block Traffic in Miami Area to Support Cuban Protesters

Reuters

   MIAMI - Demonstrators waving Cuban flags and calling for change on
   thecommunist-run island blocked a major highway and staged other
   protests in the Miami area Tuesday in support of the wave of
   demonstrations that rocked Cuba on Sunday.

   The Miami area has long been home to the largest Cuban exile community
   and a focal point for anti-Castro sentiment.

   The South Florida demonstrators sought to replicate the protests by
   thousands of Cubans on Sunday who denounced a deep economic crisis,
   shortages of basic goods and power outages in the largest showing of
   unrest in decades.

   "If Cuba is in the street, Miami is,too," many chanted.

   Dozens of demonstrators shut down the Palmetto Expressway for several
   hours.

   "The roadway remains shut down due to protesters. We have deployed
   additional resources to assist with re-opening," Florida Highway
   PatrolspokesmanLieutenant Alex Camacho said in an email Tuesday
   evening.

   But witness Jules Martinez said laterthat policewere allowing the
   highway protest, which remained peaceful, to continue.

   "As I was exiting the highway,I saw people joining the protest and
   walking towards it," Martinez said by Twitter chat. "Local police were
   allowing the protest to happen and guiding the traffic."

   Other demonstrations popped up in places such as Tamiami Park in the
   Westchester neighborhood, where protesters called for "intervention"
   and shouted: "Patria y Vida," or "Homeland and Life," a slogan
   popularized by prominent Cuban recording artists.

   The phrase plays on the Cuban revolutionary slogan "Patria o Muerte,"
   meaning "Homeland or Death," a rallying cry and call for sacrifice from
   Fidel Castro's 1959 leftist revolution.

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