Cuba's regime could be headed for a violent clash with opponents — just in time for tourism season

Manuel Cuesta Morua is used to having police at the door of his home in Havana.

"Sometimes they're there for two days, then they're gone for three, then they're back for three," he told CBC News.

The government also regularly cuts the well-known Cuban dissident's phone and internet service. He's been jailed in the past and the current harassment is not the worst he's suffered. But if the goal is to frighten him, it's working.

"Yes, there's fear," he said. "We try to operate by managing that fear. We have been through so much that we've learned how to control our fears."

Already briefly detained at the end of last month, Cuesta is bracing himself for a possible return to prison as the Civic March for Change, scheduled for November 15, approaches.

"In the case of the organizers, we will probably be detained the day before, or the day of," he said. "They know who we are and where we live, of course. And then we'll probably be put on trial for supposedly violating the constitution."

Never in the six decades since the revolution has the Communist Party faced such an emboldened opposition.  

Cuesta's Council for a Democratic Transition has tried to avoid giving Cuba's Communist rulers an excuse to use violence on a day both they and their opponents see as a potential turning point in the island's history.

First, the council asked for permission to demonstrate, citing an article of Cuba's constitution that ostensibly guarantees free expression. Permission was denied by citing another article that forbids any attempt to change Cuba's one-party system.

"In its Article Four, it is stated that 'the socialist system endorsed by this constitution is irrevocable,'" responded government official Alexis Acosta Silva. "Therefore any action taken against it is illicit."

The opposition said the march would proceed without permission on November 20. The Communist Party responded by declaring that day a Day of National Defence and ordering the mobilization of armed forces. 

Trying to avoid a showdown with the army, activists moved the date of the march to November 15.

But November 15 is also a day loaded with significance for the regime. It's the day Cuba officially reopens for tourism — the mainstay of the island's economy. And Cuba's largest source country for tourists by far is Canada. 

"We are aware of the planned demonstrations and continue to monitor the situation closely," a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada (GAC) told CBC News.