Cuban State Security Came Looking for Me

With all the problems one has, I prefer the secret police in their “bad guy” mode

Cuban military personnel (stock photo: CubaNet)

Cubanet, Luis Cino, Havana, 30 April 2026. — A few days ago, an official from State Security showed up at my house and, in no more than 15 minutes that we talked while standing at my door, augured for me–in varying tones–a future even darker than that which his fellow repressors predict when they have this type of conversation with me.

Imprisonment, misery, hardship, death, are what he predicted for me. As if I didn’t already know that I’ve had a little of each of those things for a long time. Even death, because even though I am blessed with good health, the life we Cubans live is no kind of life. As Solzhenitsyn wrote, “If in order to live it is necessary not to live, is it worth it?”

For starters, the Lieutenant warned me that “tolerance is over; with the threats from the yanquis, this is no time for your antics,” and he assured me that “if there is  an attack, all counterrevolutionaries will be taken out of circulation.”

The official did not specify if the withdrawal from circulation–or disappearance (as they have called it to various oppositionists)–means that they will kill us. But it doesn’t matter, because if the official (who is convinced that the conflagration will occur within a matter of days) is to be believed, it is likely that before they have time to “pick me up preventively,” I would be one of the first victims of the US missiles.

“You’d better pray that Trump will not decide to attack us,” he told me, “because you, who live less than a couple of kilometers from the Western Army* General Command, won’t stand a chance when the bombs start flying.”

After he got apocalyptic, he put his hand on my shoulder and counseled me to “get out of that independent journalism, because with your age and how skinny you are, you wouldn’t last in jail.” Right away he got into good-guy mode, as if he were a friend worrying because I smoke a lot, taking interest in my family problems and my future.

“Why didn’t you stay one of those times when you went to the US? What a mistake you made, what a blunder!” he lamented. “Here you have no future. You have one foot on the street and the other in jail. But, supposing that you don’t end up in jail, can you imagine when you get even older, your mind not working, and not being able to write anymore? What will you live on? At that point you won’t have the strength to work in construction or agriculture. And you don’t have a pension. I see you scavenging the dumpsters for cans and bottles.”

Then suddenly, as if illuminated from heaven, he gave me the solution to my problems: “You need to set up a business, become a self-employed worker.” Then he got indignant and before long called me an ingrate when I told him that, if I were to set up a business, then I really would be vulnerable–not as they officially or euphemistically refer to the disabled–but rather because I would be continuously subjected to the multi-thousand-peso fines imposed by the inspectors, who would sometimes be deployed by the very same State Security as a way to harass me without it seeming for political reasons.

He didn’t finish listening to me. He turned around, got on his Suzuki, cranked it up, and went back the way he came.

Truly, with all the problems one has, I prefer the secret police when they come in their bad-guy mode. When they mix their bullying with friendly advice, they make my head spin.

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Translator’s Notes:

*The Western Army of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces is headquartered in Havana and covers the strategic western end (the region closest to the US) of the Island.

Luis Cino biography: Born Havana, 1956. He worked as an English teacher, in construction, and in agriculture. He began working in independent journalism in 1998. He was a member of the editorial board of the magazine De Cuba and deputy director of Primavera Digital. A regular contributor to CubaNet since 2003, he writes about art, history, politics, and society. He lives in Arroyo Naranjo. He dreams of being able to dedicate himself fully and freely to writing fiction. He is passionate about good books, the sea, jazz, and blues.

Translated by: Alicia Barraqué Ellison

Night-time Hunt for Megabytes in Matanzas Cuba

Near the telecommunications tower, the seafront promenade has become a kind of public video-call room

For months, this stretch of the Matanzas seafront promenade has become a kind of public video-call room / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Matanzas, Julio César Contreras, May 17, 2026 / At seven in the evening, when the sky over Matanzas Bay begins to turn grey and the cars thin out on the Vía Blanca, the Martí promenade fills with passers-by staring at their phone screens with the same intensity with which people once stared at the horizon. Some arrive alone, others as couples, others with small children running around near the granite benches while the adults try to catch an internet signal that appears and disappears like a mirage.

For months, this stretch of the Matanzas seafront promenade has become a kind of public video-call room, makeshift office and digital meeting point for those who, amid the blackouts and poor coverage, cannot get connected from home. The telecommunications tower in that part of the city is one of the few that still works, badly, when the connection goes down in the rest of the neighbourhoods.

When the browser on her phone starts going round and round in endless circles, Anays understands that, if she wants to speak to her sister, she will have to walk to the Martí promenade, about twelve blocks from where she lives, in the Versalles neighbourhood. “I have to do this every day at nightfall. If there’s no power, the coverage in my house drops almost completely. The problem is that at this time there is never any electricity,” complains the Matanzas resident, as she adjusts her mobile phone, looking for the exact angle where the video call will not freeze.

If there’s no power, the coverage in my house drops almost completely. The problem is that at this time there is never any electricity

The scene is repeated bench after bench. A woman in a pink dress anxiously checks the screen while a man beside her raises his head in resignation, as if expecting to find the signal floating among the clouds heavy with humidity. Farther on, beneath a flamboyant tree with spreading branches, a young man bent over his phone barely moves. His posture recalls the old fishermen of the shoreline, except that now no one is casting hooks into the sea, but trying to catch megabytes in the air.

As midnight approaches, dozens of people fight off mosquitoes around the antenna installed near the headquarters of the Municipal Committee of the Communist Party. “Even in this area the connection is sometimes terrible. Suddenly the call cuts off, the image freezes and, meanwhile, the minutes keep passing and the megabytes are being used up,” explains Anays, who still has not cooked the evening meal but gives priority continue reading

to the family conversation, even if that means going down and back up the hill in the dark every day.

In Matanzas, speaking over the internet has become a mixture of patience, strategy and physical endurance / 14ymedio

In Matanzas, speaking over the internet has become a mixture of patience, strategy and physical endurance. Some people leave home as soon as the power comes back in order to take advantage of the brief moment when the antennas work; others wait until the early hours because they say that “at that time you can browse a little better.” The younger ones know the exact spots where one extra bar of coverage comes in. “Here, close to the wall,” “under that palm tree,” “beside the bench,” are instructions heard as if they were coordinates.

“This country is getting worse all the time and now hepatitis is back,” says Tomás from another bench on the promenade while making a video call to his son, who has emigrated. “You sent me the top-up on Sunday and I only managed to receive it today, Monday. Now I’m going to try to save data as much as I can, because last month’s bonus was gone in less than a week.”

“This country is getting worse all the time and now hepatitis is back’

The man speaks loudly because there is a delay in the communication and he fears the call may drop at any moment. Near him, a dog sleeps on the cement while its owner stares fixedly at the phone connected to a pair of earphones. A few metres away, a young woman lights up her face with her mobile-phone screen in the growing gloom. The whole promenade seems to breathe to the rhythm of the intermittent connections.

“The truth is, I don’t know whether Etecsa has technical problems or is messing with us, but I get the impression that the amount of the top-up doesn’t match how long the mobile data is actually lasting,” Tomás insists. He then explains to his son that his wife could not come because it is her turn to look after the sick grandmother. “Don’t waste time calling me at home. Even if I climb onto the roof, I can’t hear you. Things are bad all over the city.”

The crisis makes no distinction between ages. “Your niece, to do a school assignment, spent more than an hour in Liberty Park downloading what she needed,” the man says, before again thanking him for the top-up sent from abroad. “If it weren’t for you, we’d be cut off.”

Getting connected on the Martí promenade is not a fashion, nor is it an excuse to look at the sea. Most people arrive exhausted after a day marked by blackouts, queues and heat. Yet, as night falls, the benches fill up again. The faces lit by the screens look like little modern bonfires in the middle of the darkness.

“I get the impression that the amount of the top-up doesn’t match how long the mobile data is actually lasting”

“My wife nearly fell the other day because of a pile of rubbish across the street after finishing the video call with our grandson,” says Eriberto, while making sure that his wife does not wander too far away with the phone in her hand. “The image freezes here too and you have to move around. But if we stay at home, we have no connection until after midnight.”

The old man looks around. There are already very few lights and the city begins to turn into one huge shadow. “Everything gets pitch black, and everywhere there’s a hole or a ditch full of rotten water,” he murmurs before getting up from the bench. Then he slowly puts away the phone, like someone protecting something too expensive and too fragile in a country where communicating with family has ended up looking more and more like a night-time expedition.

Translated by GH

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Plurality Will Be Part of a Democratic Cuba, But ‘The Priority Is To End the Dictatorship’

José Daniel Ferrer, in Madrid, lashes out at European complicity with Havana

“Being their enemy is always better; it is the only way to get them to respect you,” Ferrer said, referring to Spain’s timid and complacent stance towards the regime. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 17 May 2026 / “Spain must stop giving oxygen to the Cuban dictatorship.” The dry, direct sentence summed up the message José Daniel Ferrer delivered this Friday at a meeting lasting more than two hours with dozens of Cuban exiles in Madrid. The opposition leader did not come to ask for symbolic gestures or lukewarm declarations, but for a concrete political decision: to suspend the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Cuba, a framework which, he denounced, has done more to sustain the regime than to improve the lives of Cubans.

In Cuban prisons, Ferrer saw padlocks and handcuffs bearing the inscription “Made in Spain”. The image served to point directly at Spain as the European country most determined to keep relations with Havana open. “After China, Spain has become one of the biggest exporters to Cuba of products used in repression,” he said before an audience that included, among others, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, former Vox spokesman in the Congress of Deputies, and Rocío Monasterio, a Spanish-Cuban politician and former spokeswoman for that party in the Parliament of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.

The opposition figure, released from prison and sent into exile after spending more than twelve years in the regime’s jails, insisted that the Spanish Government cannot present itself as a defender of human rights while backing a policy of understanding with a dictatorship. “Spain must stop supporting an anti-democratic regime that violates the rights of all its citizens,” he maintained.

“It is a regime that only understands the language of pressure” / 14ymedio

During his stay in this country, Ferrer is scheduled to meet politicians from the People’s Party and Vox. For now, he has no meetings arranged with figures from the Socialist Government, although he said he would be willing to speak with them. His aim, he said, would be to repeat to them the same thing he has taken to other European countries: that Cuba does not need more diplomatic oxygen, but international pressure. “It is a regime that only understands the language of pressure,” he said.

Ferrer also recalled the attitude which, according to him, some Spanish officials posted in Havana maintained for years. In the days of the thaw, they avoided meeting opposition figures, even when Barack Obama continue reading

was able to do so during his visit to the Island. The explanation, he said, was that the President of the United States was allowed to do so because he was “the enemy”, whereas Spain was not. Ferrer would answer them with sharp Cuban humour: “Then being their enemy is always better; it is the only way to get them to respect you.”

“If he vomits it up, they pick it up off the floor and put it back in his mouth”

The most harrowing part of the meeting came when he spoke about prison. The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu) described humiliations, punishments and torture suffered by him and by other political prisoners. During a hunger strike, he recalled, they forced him to swallow rotten soup. A guard threatened him: “If he vomits it up, they pick it up off the floor and put it back in his mouth.”

Among the punishments, he mentioned the one the guards themselves know as “Shakira”: handcuffing the detainee by hands and feet for hours, forcing him to writhe in pain on the cold floor of a cell. Another method, he explained, consists of hanging the prisoner from the upper part of a grille, handcuffed, forcing him to remain for a long time barely supported on the tips of his toes.

Ferrer also spoke about the Catholic Church, an institution with which he has a relationship marked by gratitude and disappointment. He recalled moments when the church hierarchy acted as mediator to get inconvenient opposition figures out of Cuba, turning release from prison into banishment. But he distinguished that conduct from that of many priests, religious and laypeople who, inside the Island, he said, “have bravely defended the dignity of Cubans”, even from the pulpit, in the face of abuses by those in power.

“The advice of the regime’s thugs is not advice, it is threats,” he said, before recalling Samaniego’s fable ‘The Dog and the Crocodile’

The opposition leader devoted a central part of his remarks to political prisoners. He asked the exile community not to limit itself to providing economic support to families, but to accompany them emotionally and keep every case constantly visible. “The better known a prisoner of conscience is, the more careful they are about abusing him,” he said. For Ferrer, the most effective combination is for the prisoner to remain firm and for his family also to denounce what is happening.

He also warned against the silence imposed by fear. Many families, he explained, avoid denouncing beatings, threats or lack of medical care in the hope of protecting the inmate. But that strategy, he insisted, almost never works. “The advice of the regime’s thugs is not advice, it is threats,” he said, before recalling Samaniego’s fable ‘The Dog and the Crocodile’: one should not accept as guidance the voice of someone who wants to devour you.

Ferrer also devoted several minutes to the responsibility of the exile community. Leaving Cuba, he said, does not mean abandoning the struggle or becoming a spectator. To prove it, he showed on his phone a WhatsApp thread with an endless list of contacts with activists, relatives of political prisoners, independent journalists and opposition figures who are still inside the Island. “We have to talk every day with those who are over there,” he insisted.

When an activist knows that someone calls him, listens to him and publicises his case, he feels less alone in the face of the machinery of repression. Isolation, he recalled, is one of the regime’s most effective weapons.

“We have to talk every day with those who are over there”

He also referred to the emergence of new political parties and platforms in exile. He considered this positive, but issued a warning: the struggle against the dictatorship cannot be turned into an early election campaign. “The priority must be to end the dictatorship,” he said. Plurality will be indispensable in a democratic Cuba, but first, he stressed, “we have to win the freedoms that do not exist today”.

Ferrer called for coordination among organisations, activists, journalists, Churches, relatives of prisoners and emigrant communities. “The dictatorship is cohesive,” he recalled. Its apparatus, he said, acts together to repress, monitor, discredit, infiltrate and divide.

For that reason, he called on the exile community not to fall into rivalries manufactured in Havana. “Their main strategy has always been to set us against one another,” he warned. Differences of opinion, he added, must not become enmity or a public spectacle for the benefit of the regime.

His final appeal was less a speech than a warning. Cuba’s freedom, he came to say, will not come from international compassion or from agreements with the repressors. It will come when the tap of external legitimacy is turned off, when political prisoners are not left alone, and when the exile community understands that its strength lies not in competing for the future, but in pushing together against the present.

Translated by GH

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The Ladies in White Lament that Sissi Abascal Had to Leave Cuba to Regain her Freedom

“It’s not the way one would want to be free, but the prisoner and their family are the ones who decide,” says Berta Soler

“Sissi and her mother Annia were two women worthy of respect,” Soler emphasized. / Facebook / Sissi Abascal

14ymedio bigger14ymedio / EFE, Havana, May 16, 2026 – The leader of the Cuban opposition group Ladies in White, Berta Soler, lamented this Friday that political prisoner Sissi Abascal, 28, one of the youngest members of her group, had to leave the country in order to regain her freedom.

“Two brave Ladies in White, Sissi Abascal Zamora and her mother, Annia Zamora, arrived in exile; the choice was to leave Cuba or remain imprisoned,” Soler wrote on social media following the arrival of both dissidents in the U.S. city of Miami.

Soler considered that “it’s not the way one would want to be free, but the prisoner and their family are the ones who decide.”

“With their example, courage, and love for their homeland, they became leaders in this place”

She also highlighted that “Sissi and her mother Annia were two women worthy of respect” in the town of Carlos Rojas in the province of Matanzas, and affirmed that “with their example, courage, and love for their homeland, they became leaders in this place.”

Soler recalled that Abascal is one of the youngest women in the Ladies in White movement, which she joined “at only 16 years old.” continue reading

The independent group Justice 11J, which has been responsible for documenting arrests, judicial proceedings, and human rights violations on the Island, celebrated on social media that “Sissi is out of prison.”

But it also demanded that “all people imprisoned for political reasons be released, without exile being imposed on them as a condition.”

Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid, recorded 1,260 political prisoners in Cuba

Likewise, the NGO Cubalex emphasized that Sissi Abascal “is being forced to leave Cuba, with her freedom conditioned on exile” and that “she is leaving the country alongside her mother Annia Zamora.”

The organization added that in 2025 Cuban authorities denied Abascal the benefit of being transferred to a minimum-security regime, as well as parole.

“Today, they prefer to grant her the benefit of parole — at the discretion of the authorities — in order to exile her, rather than place her in a less severe regime within Cuba,” Cubalex stated.

Abascal was sentenced to six years in prison for the crimes of “public disorder,” “contempt,” and “assault” for her participation in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021, the largest in decades in Cuba.

Abascal’s release coincided with the publication of the latest report by the Madrid-based NGO Prisoners Defenders, which recorded 1,260 political prisoners in Cuba.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Trump Wants To ‘Turn Things Around’ in Cuba, Despite the Regime’s ‘Red Lines’

In an interview with ‘The Hill’, Havana’s ambassador to Washington insists that the “political system and internal order” are not on the negotiating table.

US President Donald Trump in an archive photograph. / EFE/Samuel Corum

14ymedio biggerEFE/14ymedio, International Desk, May 16, 2026 /  US President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration is confident that the Cuban government will eventually side with Washington at a time when it has intensified its US pressure campaign on the island.

When asked by journalist Bret Baier in an interview with Fox News whether Cuba would side with the US and not with China, Trump replied: “I think we’re going to turn it around.”

The president praised the role of Secretary of State Marco Rubio when asked about his administration’s actions regarding Cuba.

In addition, Trump expressed confidence in limiting the influence of his global rivals over Havana when questioned about his stance on the visit of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe, which took place this Thursday .

According to a CIA statement, Ratcliffe traveled to the Cuban capital to hold direct talks with officials from the Ministry of the Interior and those responsible for the island’s intelligence services.

During the meeting, issues related to intelligence cooperation, regional security, and Cuba’s economic situation were discussed, against a backdrop of persistent tensions between Washington and Havana. The visit included meetings with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro—grandson of former president Raúl Castro and a security advisor—as well as with Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas. continue reading

In addition, reports this week have surfaced that the US justice system may file a criminal case against former President Raúl Castro for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996.

Cuban Ambassador to the United States, Lianys Torres Rivera. / Ministry of Foreign Affairs

You are not going to put your political system or your internal order on the table, as the people of our country decide in a sovereign manner.

This Friday, Lianys Torres Rivera, Cuba’s ambassador to the US, stated in an interview with The Hill that Havana is maintaining its “red lines” amid stalled negotiations that, she said, “have not progressed,” and in the face of President Trump’s looming threat to invade the nation.

Torres Rivera stated that the country maintains a policy of “discretion” regarding the ongoing negotiations and declined to comment on the topics being discussed. However, she reiterated that Cuba’s independence is not subject to negotiation.

“A serious country that respects itself,” Torres Rivera said, “would not negotiate its sovereignty with another country. You’re not going to put your political system or your internal order on the table, which the people of our country decide in a sovereign manner,” she affirmed. “Those are the red lines.”

Although Torres Rivera acknowledged that the protests over the blackouts are understandable, she warned against a “misinterpretation” of them as a sign of a weakening of Cuban resolve.

“When they endure 20 hours of blackout, they have reasons to complain and they express it,” she said, but added that the US should not interpret that as meaning that “the Cuban people will not defend themselves against US aggression, will not defend our homeland against an invasion.”

We see no need for war or any US military action against Cuba, simply because we are not a threat to the US in any way.

The diplomat asserted that the Cuban government is preparing for a possible military escalation, but insisted that these measures are “defensive” and not offensive. “We don’t want Cubans dying in Cuba,” she declared, and recalled Bruno Rodríguez’s words, reiterating that an intervention could turn into “a bloodbath” on the island.

“We see no need for a war or any US military action against Cuba, simply because we are not a threat to the US in any way,” she stated.

When questioned about the $ 100 million in aid announced by Washington, which would be distributed through non-governmental organizations and the Catholic Church, Torres Rivera stated that the Cuban government is still unaware of the specific details of the proposal, although she asserted that Cuba has never rejected foreign aid “when it is done in good faith and does not constitute political manipulation.”

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Havana After the War

Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro, but he is terrified of ending up like Ceausescu

The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, May 16, 2026 – Havana looks like a bombed-out city, even though no enemy has yet signed the order to attack. Buildings split open like broken ribs. Balconies hang over the sidewalk with the stubbornness of the hanged. The city—one of the most beautiful in the region—now looks like a mouth full of cavities. Almost all the photos arriving from the capital seem taken by a war correspondent.

Smoke rises from several corners. Garbage accumulated for days burns in the streets. Plastic burns, rotten food burns, and patience burns. The air seems to come from a diseased factory. People cross those toxic clouds dodging sewage water, loose wires, holes, and rubble. Havana breathes with lungs full of ash.

But the bombs still have not fallen. The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. The entire country has been devastated by a regime more persistent than white phosphorus.

In that landscape, the external threat appears almost like a gift for those in power. The Trump Administration mixes sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and increasingly harsh warnings. But everything indicates, for now, that Washington prefers to force a negotiation rather than open fire. The regime’s strategists seem to have understood this. That is why they play for time, raise the tone, overact resistance, and transfer—as always—the full weight of the crisis onto the shoulders of the people.

When there is no prosperity left to promise nor future left to administer, there is always the besieged square. / 14ymedio

Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro. The former Venezuelan dictator, at least until today, remains alive, protected, and turned into a judicial piece rather than a corpse. The gray-haired diva from Placetas fears another kind of ending. He fears ending up like Ochoa, like the de la Guardia brothers, or like Alejandro Gil: devoured by the same machinery he helped sustain. But what truly should keep him awake at night is ending up like Ceausescu, suddenly facing a crowd that no longer obeys or applauds.

That is why the external threat seems less nightmarish to him. It allows him to play the victim, gather international solidarity, and demand absolute loyalty within the borders. The external enemy is the narrative oxygen of every exhausted dictatorship. When there is no prosperity left to promise nor future left to administer, there is always continue reading

the besieged square.

In political science there is a social phenomenon called rally round the flag: the closing of ranks around the flag. John Mueller studied it in 1970 while analyzing spikes in presidential popularity during international crises. William Baker and John Oneal later expanded the debate about its causes. When a community feels attacked from outside, even those who detest the government may lower the volume of their reproaches so as not to appear allied with the aggressor.

Iran offers a recent example. The Islamic Republic has repressed protests, imprisoned dissidents, and governed through terror. However, in the face of attacks or external threats, critical sectors may close ranks in the name of national sovereignty. The external threat does not erase internal discontent, but it can discipline it for a time. It does not convince everyone; it is enough if it paralyzes a few.

A real external threat would allow him to disguise mediocrity as martyrdom

Cuba is not Iran, but the mechanism is similar. Many critical voices inside and outside the Island perfectly recognize Castroism’s responsibility for the national ruin. But faced with the possibility of foreign intervention, some weigh every word, postpone demands, and moderate their tone. They fear appearing, through manipulation or clumsiness, in the invader’s photo. The regime knows that hesitation. It exploits it without scruples. It needs Washington to shout so it can demand silence in Havana.

For Díaz-Canel, a war against the United States could also function as retrospective absolution. His administration has been disastrous. His authority is borrowed. His popularity has never even approached discreetly decent figures. A real external threat would allow him to disguise mediocrity as martyrdom.

And part of the international press would seize the opportunity to tell the worn-out story of the besieged small country, the uncompromising leader, the modern Numancia. That is all the stage scenery Castroism needs to hide hunger, garbage, blackouts, prisons, and fear.

Raúl Castro’s grandson has been closer to the CIA than the most radical of the Cuban opposition

But reality insists on ruining their script. In Cuba, despite the blackmail of the besieged flag, protests are indeed taking place. They are not always massive nor organized. Sometimes they are merely a street standing its ground, a neighborhood shouting, pots and pans banging in the middle of blackouts, a garbage dump in flames, or a mother who cannot take it anymore. But they exist. And that is precisely what terrifies the regime.

Those in power would like to convince the world that every internal protest is an enemy operation. They would like every outraged Cuban to have to choose between patriotic hunger and the foreign missile. They would like to reduce the country to two miserable options: obey the Party or serve as a pretext for Washington. But after decades of accusing us of being “CIA agents,” now it turns out they are the ones sitting comfortably chatting with the ogre from the story. Raúl Castro’s grandson has been closer to the CIA than the most radical of the Cuban opposition.

The scenario the regime fears most is the insubordination of the hungry. Not the aircraft carrier facing the Malecón, but the entire neighborhood facing Party headquarters. Not the attack order signed in Washington, but the intimate, collective, and irreversible decision to lose fear in Cuba. If the social explosion repeats itself, Díaz-Canel will discover that his true ending was not written in English, but in Cuban.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Drastic Reduction of Transportation in Cuba and Priority Given to the Use of Electric Tricycles

  • Rodríguez Dávila announces “adjustments in public services” while his ministry wastes fuel in its enormous Havana building, where generators run day and night.
  • Starting in June, the frequency of trains to eastern Cuba will be reduced to one trip every two weeks; bus service between Havana and the provinces will be limited to three weekly departures.
While the leaders continue moving around in long car caravans, they are reducing Cubans’ mobility even further. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, May 16, 2026 – The Cuban Government once again asked for sacrifices from a population that already has almost no way to move around. Faced with an “acute fuel shortage,” the Ministry of Transportation announced a drastic reduction in national, railway, and maritime services, while placing electric tricycles, eco-cars, and other alternative means as part of the official response to a crisis that is increasingly paralyzing daily life on the Island.

Minister Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila reported this Friday on new “adjustments in public passenger services” and on the priority that will be given to the transportation of fuel, food, medicines, raw materials, and products intended for export. He also assured that Public Health and Education would receive differentiated treatment, although the package of measures confirms that traveling within Cuba will, from now on, become even more difficult.

The announcement contrasts with the usual image of the Ministry of Transportation itself, housed in an enormous Havana building where, according to residents and passersby in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood, generators remain running day and night every time the power goes out, for as long as 20 consecutive hours. While Cubans are asked to resign themselves to fewer buses, fewer trains, and fewer maritime trips, the state headquarters maintains fuel consumption that many consider wasteful amid the energy emergency.

Routes to Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguín, and Bayamo-Manzanillo will operate with one round trip approximately every two weeks.

National Bus routes will maintain their current schedule only until 11:59 p.m. on June 17, after the minister himself acknowledged in March that only a quarter of provincial buses and one train every eight days were operating. Beginning on the 18th, trips between Havana and provincial capitals will be reduced to three weekly frequencies. Manzanillo and Baracoa will have only one departure per week.

In the case of maritime transportation to the Isle of Youth, the ferry between Nueva Gerona and Batabanó will keep its two weekly trips — Tuesdays and Saturdays — until June 16. Starting on the 20th of that month, the service will be reduced to a continue reading

single weekly frequency, departing Nueva Gerona on Saturdays at 7:00 a.m. and returning from Batabanó at 4:00 p.m.

Rail transportation is also not escaping the cutbacks. National trains will maintain their schedule during the remainder of May and the first half of June, but afterward the routes to Santiago de Cuba, Guantánamo, Holguín, and Bayamo-Manzanillo will operate with one round trip approximately every two weeks. The rest of the interprovincial and local rail services will remain suspended, except for cases such as the railcars of Boquerón and Caimanera, in Guantánamo.

“I know the population wants private drivers to charge 20 pesos and not 500 or 600, but it’s not possible.”

National air links to Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, and Nueva Gerona will remain “as long as operational conditions allow.” Viazul services will also continue, with sales in foreign currency through the Clásica card, an option inaccessible to much of the Cuban population that earns salaries in national currency.

The minister also acknowledged the impact of private transportation prices, whose fares have skyrocketed in recent years amid fuel shortages and a new gasoline sales scheme in dollars that also fails to guarantee supply for private citizens. “I know the population wants private drivers to charge 20 pesos and not 500 or 600, but it’s not possible,” he said, justifying that transport operators must pay for fuel, repairs, and their own compensation.

The crisis will also affect local transportation. Each province will have to decide which urban, suburban, intermunicipal, rural, railbus, and boat routes it considers essential, according to available fuel supplies.

The minister asked to “make the maximum use” of state and private electric tricycles on the routes with the greatest demand. / 14ymedio

The government’s major bet, however, is once again electric mobility. Rodríguez Dávila announced the acceleration of the entry into service of 200 electric cars intended for medical services, currently at port, as well as the incorporation of a final batch of 150 electric tricycles, with priority given to municipalities.

The minister asked to “make the maximum use” of state and private electric tricycles on the routes with the greatest demand, speed up licenses for those providing services with electric vehicles, and put into operation solar charging stations for the country’s 19 electric tricycle and eco-car bases. According to the Government, these bases will operate independently from the national electric system (SEN), in a country where blackouts continue to define daily routine.

The emphasis on electric vehicles is not coming only from the Ministry of Transportation. Parallel to the announcement of the cutbacks, Miguel Díaz-Canel visited the company Vehículos Eléctricos del Caribe, known as Vedca, an international economic partnership between the Cuban state company Minerva and the Chinese company Tianjin Dongxing. There, the president described the factory as a “little jewel” and called for it to be “protected.”

The company, located in Boyeros, assembled more than 10,000 units last year and billed more than 12 million dollars in 2025, according to its executives. Vedca now aims to transform itself into a mixed enterprise, manufacture metal structures for tricycles in Cuba using laser cutting and robotic welding technology, and introduce electric pickup trucks.

Vedca motorcycles cost more than 1,200 dollars and tricycles range between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars, figures unimaginable for those who depend on a salary in pesos. / Cubadebate

But the commercialization model itself shows the limits of that solution for most Cubans. Vedca sells its products through international payment gateways; that is, with money sent from abroad, and through foreign-currency retail chains. In the available offers, motorcycles exceed 1,200 dollars and tricycles range between 3,000 and 5,000 dollars, figures unimaginable for those who depend on a salary in pesos. The company plans to open mixed TRD-Vedca stores in Havana, Villa Clara, Santiago de Cuba, and Holguín.

The company has 96 workers, an average salary of 16,500 pesos, and plans to enter a system of bonuses paid in foreign currency. Its executives also stated that the partner-administrative building already operates with a photovoltaic system and that by August or September they hope to disconnect the entire facility from the SEN. They also announced that the next tricycles will arrive with built-in solar panels.

During the visit, Díaz-Canel presented the factory as an example of cooperation with China and as part of the country’s so-called “energy transition.” The ambassador in Havana, Hua Xin, promised that Beijing would maintain its support for Cuba in that process. The Cuban leader, for his part, said he would return before the end of the year and asked workers to let him know if “anything gets stuck.”

While the leaders continue traveling in long car caravans, they are reducing Cubans’ mobility even further. The electric tricycle may ease some local routes, but it does not replace a national transportation network or solve the growing isolation between provinces.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The U.S. Takes Steps Toward Charging Raúl Castro Over the Shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue Planes

Cuban José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, remains “skeptical” about the charges against the former president of the island.

Raúl Castro and his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, “El Cangrejo,” [The Crab] in the former leader’s most recent public appearance on May 1 / Cubadebat
14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, May 15, 2026 — The United States is preparing a formal indictment against former president Raúl Castro for the 1996 downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes, according to sources cited by the Miami Herald.

The CBS had already reported on Thursday that the Justice Department was considering filing charges against Fidel Castro’s younger brother in that case, one of the most tense episodes in the relationship between Washington and Havana in recent decades.

According to the Miami Herald, the indictment will be announced during an event at the Freedom Tower in Miami commemorating Cuban Independence Day, following approval by a grand jury. The event will also include a tribute to the four victims of the incident.

Asked about those reports on Friday while returning from China aboard Air Force One, US President Donald Trump declined to comment, saying he did not want to make a statement.

So far, the US government has not officially confirmed the possible indictment.

The case dates back to February 1996, when Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were shot down by Cuban forces in an incident that killed four people and led to a serious diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Donald Trump declined to comment, saying he did not want to make any remarks.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reacted favorably to the information published by CBS and wrote on the X network: “Go ahead, it was about time.”

The possibility of bringing charges against Raúl Castro arises amid the hardening of Washington’s policy towards Cuba since Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025.

Raúl Castro, 94, formally stepped down as head of the Communist Party of Cuba in 2021, although he is still considered an influential figure within the Cuban political apparatus.

His grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, alias El Cangrejo [the Crab], has been mentioned in recent contacts between representatives of both countries. continue reading

The information about the possible indictment comes a day after the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John Ratcliffe , met in Havana with Cuban leaders, including Castro’s grandson, according to reports divulged about the meeting.

According to these versions, Ratcliffe conveyed Washington’s conditions for handling relations with Cuba, amid pressure exerted by the United States on the island, which includes an oil embargo imposed since last January.

For his part, Cuban José Basulto, founder of Brothers to the Rescue, remains “skeptical” about achieving justice and change on the Island despite reports about the indictment of Castro.

“I am confident that justice will be achieved, a justice that is long overdue, because, I repeat, they have let so much time pass.”

“I remain skeptical until the point where action is taken, and the action to be taken is the criminal prosecution of Raúl Castro, who gave the orders, and of all those who cooperated with Raúl Castro in the assassination,” Basulto said in an interview with EFE in Miami.

The dissident, one of the leaders of the exile community in the US, pointed out that “justice delayed is justice denied” in response to reports that the Administration of Donald Trump is preparing a formal indictment against Castro, then Minister of the Armed Forces of Cuba, for shooting down Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996.

Basulto, who founded the organization to help rafters fleeing the island, survived the attack, but has since sought justice for the deaths of American pilots Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, and Armando Alejandre Jr., and legal resident Pablo Morales, all of Cuban origin.

“I trust that justice will be achieved, a long-awaited justice, because, I repeat, they have let so much time pass: delegated justice, denied justice. And what can I say? I believe this should have happened a long time ago,” the founder of Brothers to the Rescue insisted.

The Cuban leader responds that “everything is possible” amid the expectation that Castro will face the same fate as the deposed Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro, captured by the United States on January 3 in Caracas following a formal accusation by the Department of Justice.

“Anything is possible, but you’d have to ask the administration of Mr. Trump, who is the one who makes these decisions. I hope the United States decides to take action against this vile act against the pilots,” Basulto replied from his home.

“Anything is possible, but you’d have to ask the administration of Mr. Trump, who is the one who makes these decisions.”

The 85-year-old activist doubts the productivity of the negotiations between Washington and Havana, which include Raúl Castro’s grandson, opining that change would only occur with a “unilateral action” by the United States against the Cuban government.

Meanwhile, the indictment against Raúl Castro must be approved by a grand jury, CBS notes, framing the information in any case within a context of maximum pressure from the US, with an oil blockade that has Cuba on the verge of energy collapse, surviving thanks to the import permit for private entities issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department.

Because of the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier opened a statewide criminal investigation last March against Raúl Castro, now 94 and then Minister of the Armed Forces of Cuba, who was identified as responsible for ordering the attack.

That day, two twin-engine Cessnas flying over the Florida Straits were shot down by Cuban Air Force MiG-29 fighter jets. Three Americans and one Florida resident, all of Cuban origin, died: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. The tragedy triggered a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Havana and led, weeks later, to the tightening of the embargo with the passage of the Helms-Burton Act.

Brothers to the Rescue was a non-profit organization founded in Miami in the early 1990s. Its members patrolled international waters in search of Cuban rafters attempting to flee the island. Havana accused them of violating its airspace and carrying out political provocations. Washington always maintained that the downed flights were in international airspace, and this was confirmed by reports from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States.

The reopening of the case, however, faces legal and practical obstacles.

Subsequent investigations revealed that at least two Cuban agents infiltrated into Brothers to the Rescue provided detailed information about flight routes and schedules to the Cuban government, facilitating the military operation. In 2003, a U.S. federal court indicted a Cuban general and two fighter pilots for the downing. However, no formal charges were ever filed against the Castro brothers.

The 1996 downing marked a turning point in bilateral relations and solidified the perception that the Cuban government was prepared to use lethal force against civilians in the context of the migration conflict.

he reopening of the case, however, faces legal and practical obstacles. Raúl Castro does not reside in the United States, and although an old bilateral extradition treaty exists, it has not been enforced since 1959.

In a social media post Thursday night, responding to the information revealed by CBS, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote: “Let ‘er rip, it’s been a long time coming!”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A Transition for Cuba Cannot Be Based on Secular Saints

Reflections on Rolando Gallardo’s proposal for the republican refoundation of Cuba

There is exhaustion, disillusionment, anger, and a desire for escape, but the desire for change does not automatically equal the capacity for insurrection. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Málaga, José A. Adrián Torres, May 15, 2026 — I read with great interest Rolando Gallardo’s article on the need for a republican refoundation in Cuba. I agree with much of the diagnosis: speaking of a conventional transition may be insufficient for a country where the regime has degraded not only institutions, but also social trust, personal initiative, public responsibility, and collective hope. Cuba is not facing merely the problem of replacing one government with another; it is facing the much more arduous challenge of rebuilding a political community after decades of fear, dependence, simulation, and moral impoverishment.

Precisely for that reason, the author’s proposal seems lucid in its starting point but overly confident in its development. The idea of a civil council made up of jurists, intellectuals, and figures of proven integrity may be desirable as a goal, but it risks resting on an excessively idealistic premise: that a group of morally qualified individuals, without immediate political ambitions and motivated by patriotism, will be capable of managing a transition of enormous complexity without becoming trapped by interests, factions, external pressures, or internal power struggles.

That assumption recalls, despite all differences, another form of anthropological faith: the belief that a political process can produce new men, selfless, virtuous, and devoted to the common good. Castroism turned that fantasy into revolutionary dogma, and reality ultimately showed something far older and less epic: human beings do not cease to have interests, vanities, fears, loyalties, and appetites simply because they are assigned a historic mission.

The Cuban transition will certainly need valuable people. But it cannot rest on the presumed moral purity of its protagonists

The Cuban transition will certainly need valuable people. But it cannot rest on the presumed moral purity of its protagonists, but rather on rules, limits, oversight, counterweights, and verifiable procedures. The problem is not finding heroes; the problem is building institutions that function even when the heroes grow tired, make mistakes, or begin behaving like continue reading

any ordinary person with a bit of power in their hands.

It is also important not to underestimate the degree of discouragement in Cuban society today. The Cuban people are not incapable, nor do they lack dignity, nor have they completely lost their instinct for freedom. But they are exhausted, impoverished, monitored, fragmented, and for too long accustomed to surviving rather than organizing. To think that a massive, spontaneous, and sustained internal mobilization alone will be enough to bring about change may be as naïve as thinking that a transitional administration led by an enlightened elite will solve the problem from above.

Here emerges a decisive issue that the article does not sufficiently develop: the relationship between internal repression, popular mobilization, and the legitimacy of any external assistance. In other communist regimes with strong police control, such as East Germany or Ceaușescu’s Romania, the fall of the system was preceded by visible, extensive, and difficult-to-hide popular pressure. It was not merely a problem of economic exhaustion or ideological decay: there came a moment when fear stopped functioning as the regime’s cement. The streets, with all their risks, produced an unequivocal image: society had publicly broken the pact of obedience.

The regime no longer convinces, but it still manages fear, fatigue, and social fragmentation. That is no small thing.

In Cuba, by contrast, that rupture has yet to consolidate. There have been significant outbreaks, and the Island-wide protests of 11 July 2021 showed that there was a real reserve of protest and exhaustion. But it also demonstrated the repressive effectiveness of the state apparatus and the extremely high personal cost of challenging it. Since then, protest has appeared fragmented, intermittent, and often absorbed by the daily struggle to survive: obtaining food, electricity, medicine, transportation, or simply escaping. The regime no longer persuades, but it still administers fear, fatigue, and social fragmentation. That is no small thing. The Cuban dictatorship may no longer possess epic appeal, but it still retains police, archives, prisons, informants, and considerable experience in crushing wills.

This absence of massive and sustained internal mobilization greatly complicates any hypothesis of decisive external assistance. A U.S. intervention—military, coercive, humanitarian, or presented as a stabilization operation—would require some kind of internal political legitimization: a widespread uprising, a visible fracture within the Armed Forces, an explicit request from recognizable transitional authorities, or a humanitarian crisis impossible to contain. Without such a trigger, assistance would risk appearing not as aid to an uprising nation, but as an external imposition. And there the regime, even moribund, would find its final propaganda fuel: presenting itself as the defender of national sovereignty against the old imperial enemy.

This point is especially delicate when considering current U.S. policy toward Cuba. Certain sectors, with figures such as Marco Rubio and Donald Trump himself, seem positioned within a logic of maximum pressure and strategic waiting: tightening the siege, hardening the rhetoric, and awaiting an internal situation that would make a more direct intervention politically viable. But that expectation requires a fuse inside the Island. Without a clear sign of popular rebellion, without an organized internal demand, and without a fracture within the power apparatus, any external action would be morally and politically exposed. It would not be enough to claim that Cuba is being helped; it would have to be demonstrable that assistance is being provided to a Cuba that has risen up.

Any intervention raises questions that cannot be solved with anti-Castro enthusiasm: who governs the next day? With what legitimacy? Under what international mandate?

From there arises the most uncomfortable question: the role of the United States and the Cuban diaspora. It is reasonable to admit that any real transition in Cuba will require external backing, economic assistance, security guarantees, technical support, and intense participation from the exile community. To deny this would be to repeat the old nationalist reflex that the regime itself has used for decades to shield itself. But something very different is turning that support into opaque political tutelage or, worse, into a military intervention born from a provoked or instrumentalized crisis.

An intervention by force might appear, in the abstract, to be the quickest solution. But every intervention opens questions that cannot be resolved through anti-Castro enthusiasm: who governs the next day? With what legitimacy? Under what international mandate? For how long? What is done with the Armed Forces? How are looting, revenge, mass flight, or the emergence of new mafia powers prevented? How can wounded nationalism be prevented from turning former oppressors into supposed defenders of sovereignty?

Cuba is not Iraq or Libya, certainly. It has a history, a diaspora, a cultural and family proximity to the United States, and a unique relationship with Miami that make the scenario different. Nor does there seem to exist in Cuba a deep and majority identification with the regime comparable to what other authoritarian systems managed to preserve for longer. There is exhaustion, disillusionment, anger, and a desire to leave. But the desire for change does not automatically equal the capacity for insurrection. Between wanting something to fall and assuming the risk of pushing it lies an enormous distance, especially when the person pushing knows they may end up in prison, in exile, or with their family ruined.

It will not be enough to expel Castroism from power; it will be necessary to prevent it from surviving in practices, fears, corruption, dependence, and the culture of simulation.

For that reason, the solution cannot be conceived solely as the overthrow of the regime. It must be conceived as the reconstruction of legitimate authority. And legitimacy is not imported wrapped in humanitarian aid, nor does it disembark intact at a port under military protection. It is built, negotiated, recognized, and subjected to limits. The exile community can contribute resources, vision, international pressure, and economic experience; the United States can offer guarantees, assistance, and deterrent capacity; but the ultimate legitimacy of Cuba’s refoundation will have to arise, in some way, from Cubans on the Island themselves. Without that anchor, the transition risks appearing as a replacement of tutelage: from Castroist tutelage to external tutelage, even if the latter comes wrapped in flags of freedom.

Therefore, rather than an administration of notables or a military takeover, Cuba would need a transition architecture with international backing, decisive participation by Cubans both inside and outside the Island, security guarantees, institutional purging, transitional justice, orderly economic opening, and a realistic political timetable. It will not be enough to expel Castroism from power; it will be necessary to prevent it from surviving in practices, fears, corruption, dependence, and the culture of simulation.

The Cuban problem, therefore, does not consist solely in designing a transition architecture for the day after. The prior problem is how to reach that day. The author seems to trust that the collapse of the regime will naturally open a space for a supervised civil administration. But that collapse may not occur in a clean or heroic way. It may take the form of prolonged degradation, dispersed social protests, mass migration, energy collapse, internal fractures within the apparatus itself, or a chaotic combination of all these things. In that scenario, the question is not only who will rebuild Cuba, but what type of event will grant legitimacy to the beginning of that reconstruction.

The great difficulty will not only be toppling an exhausted structure. The great difficulty will also be preventing the vacuum from being occupied by the same reflexes that made it possible: caudillismo, clientelism, external dependence, redemptive epic narratives, and contempt for institutions. In this, the article is entirely correct: Cuba needs architecture, not romanticism. But that architecture will have to be designed for real human beings, not administrative heroes or republican saints. And it will have to begin from an uncomfortable truth: without a sufficiently strong, visible, and sustained internal signal, any external assistance risks becoming, in the eyes of many, an intervention. And any intervention without internal legitimacy may end up giving Castroism its final disguise: that of the patriotic victim of foreign aggression.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Notes for a Transition Towards a Functioning Republic in Cuba

The question is not whether the regime will fall; it is whether Cuba will survive its own fall.

The result is profound fragmentation. Internal opposition exists, but it thrives in extreme vulnerability. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Rolando Gallardo, Huesca (Spain), May 13, 2026 / There is a recurring fantasy in exile circles and in certain Washington offices: that of a people who one day awaken, take to the streets, and, with the sheer force of their weariness, restore democracy. It is a powerful and understandable image. It is also, at this point, dangerously naive.

The greatest obstacle to change in Cuba is not the longevity of a gerontocracy clinging to power, nor the loyalty of its generals. It is something more difficult to quantify and even more difficult to repair: the damage that 67 years of totalitarianism have inflicted on the very fabric of Cuban society. The regime not only destroyed institutions; it destroyed trust among neighbors. It replaced the social fabric with a network of surveillance and denunciation. It transformed envy of those who prosper into a civic virtue, and collective failure into proof of equality.

The result is profound fragmentation. Internal opposition exists, but it lives in extreme vulnerability, not only to state repression, but also to an environment where suspicion is the everyday language and where any organized alternative is crushed before it can take root. Cuba today does not have an independent civil society. Instead, it has an institutional desert.

What Cuba needs is not a transition, in the conventional sense of the term, but a refounding

Recognizing this is not pessimism. It is the honest starting point for any serious analysis. And from that starting point comes a conclusion that makes many uncomfortable but that the history of the last 130 years clearly demonstrates: what Cuba needs is not a transition, in the conventional sense of the term, but a complete refounding.

The difference is not semantic. A transition implies institutional continuity, which simply does not exist in Cuba. What occurred was not the evolution of a republic toward another form of government: it was the hijacking of a state by a dynasty that administered it as a family patrimony for more than continue reading

six decades. The constitutional thread was severed. Restoring it requires more than elections; it requires rebuilding from scratch the foundations upon which those elections can have any meaning.

This implies accepting an uncomfortable truth: that Cuba, in the period immediately following the regime, will not be able to govern itself without external support. Not because its citizens are incapable—they are, in fact, extraordinarily resilient—but because the institutions that would make such self-government possible have been systematically destroyed. A country without an independent judiciary, without a free press, without parties with real roots, without a recent tradition of peaceful transitions of power, needs time and structure before it can sustain a functioning democracy.

To prevent the power vacuum from being filled by the same actors who oppress the country today, or by others who are equally violent.

The alternative to external support is not immediate sovereignty. It is chaos. Examples abound and are instructive in their brutality: Libya after Gaddafi, Iraq after Hussein, Somalia after Barre. The collapse of a dictatorship without a replacement structure does not produce freedom; it produces violence, fragmentation, and often the return of some form of authoritarianism under a different label.

For Cuba, the proposal that deserves serious discussion is that of an internationally backed civilian transitional administration—with central participation from the United States and the Cuban diaspora—that provides the necessary order and technical legitimacy while institutions are rebuilt. Not an occupation. Not a colonial-style protectorate. Rather, a temporary framework, explicitly defined in its limits and expiration date, designed to prevent the power vacuum from being filled by the same actors who currently oppress the country, or by others equally violent.

To ensure that this framework does not clash with national pride—which is real and legitimate, and should not be confused with the nationalism manufactured by the regime—its day-to-day operations should be entrusted to a Civil Transition Council composed of Cubans. Not politicians seeking office, but jurists and intellectuals of proven technical integrity, without immediate electoral ambitions and without ties to the factions that will inevitably compete for power in the next stage.

Among those who meet these criteria are names well known to the Cuban legal community: Eloy Viera Cañive, whose precision in dismantling authoritarian legislation is exceptional; Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada, one of the most rigorous experts on Cuban constitutional history; and Laritza Diversent, of Cubalex, whose systematic documentation of abuses has already created an invaluable archive for any transitional justice process. These and other key figures could form a transition council comprised of a cultural elite without overt political ambitions.

Outlaw the Communist Party of Cuba, transform the Armed Forces, and create an Economic Emergency Law that guarantees investment.

Two decisions will be unavoidable, and both will be politically costly.

The first: the outlawing of the Communist Party of Cuba. Not as an act of ideological revenge, nor as a proscription of an idea—ideas cannot be outlawed—but as the dissolution of the organic structure through which the dynasty has exercised total control of the State for more than half a century. Allowing that structure to survive the transition would be like trying to build a new building on the same rotten foundations. The national refounding would be flawed from the outset.

The second: the transformation of the Armed Forces. Here, the temptation to demolish everything is understandable but suicidal. A total dismantling of the military apparatus does not produce security; it creates a vacuum that is filled by mafias, traffickers, and paramilitary groups already operating on the fringes of the regime. What is needed is not destruction but surgery: the removal of the business-oriented generals—those officers who have turned national sovereignty into a holding company for personal businesses—and the promotion of mid-level officers, colonels and lieutenant colonels with a technical background, trained in doctrine but without complicity in the crimes of the system. A republican army, overseen by the Civil Council committed to a new constitutional doctrine, is the only guarantee that the transition will not lead to settling of scores or territorial collapse.

But none of these measures – neither the most sophisticated institutional architecture, nor the best emergency economic legislation – will be sufficient if the deepest damage that the regime has caused is not addressed: the damage that lies within people.

Sixty-seven years of indoctrination leave scars that cannot be erased by a decree. The culture of envy toward those who prosper, the distrust of private enterprise, the dependence on the State as the sole source of certainty… These are not individual aberrations; they are rational responses to decades of systematic conditioning. Reversing them requires time, education, and, above all, the concrete experience that personal effort produces real results.

Therefore, an emergency economic law that provides legal guarantees for investment and eliminates obstacles for small and medium-sized enterprises is not just a technical measure. It is a psychological and cultural intervention. It is the instrument through which Cuban citizens begin to learn, in their own lives, that individual success is not a betrayal of the collective but rather the possible foundation for shared prosperity.

The road from dictatorship to a restored republic will not be short or smooth. It never is. But the first step is to honestly name what Cuba needs: not illusions, but a solid foundation. Not romanticism, but rigor. Not a return to an idealized past, but the patient and deliberate construction of something Cuba has never truly possessed: a functioning republic.

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The Gas Cylinders That Aren’t for Everyone in Cuba

Residents of a street in Guanabacoa watch the Supermarket23 delivery truck with longing

The gas cylinders it carries are not for everyone, and even less so for the impoverished pockets of most residents on that block. / 14ymedio

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, Darío Hernández, May 15, 2026 — A liquefied gas delivery truck passes through Guanabacoa, in Havana, under the longing gaze of most of the neighbors. The gas cylinders it carries are not for everyone, and even less so for the impoverished pockets of most residents on that block of Delicias Street, between Potosí and Gloria.

It is liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) that can be purchased through the online store Supermarket23, in dollars and from abroad, at a price of 29 dollars per cylinder, including home delivery. The recipient is a woman whose son lives in the United States. On the same street, people have no choice but to cook with charcoal, or eat only bread.

The sale of gas cylinders in Cuba recently took a turn when, for the first time, Supermarket23 began offering the product in dollars / 14ymedio

The sale of this fuel in Cuba recently took a turn when, for the first time, the digital sales platform began offering the product in dollars and outside the rationed system, amid this unprecedented energy crisis. This has marked a turning point in the commercialization of a product that, until now, had been tied to a state-regulated distribution system and available only in pesos.

It has also created a new social divide between those who have relatives abroad, who can avoid the long lines and uncertainty of the domestic supply system, and the rest of the population, forced to depend on a completely ineffective system. On this street in Guanabacoa, only one family is privileged.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

The U.S. Considers Cuba a Threat to Its Security Because It Hosts Russian and Chinese Military Activities

Díaz-Canel replied that “not a single offensive action” against his neighbor’s national security “has ever come” from his country.

Almost two years ago, the Russian submarine Kazan visited Cuba, drawing plenty of attention from people in Havana. /14ymedio

14ymedio biggerAgencies/14ymedio, Washington / Madrid, May 13, 2026 – U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated this Tuesday that Cuba represents a threat to U.S. national security because, among other reasons, Russian military vessels — including a nuclear-powered submarine — have repeatedly docked at ports on the Island.

During a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, which was marked by warnings about alleged Russian intelligence operations — and suggestions that China could be doing the same — with Cuba providing logistical support, Republican Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart asked Hegseth whether Russian military ships had used Cuban territory.

“That’s correct,” Hegseth replied, adding that Washington has long considered it “highly problematic” for “a foreign adversary to use that kind of location,” so close to the United States.

Washington considers it “highly problematic” for “a foreign adversary to use that kind of location,” so close to the United States.

Later on, Díaz-Balart directly asked the Pentagon chief whether he considers the Cuban Government a threat to U.S. national security, and Hegseth answered: “yes,” in one of the toughest exchanges of the hearing.

The hearing focused mainly on the defense and national security priorities of President Donald Trump’s administration, but it drifted toward questions about the growing cooperation between Cuba, Russia, and China, as well as alleged intelligence activities and foreign military presence on the Island, located about 150 kilometers from the U.S. coast.

In what appeared to be a response, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said this Tuesday that “not a single offensive action” against the national security of the United States “has ever come” from his country, adding that the Island “does not threaten or challenge,” but “does not fear either.”

“In more than six decades of socialist Revolution, ninety miles (about 145 kilometers) from the United States, not a single offensive action against that country’s national security has ever come from this territory,” the Cuban leader stressed continue reading

in a social media post in which he also underlined that “Cuba does not threaten or challenge, but neither does it fear.”

By saying “never,” the Cuban leader ignores the many pieces of evidence regarding training camps inside the Island and the delivery of weapons to dozens of guerrilla groups seeking to overthrow governments allied with Washington in Latin America, groups that did not hesitate to kidnap and kill several U.S. diplomats. In addition, Havana offered its territorial waters to Colombian cartels to facilitate cocaine shipments into the United States. It also granted asylum to terrorists wanted by the FBI.

Nevertheless, Díaz-Canel insisted that “every day a new threat comes from the United States toward Cuba,” and that the Island has been subjected to “countless offensive actions concocted” in Washington that have left “thousands of Cubans injured or dead.” The Cuban leader described as “incoherent” and “fantastical” the idea of labeling his country a “threat” while, he claimed, “additional coercive measures are being decreed and its Government is accused of being incapable of minimally sustaining its economy.”

“It is all part of a narrative being built in order to continue suffocating the Cuban people, as well as escalating toward a conflict that could have unimaginable consequences for our peoples and the region,” the leader reflected, referring to Washington’s measures affecting strategic sectors such as energy, mining, and financial services.

Along the same lines, Díaz-Canel said it has been “proven,” “documented,” and even “acknowledged by international organizations and U.S. agencies from previous administrations” that his country “has contributed to preserving U.S. security in the fight against different kinds of transnational crime.”

“Cuba has had to work all this time to confront with firmness and calm the threats coming from the United States, and that is how we will continue to the very end,” he concluded.

“Cuba has had to work all this time to confront with firmness and calm the threats coming from the United States, and that is how we will continue to the very end.”

That same Tuesday, the occupant of the White House said before leaving for Beijing that Cuba “is asking for help” and that both countries “are going to talk,” without giving further details. All this comes amid his repeated and habitual threats against the Havana authorities, including the possibility of a military offensive.

Fifteen days ago, Senate Republicans once again blocked a Democratic initiative seeking to limit Trump’s war powers regarding Cuba. Even so, more and more Republicans are opposing an armed solution that could further damage the party’s chances in the November elections.

Last week, in an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hinted at the Trump administration’s displeasure over the use of Cuban territory by its adversaries and described their operations, 90 nautical miles off the coast of Florida, as a threat.

Translated by GH

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Cuban Political Prisoner Sissi Abascal Zamora Arrives in Miami With Her Family

Her mother, the Lady in White Annia Zamora, is traveling with her thanks to a humanitarian visa granted to both of them by the State Department

Sissi Abasca in a 2019 photo. “I VOTE NO”. / Screenshot

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Madrid, 14 May 2026 / Political prisoner Sissi Abascal Zamora and her mother, Annia Zamora, also a member of the Ladies in White, are arriving in Miami this Thursday with a humanitarian visa accompanied by other family members, according to activist Ángel Moya, husband of the leader of the women’s organization, Berta Soler.

The release of the young activist, just 27 years old, was reportedly arranged by the regime, as Abascal was being held in the La Bellotex women’s prison in Matanzas, serving a sentence for her participation in the July 11, 2021 protests. Saylí Navarro, daughter of fellow prisoner of conscience Félix Navarro, is also serving her sentence in the same prison. Both rejected, as was learned earlier this month, a proposal to leave Cuba made by the auxiliary bishop of Havana, Eloy Ricardo Domínguez Martínez, who visited them at the prison where they are serving their sentences.

In an audio recording shared by the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), Sonia Álvarez Campillo, Saylí’s mother and Félix’s wife, said that they were not going to leave the country. “Last Tuesday, the auxiliary bishop of Havana and president of the Prison Ministry appeared at the Agüica prison in Matanzas, with the aim of inviting Félix to leave the country,” Álvarez Campillo recounts in the audio.

From there, the prelate went to La Bellotex to present the same situation to Saylí, who refused, just like her father. It’s reasonable to assume the message was also intended for Abascal, and that she would have accepted, although this will surely be one of the questions the young woman will have to answer upon her arrival in Florida. continue reading

It’s reasonable to assume the message was also for Abascal, and if so, she would have accepted, although this will surely be one of the questions the young woman will have to answer upon her arrival in Florida.

Abascal’s release has been arranged by the Fundación Rescate Jurídico [Legal Rescue Foundation], headed by activist and businessman Santiago Álvarez, who announced that the young woman will be available to the press this Thursday from 12 noon at the organization’s headquarters.

Known for being the youngest member of the Ladies in White, as well as a member of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy, Abascal was serving a six-year prison sentence, meaning she still had 14 months left to complete. Last September, Annia Zamora denounced the seventh time the authorities had refused to grant her the benefit of a less restrictive prison regime, despite her having just undergone surgery for a gynecological condition.

Abascal, known for her refusal to wear a prison uniform, which has earned her severe punishments, is one of the most internationally recognized prisoners. In early April, it was reported that Washington had given Havana 15 days to release some of its highest-level political prisoners as a goodwill gesture, but the deadline—if it ever was given—passed without consequence.

This Wednesday, USA Today published a brief audio recording of a conversation with Maykel Castillo Osorbo, who told the American media outlet that he had also received an offer of freedom in exchange for exile—though this wasn’t the first time such an offer had been made public. “Either you want to emigrate, tell me if you want to emigrate, or you want to stay in this same situation you’re in now, imprisoned until 2030,” the rapper claims State Security made the offer.

However, his answer was no: “Freedom cannot be bought at any price. That’s clear. I understand. I will always make that clear.”

However, his answer was no: “Freedom cannot be bought at any price. That is clear. I understand. I will always make that clear.”

For his part, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara also spoke briefly with the media outlet, telling them: “I am an artist, and I believe that both Maykel and I could be in New York right now, in any reality, living our art, fighting as artists to make our mark in the art world. But we decided to sacrifice all that vanity.” The artist, probably the most internationally known political prisoner, who has two months left on his sentence, added: “We found a path in art, a reason to believe that art could change things, and that’s why we put our bodies on the line for change in Cuba. Our responsibility as artists, as Cubans, is that we came as prisoners.”
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Rubio: ‘Wealth in Cuba Is Controlled by a Company of Military Officers Who Keep All the Money’

The U.S. secretary of state again insisted that “additional designations can be expected in the coming days and weeks”

The Gran Muthu Habana was built a few years ago by Gaesa in Playa, Havana. / 14ymedio

14ymedio biggerEFE/14ymedio, Washington, May 14, 2026 — United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio once again lashed out at the Cuban Government this Wednesday, asserting that the Island is “controlled by a company owned by military generals,” in a new criticism amid Washington’s pressure on Havana, which has intensified in recent weeks.

“Wealth in Cuba is controlled by a company owned by military generals who keep all the money,” Rubio stated during an exclusive interview with Fox News, broadcast Wednesday night and recorded aboard Air Force 1 en route to China.

The head of U.S. diplomacy, who has Cuban roots, also warned that people in Cuba are currently “literally eating garbage off the streets” while at the same time the “company” that controls the Island has “16 billion dollars” at its disposal.

The head of U.S. diplomacy, who has Cuban roots, also warned that people in Cuba are currently “literally eating garbage off the streets”

Last week, the United States announced sanctions against the Cuban military conglomerate GAESA, its director, and Moa Nickel, a joint venture with the Canadian company Sherritt International, as part of actions aimed at strangling the Island’s economy amid threats by President Donald Trump to take control of the country.

These new “decisive measures” by Washington seek “to protect the national security of the United States and deprive Cuba’s communist regime and military forces of access to illicit assets,” Rubio said.

“Just 90 miles from U.S. territory, the Cuban regime has continue reading

driven the Island into ruin and auctioned it off as a platform for foreign intelligence, military, and terrorist operations. Additional designations can be expected in the coming days and weeks,” Rubio added.

According to the State Department, the military company GAESA “constitutes the heart of Cuba’s kleptocratic communist system,” controlling “an estimated 40% or more of the Island’s economy” for the benefit of “corrupt elites,” while the Cuban people endure one of the most severe economic crises in the country’s history.

Last March, however, an official close to talks between the United States and Cuba affirmed precisely that the precarious economic situation of GAESA could serve as leverage for change. The information was published by The Economist, which argued that Gaesa’s collapse is due to having invested 70% of its resources over the last 10 years in a tourism sector that is now practically at zero.

“Before the United States tightened restrictions, Gaesa barely had one billion dollars in reserves”

“Before the United States tightened restrictions, Gaesa barely had one billion dollars in reserves. That figure is rapidly declining, as its luxury hotels remain empty,” the article said, estimating Cuba’s international reserves at around 3 billion dollars.

Trump signed a new executive order on May 1 extending the scope of sanctions against Cuba to include almost any non-U.S. person or company doing business with the Island, especially in the energy, defense, security, and financial sectors.

This adds to the oil blockade imposed in January by the American president, who has said he will “take control” of Cuba “almost immediately” and could deploy the USS Abraham Lincoln to Caribbean waters.

On Tuesday, before departing for China, Donald Trump said that Cuba’s situation was that of “a failed country” that “is asking for help, and we’re going to talk!”

Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuba’s Electric Union Announces a 2,200 MW Deficit After a Turbulent Night of Protests in Havana

The system disconnected early this morning from Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo, and the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant broke down again

Protests in Marianao, Havana, after more than 20 hours without electricity. / Mario Pentón/Facebook

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, May 14, 2026 – The night was turbulent in a Havana abandoned even by the breeze, and dawn does not look any better. Cuba’s Electric Union has announced the largest projected deficit in history for today, with 2,202 megawatts of outages expected during peak hours. For that time, and if nothing worsens, generation is estimated at 976 MW against a demand of 3,150.

The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant disconnected again due to a boiler leak, adding its shutdown to that of Felton and creating a perfect storm that only lacked one more aggravating factor: at 6:09 a.m., a partial collapse of the electrical system occurred from the province of Ciego de Ávila to Guantánamo, and recovery efforts are currently underway through isolated energy islands.

All of this comes after a night of widespread protests in the capital, during a month of May already registering high temperatures. In the newsroom of 14ymedio, despite being on the highest floor, the heat was already unbearable yesterday, and summer, which is expected to be intolerable, has not even arrived yet. Even so, in Nuevo Vedado the many pot-banging protests that multiplied throughout the city during a blackout lasting more than 20 consecutive hours were not heard.

The fuse had been lit in San Miguel del Padrón, where in broad daylight yesterday and after 24 continuous hours without electricity, residents took to the streets banging pots and pans, demanding “electricity” and “food” and calling for solutions that ultimately arrived almost simultaneously with arrests. But tensions began spreading from neighborhood to continue reading

neighborhood.

Under cover of darkness, when identifying demonstrators becomes more difficult, the protests intensified. So much so that in the municipality of Playa, a police truck arrived at improvised barricades and bonfires, as shown in a video published by journalist Mario Pentón, to disperse the large group of people occupying the street.

In Diez de Octubre, several piles of garbage were also set on fire while horns blared and pots clanged. “My neighborhood, there’s no fear anymore. We want freedom, they won’t be able to stop an entire people,” wrote a resident in Santos Suárez, where the pot-banging protests were equally loud.

Cubans both inside and outside the Island proudly commented on the many videos circulating on social media when they recognized streets where they live or once lived. “My neighborhood heating up. Fire against the PNR [National Revolutionary Police],” urged a former resident of Lawton and Dolores in response to other images in which only the defiant noise and the powerful chiaroscuro of the bonfires amid another black night without power could barely be distinguished.

Chants and demands were also heard on San Lázaro, near the famous staircase of the University of Havana where, on a very distant day, Fidel Castro railed against Batista’s dictatorship. The same occurred in Guanabacoa, where it is difficult to find a place to charge a phone and even harder to charge a motorcycle in order to get around. “The 4G signal appears, but there is absolutely no connection,” one resident said.

The fact that Nuevo Vedado was calm last night does not mean its residents’ patience is immune to what is happening. On the contrary, the loud pot-banging protests heard Tuesday in the area around the Ministry of Transportation, even if they did not last very long, drew attention. The noise spread toward the area around the 14ymedio newsroom, surrounded by buildings where state officials reside, giving these protests added significance.

It is precisely the Ministry of Transportation that is one of the most effective blackout detectors in the area, since the noise from its generator begins instantly every time the electricity goes out.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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