On the 15th. Anniversary of "El Maleconazo" August 5, 1994   One of our readers, Karel Poorts who lives in Holland, was visiting Havana for the first time on August 5, 1994 and was able to take these photographs of what happened on that date, when thousands of Cubans joined a protest near the Malecon against the Castro regime. Yelling "Libertad," "Viva Cuba libre" and "Cuba si, Castro No" thousands of Cubans were able to show for the first time their true feelings about the totalitarian regime that oppresses them. The protest, that lasted several hours, is known as "El Maleconazo." It failed, because Cubans in other parts of Havana and in other cities were not aware of what was happening and didn't join the revolt. Several people who held high posts in the Cuban military at the time and who later defected, have said that Raúl Castro was ready to send tanks to the streets to quash the uprising. Karel was staying at the Hotel Lincoln, very close to where the protest took place. I want to thank Karel Poorts for sharing these photos, that have never been published before, with the readers of therealcuba.com   Click on the images to enlarge.     This set  of photos show State Security agents carrying handguns. I have circled them in red. The next day, Karel found this broken leaflet on Prado street. It was a mute symbol of what had happened there on August 5, 1994.   A video of the protests