The cases of Eddy Ceballos, Jonais Antony Arenas, and the members of El4tico expose the opacity of the police and the use of fear against a rebellious generation.
The three episodes, each with its own distinct focus, depict the detention of citizens without clear information and without reliable institutional channels for their families. / 14ymedio
“Eddy Ceballos sends his greetings to everyone; he knows he is not alone,” wrote his mother, Marieta Pérez, after finally seeing him this Tuesday, following days of uncertainty. The message, brief and marked by the usual difficulties—power outages, poor internet connection, and the inability to record a video—confirms that the creator of the comedy channel Despingovery Channel remains under the control of the authorities.
Ceballos’s case is similar to that of Jonais Antony Arenas Fernández, a 23-year-old from Havana who was searched for by his family in hospitals and police stations while, according to Alas Tensas, based on reports circulating on social media , he was detained. It is also similar to that of Kamil Zayas Pérez, a member of the audiovisual project El4tico, who has been imprisoned for four months in Holguín. On Tuesday, the young man sent a letter from prison denouncing that Cuba lives under a regime that has suspended “the right to be happy” and “the full enjoyment of freedom.”
The three episodes, with distinct profiles, portray the detention of citizens without clear information, without reliable institutional channels for families, and with an opacity that turns any arrest or imprisonment into an area of uncertainty and anguish.
Ceballos’ mother bids farewell “from Despingolandia and Apagonia,” a reference to the humorous and critical universe created by her son.
Ceballos was arrested on June 1st after posting a video on his channel in which he toured an abandoned military installation. In the video , presented in his usual satirical style, as if it were a Discovery Channel documentary, he showed remnants of military infrastructure, radar systems, bunkers, and military scrap, without revealing the exact location. He was arrested shortly afterward near his home.
The version circulating among family members and activists points to an accusation of alleged “invasion of military property.” Independent legal organizations have warned that this offense is not recognized as a crime under Cuban criminal law, reinforcing the claim that the arrest was arbitrary. To date, the authorities have not offered a transparent public explanation regarding the charges, the legal process, or the measure imposed on Ceballos.
His mother, who in recent days had promised to provide details in a video, explained that she hadn’t been able to do so due to electrical and internet connection problems. “Everyone here knows what’s happening with the power and the connection,” she wrote. Even so, she confirmed that she was able to see him and that he sent greetings to those who have been following the case. “And I, his mother, too,” she added, before signing off “from Despingolandia and Apagonia,” a reference to the humorous and critical universe created by her son.
The complaint described what happened as “a total lack of respect,” due to the family members’ ordeal going from place to place while the authorities denied or confused information about their whereabouts.
The case of Jonais Antony Arenas Fernández took another path, but ultimately pointed to the same problem. The young man, a resident of Santos Suárez and a cafeteria worker, had been reported missing since Friday. According to his mother’s initial testimony, he was detained near the Capri Hotel in Havana while looking for merchandise. The alleged reason was an unpaid fine.
The family received a call from Jonais at 12:20 a.m. from a police station. In that call, the young man said he had to pay 4,000 pesos for the fine. However, when his family went to look for him, they were told he had never been detained there. This contradiction turned the arrest into a de facto disappearance for the family, who began visiting hospitals and police stations without receiving a clear answer.
Journalist Niover Licea reported on his Facebook page that Jonais had indeed been detained and was recently released. The report described the situation as “a complete lack of respect,” citing the family’s ordeal of being sent from one place to another while authorities denied or provided confusing information about his whereabouts.
In the text, Zayas accuses the regime of having caused “a setback of 67 years for Cuba”
Kamil Zayas Pérez, however, remains imprisoned. A member of El4tico an independent audiovisual project based in Holguín, he was arrested on February 6 along with Ernesto Ricardo Medina in an operation that included raids and the seizure of equipment. Since then, his case has become another symbol of the offensive against young people who use social media to document the country’s crisis and challenge the government.
Four months after his imprisonment, Zayas released a declaration written from prison. In it, he accuses the regime of having set Cuba back 67 years and of perpetuating its hold on power “over a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.” The statement, released by people close to the activist, is accompanied by a logo* that, they explained, the young man had been thinking about before his incarceration.
“We, the youth, feel we are part of the present and will bear the consequences and assume the responsibilities of the time that belongs to us,” Zayas wrote. “If the right to be happy, the full enjoyment of freedom, the desire to gather, and the will to act and speak are suspended, we are becoming slaves,” he added.
The El4tico member concludes with a direct appeal to dignity and popular sovereignty: “Because a revolution is not only a right, but also a duty of citizens if circumstances require it.”
*
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The crisis has produced a devastating domino effect on the surrounding communities
Workers in Varadero waiting for transport to Cárdenas / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Pablo Padilla Cruz, Varadero, 9 June 2026 / Though the blue of its waters grows more intense with the start of June, and its white fine sand shimmers under the relentless tropical sun, walking through the streets of Varadero’s tourist enclave today is an ode to nostalgia. What was once the goose that laid the golden egg of the Cuban economy now survives as a desert of broken promises for the handful of visitors who still arrive, for the marginalised residents, and for workers mired in absolute precariousness.
The debacle is not new, but it has reached a point of no return. A self-employed worker confirms as much as she weaves her electric mototaxi around the potholes along the peninsula’s scorching asphalt. “Things have been getting worse for about ten years now,” she says, eyes fixed on the road. “First came the decline in the quality of tourists. I know that well, because I was a waitress at the Princesa del Mar hotel at Paradisus. In those golden years we had lots of Canadian guests, but Europeans too – Germans, French, Italians, and of course Spaniards. I learned that you find kind and generous tourists everywhere, but some markets are better than others when it comes to what workers take home.”
The woman explains that a change of commercial strategy by the Ministry of Tourism marked the beginning of the end. “Then the Russians, Mexicans, and Argentinians arrived en masse, and with them the purchasing power of workers in the sector dropped sharply, because they left very few tips. Later came the Chinese, and that’s when we started to miss the Latin Americans,” she says with a bitter smile. “It’s not that they’re bad people – it’s that their model of tourism is different; they barely leave the hotel and spend almost nothing outside.” Overnight, she says, the craft fairs went from being coveted jobs to being the last card left to play.
Varadero beach at 45th Street. / 14ymedio
Covid-19 drove in the final nail. “After the pandemic, the reality became unsustainable,” the driver admits. “When I saw that my income depended on the domestic market, I decided to get out. I worked at whatever I could until they authorised passenger transport licences, and my daughter, from the United States, managed to buy me this electric motorbike. That’s how I survive. When I ferry the current hotel workers around and hear about their problems – which are endless – I know I made the right call.”
The picture painted on the streets is reflected with mathematical precision inside the hotel complexes themselves. Amed, a young man who until a few days ago worked at the Los Delfines hotel, confirms continue reading
the operational collapse of tourism. “They proposed I move to a security guard role because they shut down the hotel restaurant. Now they’re only giving access to the pool and the lobby, and everything is charged exclusively in dollars,” he explains, visibly frustrated.
The employees’ discontent stems from the disappearance of the black market and tips – the two historic pillars that compensated for the poverty-level state salaries. “Everyone in Cuba knows that in tourism you live either off tips or off the food each person manages to sneak out to resell. With no customers in the facilities, there’s neither one nor the other,” Amed laments. On top of that, the dollarisation imposed by the state trading company ITH has shut the door on the island’s own citizens: “ITH now only accepts dollars, so the hotels can’t offer anything in pesos to the same Cubans who get paid in that currency. How is there supposed to be any domestic tourism like that?”
Caffechino, in Varadero, was the busiest spot a year ago. / 14ymedio
For the young man, the decision to leave the sector was a matter of pure survival. “Today is my last day of work. I didn’t accept the security guard post. If the bus fare to get here costs me a minimum of a thousand pesos a day return, and can go up to four thousand, how am I supposed to work for a state salary of barely 4,800 pesos a month? There’s no calculator in the world that makes that add up,” he exclaims, before dropping his head and staring at his phone screen.
This near-total paralysis of tourism has produced a devastating domino effect on the communities surrounding the Hicacos peninsula, which have historically depended on the resort’s economic activity. Entire communities that fed off the informal flow of resources and the surpluses taken from the hotels are today completely stranded, stuck in the middle of nowhere and battered by the widespread energy crisis gripping the country.
“Santa Marta is a shadow of what it used to be,” laments a resident of this locality, situated so close to Varadero that its inhabitants consider themselves an inseparable part of it. “The rental properties are closed for lack of customers, the private businesses that were once thriving are falling deeper into decay every day, and food prices are through the roof because now we’re forced to die in the MSMEs*.”
The village of Santa Marta, near Varadero. / 14ymedio
Scarcity has transformed even the family survival networks. “The little that workers manage to take out of the hotels nowadays goes to feed their own families – it’s no longer sold on,” the resident explains, emphasizing her words with desperate gestures. “In Santa Marta there have been entire generations of people who spent their whole lives reselling the rum and drinks that employees from the cayo [the informal name Matanzas locals give to Varadero] gave or passed on to them. Now they’ve had to reinvent themselves, leave the country, or simply go hungry. Not everyone in Varadero and Santa Marta is rich – there are poor families, extremely poor families.”
On top of the lost income comes the ordeal of the blackouts. “What’s normal here now is three consecutive days without electricity, followed by barely two hours with power, before going back to three days in the dark. That destroys the few businesses still standing and wrecks the quality of life of anyone who doesn’t have thousands of dollars to buy solar panels. Right now, Santa Marta is not much different from a rural village in Las Tunas,” the woman concludes.
Despite this severe humanitarian and infrastructural crisis, the authorities pushed ahead with their political-commercial entertainment agenda. Under the Resonance Musique brand, on 29, 30, and 31 May, the official opening of summer in Varadero was celebrated. The festivities, however, turned into a social powder keg.
The event was marked by complete disorganisation, an alarming shortage of food and drink offerings, and, worst of all, serious episodes of physical violence between exhausted workers at the Resonance hotel (formerly the Fiesta Americana, then Sandals) and dissatisfied guests. “It wasn’t worth it at all,” says Rangel, a Cuban citizen who travelled from the capital with his family. “For us, saving up enough money to come here represents an entire year of sacrifice. The party was a complete disaster — the only redeeming features were the beach and the peace and quiet, two things we don’t have back in Centro Habana.”
Rangel lists the logistical failings without hesitation: “We arrived at the hotel at 11 in the morning and didn’t get our room until 9 at night. The general service and the food were dreadful. And the worst part was the party itself: you try to have a good time because you’ve already spent the money, but the performers showed up just to go through the motions and the sound was terrible. I’m never coming back at the start of summer again.”
*MSME – Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises
Translated by GH.
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There is no record of Hegseth having previously visited the Guantanamo Bay base since taking office in 2025, according to available information.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in an archive photo. / EFE
EFE (via 14ymedio), Washington, June 10, 2026 / The United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will travel this Wednesday to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to meet troops deployed at the base and with commanders from US Central Command (Centcom), amid tensions and a series of sanctions against Havana.
The trip is part of a tour to oversee military operations in the region and to make direct contact with deployed forces, at a time of reinforced US presence in the Caribbean and the Middle East, according to the Pentagon.
There is no record of the Secretary having previously visited the Guantanamo Bay base since taking office in 2025, according to continue reading
available information.
Following his visit to the base, Hegseth will travel to Florida, where he will hold meetings with senior Centcom commanders, amid a new round of exchanges of fire with Iran
Following his visit to the base, Hegseth will travel to Florida, where he will hold meetings with senior Centcom commanders, amid a new round of exchanges of fire with Iran in the Middle East and growing tension over Cuba.
This type of trip forms part of his regular troop oversight agenda, with periodic visits to military bases inside and outside the United States to maintain direct contact with commanders and deployed personnel.
The visit comes one week after the US Administration announced new sanctions against Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other senior members of the Havana government, in response to the human rights situation on the island.
Since the start of the year, US President Donald Trump has hardened his policy toward Cuba, with new economic and diplomatic restrictions and increased pressure on the Cuban government, primarily through an oil blockade that began following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on 3 January.
Translated by GH.
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None of the experts consulted consider a U.S. military intervention with troops on the ground to be plausible, but they believe major economic changes are approaching.
Cubans in Miami protested against the measures of the Obama and Biden administrations on numerous occasions, as in this demonstration in 2023. / 14ymedio
EFE / 14ymedio, Washington, June 10, 2026 – An agreement between Cuba and the United States that opens the way to the political and economic changes demanded by Washington on the Island could include concessions from both sides, among them decisions that may prove unpopular within the Cuban exile community, several analysts warned on Tuesday.
Amid the escalation of pressure by the Trump administration on Havana, “there will likely be decisions made” by the Republican administration “that will not satisfy everyone within the Cuban-American community,” said political scientist José Cárdenas.
“Difficult decisions will have to be made and compromises accepted in order to achieve the ultimate goal: a stable and peaceful transition toward something much better,” said the former acting deputy administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the now-dismantled United States Agency for International Development.
“Difficult decisions will have to be made and compromises accepted in order to achieve the ultimate goal: a stable and peaceful transition toward something much better”
The veteran consultant added, during a discussion at the Inter-American Dialogue, that they are witnessing “a series of factors that continue to increase pressure on the Cuban regime, demonstrating that there is no way out.”
Foreign policy and immigration expert Emily Mendrala concurred continue reading
that an agreement between Cuba and the United States “could involve concessions by both sides.”
“The United States has long demanded the release of political prisoners, a reduction of Russia’s and China’s presence on the Island, whether in intelligence operations or other areas, and the opening of the Cuban economy so that citizens can actively participate in it,” Mendrala explained.
The former senior migration adviser in the White House of Democrat Joe Biden added that Washington could ease sanctions on Cuba and allow the resumption of oil flows that were cut off by Trump last January, which, while not the primary cause of the Island’s severe humanitarian crisis, have worsened it.
In recent weeks, the two neighboring countries have established contacts at the diplomatic, intelligence, and military levels, though these have not produced visible results, at least publicly.
Following the recent criminal accusation against former president Raúl Castro, 95, sanctions against Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel, and threats of reprisals against foreign investors in Cuba, Havana has intensified its rhetoric against its longtime adversary.
The economist insisted that “centralized economic systems do not work. Even Cuba’s allies, such as China and Vietnam, abandoned those systems a long time ago.”
Despite this escalation, and although they acknowledge that conditions on the Island are reaching a breaking point, none of the experts considers a U.S. military intervention with troops on the ground to be likely.
“I believe we are approaching a turning point with regard to Cuba,” warned Ricardo Torres, an associate researcher at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.
The Cuban economist reiterated that “centralized economic systems do not work. Even Cuba’s allies, such as China and Vietnam, abandoned those systems a long time ago.”
“I believe the Cuban people deserve to hear that from their government: this system does not work. Likewise, on the political level, we need a system that allows for accountability, where the government must answer to its own people,” he concluded.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The fuel, intended for the private sector, will be stored in Cupet tanks under the supervision of the company Vanguard Energy.
The Florida-based company spent months negotiating a long-term agreement with Washington and Havana for similar shipments “once a month or every 40 days.”
Line of cars waiting to buy fuel at a gas station in Havana / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, June 10, 2060 – The first significant agreement between Washington and Havana centers on Cuba’s most sought-after scarce commodity: fuel. The Vanguard Energy company, based in Coral Gables, has finalized a contract with a Cuban importing company to lease Cupet facilities and store fuel on a large scale, according to a report published Tuesday by the Miami Herald. In addition, according to Bloomberg, the company is preparing its first shipment of 250,000 barrels of diesel and gasoline, which the U.S. government estimates will cover about 11 days of Cuba’s normal demand.
The agreement is the result of months of discussions among Vanguard, Cuban authorities, and U.S. officials, the Miami Herald reported, citing a company statement. “It is the most significant commercial change in Cuba’s fuel sector in decades,” the statement said.
“We are looking to bring in a reasonably sized vessel, capable of carrying more than 250,000 barrels of diesel and regular 87-octane gasoline, to store them in a tank,” said Vanguard Energy president Matthew Klann, adding that shipments would arrive once a month or every 40 days. He noted that several initial customers have already been identified, including the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Matthew Aho, an adviser at the Miami-based law firm Akerman and a negotiator of the agreement, added that the arrangement will allow increasing amounts of fuel to reach the private sector and, in turn, lower prices.
“We are looking to bring in a reasonably sized vessel, capable of carrying more than 250,000 barrels of diesel and regular 87-octane gasoline, to store them in a tank” once a month or every 40 days
The idea is no longer a small-scale supply operation but rather the privatization of the sector. “As the process moves forward, appears to work, and can be audited, and as both the United States and Cuba see the benefits of privatization in their fuel market, you would expect further progress, more companies entering the market, gas stations selling to the private sector, and the energy and fuel markets beginning to flourish continue reading
again,” Klann added.
“This would be the first process of its kind in Cuba, demonstrating to both sides that privatizing the fuel market is the right way to manage this business,” the president said.
Vanguard Energy, which specializes in regional fuel trading in the Caribbean and Latin America, moved quickly to take advantage of the U.S. government’s authorization to sell gasoline to Cuba’s private sector, which the Cuban government, for its part, authorized to purchase fuel beginning in February. Until now, however, sales could only be made in small quantities. ISO tanks, with a capacity of just over 20,000 liters, must be returned by Cuba after being emptied, making the process costly and inefficient.
The new agreement changes that. “This is not about delivering fuel to Cupet; it is about establishing a physical presence on the Island, where a U.S. person, subject to U.S. law, has the right to inspect the fuel, retains ownership of it, and distributes it only after payment has been made in the United States,” Akerman attorney Augusto Maxwell told the Miami Herald. The arrangement represents a concession by the Cuban government, allowing U.S. audits on Cuban soil and ensuring that payments do not pass through the Island’s banking system. The latter also protects the company from sanctions related to the U.S. embargo.
Akerman affirmed that the contract complies with U.S. legal requirements. “We will be able to provide the U.S. government with complete traceability of sales,” Maxwell said, including guarantees that fuel cannot be sold to the Cuban government, the Armed Forces, or individuals subject to U.S. sanctions. According to the lawyer, the contract includes safeguards such as retaining ownership of the fuel, controlling who may purchase it, and maintaining the ability to monitor and inspect stored fuel.
“Sales will be limited to customers who successfully complete Vanguard’s due diligence program, ensuring transparency, accountability, and compliance with applicable U.S. regulations,” the company said in a statement. “To comply with U.S. law, Vanguard will also implement safeguards to ensure that the fuel is not diverted to the Cuban government or to U.S.-sanctioned state-owned enterprises.”
Initial reactions on social media have been skeptical, if not outright disappointed. “That’s what they’re after, business and money. And to hell with the people”
The challenges, however, remain considerable. Although the company has portrayed the agreement as a “major victory for U.S. policy,” the news has generated unease in some sectors. Early reactions on social media ranged from skepticism to disappointment.
Among the main concerns raised, mostly by Cuban Americans, are the lack of confidence that the Cuban government will not benefit, doubts about the existence of a truly independent private sector, fears that the fuel could be resold to the State, and suspicions that Vanguard Energy may have undisclosed ties to the Cuban regime. “Yet another sign that nothing is going to change in Cuba. It’s a damn joke,” one commenter summarized.
The U.S. State Department and Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to answer questions from the Miami Herald, which views the agreement as a first step toward broader participation by U.S. companies in Cuba’s energy sector and, eventually, the opening of other sectors to private enterprise.
“It opens the door to countless independent distributors and encourages companies much larger than Vanguard Energy to become interested and begin operating in Cuba. It also facilitates a potential transition. We will gain the expertise needed to supply oil to Cuba through the experience acquired with Vanguard,” University of Texas expert Jorge Piñón told the newspaper when asked about the matter.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Cuban writer Odette Casamayor and other authors reflect on language, exile, and literary creation at the Madrid Book Fair
Odette Casamayor has reached “the conviction that there is no home, only being within oneself.” / X / Madrid Book Fair
EFE, Madrid, June 6, 2026 / Writing from the perspective of a foreigner lends literature a singular character, and migration transforms authors into figures who would never have existed had they remained in their home country. Several Latin American writers agreed on this idea during a conversation at the Madrid Book Fair on Friday.
The event, titled “Wrong Journeys, Undefined Hopes and Literary Creation,” was organized at the fair by the Sundial House publishing house of Columbia University.
“I was born in Cuba, but that is not my only origin, I am fundamentally diasporic,” said Odette Casamayor, born in Havana, although she has spent most of her life between Europe and the United States.
The author of Con tinta negra [In Black Ink] confessed that the Afro-diasporic experience has given her the peace of mind to find and love herself in all her “complexity and monstrosity,” as well as the possibility of building loves that “suit her” without disappointing any pre-established code.
To feel at home, she said, she has reached “the conviction that there is no home, only being inside oneself.”
Venezuelan writer Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez, on the other hand, admitted that his prose is a bit “Frankenstein”
“If I hadn’t had to leave Argentina, I would never have written,” said poet Valeria Correa Fiz, who explained that her literature stems from the need to speak in her own language and from the constant introspection continue reading
she experienced when she moved first to Miami, then to Milan, and later to Madrid.
Correa Fiz believes that migrants lose many things, including the feeling of being “local.” “I always return as a visitor,” she said, referring to the cities where she has lived.
Venezuelan writer Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez, on the other hand, accepted that his prose is a bit “Frankensteinian.” Throughout his life, he explained, he has developed a “nomadic subjectivity” in which he has incorporated vocabulary from different places, forcing him to find strategies to make his texts understandable to the widest possible range of Spanish-speaking audiences.
“I don’t speak Castilian, I speak Puerto Rican Spanish.”
Originally from Barquisimeto, Méndez Guédez pointed out that the transformations do not only occur in those who leave, but also in the places that remain in memory and that, meanwhile, change in real life.
On occasion, he said, the most melancholic places are not on the other side of the world, but “two blocks” from the house where one grew up.
“I don’t speak Castilian, I speak Puerto Rican Spanish,” said Puerto Rican linguist Natalia Olivero Huffman, referring to the decisions she makes when writing.
From her perspective, life is a continuous journey back home. “You can choose your destination, but destination chooses for you,” she asserted.
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Producers will face restrictions on leaving Cuba if they want to retain ownership or use of their land.
“The land was in poor condition and we had to prepare it with our own hands,” say the farmers. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, June 9, 2026 — Foreigners will be allowed to buy a home in Cuba, but not own land. That is one of the conclusions drawn from the publication this Monday of the draft Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, a measure that consolidates as many as 25 previous laws and is expected to be approved by the National Assembly during its next session in July. The legislation safeguards socialist ownership, except for land belonging to private individuals or agricultural cooperatives (13% and 7%, respectively, while the State owns 80%).
The law is explicit regarding the “protection of land against any transfer of ownership in favor of foreigners,” although interested parties may gain access to land through usufruct by two avenues. As private individuals, this applies to those who have effective residence in Cuba; for foreign or joint-venture companies, authorization will be granted provided they have a legal basis and are aligned with the development strategies of the area.
This is precisely how the Vietnamese company AgriVMA established itself on the Island. Between late November 2024 and January 2025, it obtained 308 hectares of land in Pinar del Río for rice cultivation, becoming the first experience of its kind since 1959. The project has performed well, achieving crop yields far above national averages, and as early as June 2025 the company requested an expansion of its land holdings. Nevertheless, it is still considered almost a unique case.
One of the significant changes compared with previous regulations is the introduction of inheritance agreements, which will allow people to decide during their lifetime who will inherit ownership of the land
One of the significant changes compared with previous regulations is the introduction of inheritance agreements, which will allow people to decide during their lifetime who will inherit ownership of the land, replacing the previous system in which wills were the only means of transferring it. However, it remains mandatory that the land continue to follow the socialist principle that it belongs to those who work it. The new owner must demonstrate continue reading
active involvement—or ensure that others are involved—in making the land productive, applying good agricultural practices, and delivering to the State what has been agreed upon.
These agreements may be revoked if the heir fails to fulfill the obligations assumed with the owner. At the same time, the owner is prohibited from selling or donating the land to a third party while the agreement remains in force; otherwise, compensation must be paid to the heir. Such agreements cannot be verbal and must be registered before a notary and in the corresponding registry.
Another sensitive issue is the treatment of land owned by emigrants. The law divides them into two categories depending on whether they left the country before or after July 2024. Those who emigrated before that date, when the Migration Law was approved but not published until a few weeks ago and still not in force, retain ownership of their land as long as it was not confiscated. However, they lose the right to transfer it, meaning that upon their death the land passes to the State, according to an additional provision of the law.
The only concession to heirs is that they will have a preferential right to obtain the land in usufruct if it is determined that they have no other means of livelihood. In that case, and if authorized by the Municipal Commission on Agrarian Affairs, family members will receive preferential rights to use the land.
The second group consists of emigrants who left after July 2024 and are already subject to the current regulations. It is presumed that they benefited from the elimination of the “automatic confiscation of assets upon permanent departure from the country,” although this was never confirmed because the law remained unpublished for two years. In their case, the determining factor is effective migratory residence, meaning they may lose their land if they fail to keep it actively productive.
If an owner exceeds the permitted absence period without legal justification, it will be considered “abandonment of the land,” triggering sanction procedures that may lead to confiscation of both the land and agricultural assets
The current law imposes travel and residency restrictions abroad on landowners, tied directly to the productivity of the land. Farmers may remain outside Cuba for a maximum of one year and must grant a notarized power of attorney authorizing someone else to temporarily manage the farm during that period. The only exception is in cases of force majeure.
If the owner remains absent beyond the allowed period without legal justification, the situation will be classified as “abandonment of the land,” activating sanctions that may result in the seizure of the land and agricultural assets for failing to fulfill the social function of production.
For producers who do not own their land but hold it in usufruct, the restrictions are even stricter, since the land belongs to the State and their contract requires active use. These farmers must also grant a notarized power of attorney authorizing another person to manage the land, but only for a maximum period of six months. If that period is exceeded without justification, the usufruct contract is terminated and the State reclaims the land.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Since last Friday we’ve only had a few hours of electricity each day, and in my mind, the days are strung together as if it were all one long, unbearable day.
The figure is like the mannequins that filled the shops of my childhood. Unappealing, just like the clothes we could only buy with a ration card or a coupon. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, June 8, 2026 / Three in the morning. There’s electricity and water, so I set up the electric pressure cooker with some beans, fill the washing machine with everything that’s piled up, and jump in the shower. Some Mondays feel like Wednesdays because of the weariness they carry. Weeks that start already old and exhausted. Since last Friday, we’ve only had a few hours of electricity each day, and in my mind, the days are strung together as if it were all one long, unbearable day.
The water revives me. I recover the thread of hope that had been lost to me on Sunday, or perhaps it was Saturday. I don’t remember. It’s barely dawn, and I set off for Old Havana. I prefer to go on foot. The price of private taxis has risen so much, due to the fuel crisis, that I have to choose between taking an almendrón* there or back, because the whole circuit would be crazy for my wallet. A long lament echoes down Ayestarán Street, which also seems like a single voice emanating from different faces.
“Everything went bad,” one elderly woman tells another. “I had to eat the chicken I had in a single day because it wouldn’t last until today,” grumbles a man chatting with two others on a street corner. “Call her and see if there’s electricity in her building so we can bring her the baby’s milk so it won’t spoil,” a woman, holding a baby, shouts to a young man leaving on a motorcycle. In the nearest garbage bin, a package of pork steaks, already turning green, can be seen—slices that were meant to be a meal for some family.
“I don’t care if they come from the US or Burundi, just come now!” shouts a woman leaning out of her balcony.
I turn onto Desagüe Street. “I don’t care if they come from the US or Burundi, just come now!” shouts a woman leaning out of her balcony. She’s wearing a threadbare housecoat and has a desperate look on her face. “My refrigerator is wide open because it’s useless,” she explains. Below, several neighbors add their own dramas, also shouting. “No one has slept in my house for three days because of the heat and the mosquitoes,” one explains. “I already told my work not to expect me back, that I haven’t been able to shower since Thursday.”
I head out onto Carlos III Avenue, and the street vendors are starting to set up their stalls. It’s the same old stuff: tubes of toothpaste, packs of cigarettes, cell phone chargers salvaged from the trash, and over-the-counter medications. But as I approach Reina Street, I see something I initially struggle to identify. It’s a mannequin representing a girl a little a bit over ten years old. It’s naked and wearing a black wig. Next to it, a man is offering the doll without a clear price. “How much will you give me?” he asks when he sees me looking curious.
The figure is like the mannequins that filled the shops of my childhood. Unattractive, just like the clothes we could only buy with a ration book voucher or coupon designated for “industrial products.” I hated those clothes. They were always too big or too small, the fabric itched, or on the day we were supposed to shop, the blouse I wanted was sold out, and I had to go home in pants that seemed more suitable for working in agriculture than for going out with my friends. The 80s were such a bad time for fashion in Cuba that sometimes I don’t even want to look at my photos from that decade.
In Old Havana, I didn’t see a single tourist the whole way. / 14ymedio
The mannequin has some chipped paint. “If you give me 5,000 pesos, you can have it,” the vendor insists. I imagine myself carrying the little girl with the black wig through the streets of Havana on my way home. I have to laugh when I get to the part where I carry her up the 14 flights of stairs and we rest together on some landing while passing neighbors ask about her origins and what I’ll use her for. My dogs would burst out barking at the sight of the figure, a little over a meter tall, entering the doorway. I shake off the daydream and tell the vendor that I would only buy her to make a horror movie, but I already live in one; I don’t need to film one.
I lengthen my stride and finally reach Old Havana. Outside the once glamorous Mercado del Oriente, a woman is on the phone, pleading to be able to store some food in a friend’s freezer. She eventually manages to get some space in the refrigerator, which is also off due to a power outage, but “still keeps things somewhat cold.” I don’t see a single tourist along the entire route. I only see people in long lines outside the banks, the Etecsa office, and the Commerce Market Building, where there’s an office of the Spanish Consulate in Havana.
Two women dressed in brightly colored traditional costumes and headscarves walk ahead of me. They scan the room, searching for a foreign visitor who will pay them for a photo, which they can then take back to their country and show off with a sly grin. They are like mannequins in a shop window that no one passes by.
*Almendrón: A classic American car operating as a shared tai, generally on a fixed route. The name references the car’s ‘almond’ shape
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.
Interior Trade Minister Betsy Díaz and President Miguel Díaz-Canel have thanked both countries for their support of the Island.
The commercial vessel Asian Katra docked this Sunday at the Port of Havana. / EFE
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, June 8, 2026 / Cuba received a donation of 1,700 tons of food and other basic necessities this Sunday from Mexico and Belize, intended to help alleviate the shortages affecting most of the Island’s population as a result of the energy and economic crisis.
State media reported that the commercial vessel Asian Katra arrived at the Port of Havana carrying the humanitarian aid shipment as a “demonstration of cooperation and solidarity from the governments and peoples of Mexico and Belize.”
They also indicated that solidarity organizations supporting Cuba, Cuban residents in both countries, and a campaign launched by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, among other participants, contributed to “managing, organizing, and assembling” the operation.
Upon receiving the donation, Interior Trade Minister Betsy Díaz highlighted Mexico’s “unconditional and historic” assistance and thanked the authorities, public figures, and organizations of both nations for their support of the Island.
Solidarity organizations supporting Cuba, Cuban residents in both countries, and a campaign launched by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, among other participants, contributed to “managing, organizing, and assembling” this operation
President Miguel Díaz-Canel also expressed his gratitude on social media. “The ship carrying 1,700 tons of food and supplies from Mexico and Belize is now continue reading
in Havana. An effort by both governments, solidarity groups, Cubans residing in those sister nations, and La Jornada. We are grateful for this embrace of solidarity in such difficult times. #CubaNoEstáSola [#CubaIsNotAlone],” he posted.
In recent years, Mexico has established itself as one of Cuba’s most active regional partners in humanitarian assistance, sending fuel shipments and several cargoes of essential goods.
The arrival of this shipment adds to other aid operations received from Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, United Nations agencies, and a shipment sent by Colombia, which has announced that it is currently en route to the Island.
In March and April, the Convoy Nuestra América, made up of activists from several countries in Europe, Mexico, and the United States, also delivered several tons of food, medical supplies, solar panels, photovoltaic systems, and educational materials.
The Island, already burdened by six years of deep economic crisis, is now virtually paralyzed by fuel shortages, from hospitals to gas stations, and from public transportation to state-run enterprises, with medicine shortages, high inflation, partial dollarization, and blackouts that affect large regions of the country for more than 20 hours a day.
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.
Protests are multiplying during one of the worst weeks for Cuba’s electrical system, which is unable to meet more than one-third of national demand.
Protesters block the Vía Blanca in Havana as a demonstration against power outages. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, June 8, 2026 — More than 50 people blocked the Vía Blanca in Havana this Sunday, according to documentation obtained by this newspaper, which witnessed the police deployment in the protest area. Residents demonstrated against the lack of electricity service, which they said they had been without for three days, according to one participant’s testimony.
Women, teenagers, and children were the main participants in the protest. Standing on the roadway and blocking one of the main highways connecting the capital to Matanzas, demonstrators banged pots and pans to express their discontent. After nearly half an hour, several police patrol cars arrived in the area to persuade protesters to end the traffic disruption.
Scarcity and desperation are pushing more and more citizens to take to the streets and protest, even in broad daylight, despite the usual police response and the arrests that often accompany these demonstrations.
The energy crisis affects virtually every aspect of daily life on the Island. Power outages also interrupt water service, make food preservation difficult, prevent sleep during hot, humid nights filled with mosquitoes—carriers of diseases such as dengue—and complicate medical care in hospitals.
Scarcity and desperation are pushing more and more citizens into the streets despite police responses and arrests
Cuba’s Electric Union (UNE) has spent weeks reporting disruptions affecting more than 60% of national demand during peak consumption hours after sunset. This situation has resulted in blackouts lasting more than 48 consecutive hours in some parts of the country and more than 20 hours per day in Havana. continue reading
Yesterday, Sunday, eleven of the country’s 16 thermoelectric generating units—most of which operate on domestically produced crude oil—were out of service due to breakdowns or maintenance work. Forecasts for Monday are very similar, with 10 units offline.
Among them is the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the Island’s largest power generator, which had been contributing 220 MW. It disconnected from the National Electric System (SEN) last Friday for the thirteenth time this year, and repairs will still “take the necessary time under established controls,” according to its director, Román Pérez Castañeda.
The structural problems affecting thermoelectric plants, which are responsible for 40% of electricity generation, stem mainly from decades of operation beyond their intended service life and from a chronic lack of investment.
Protests are recurring frequently in different parts of Havana and other provinces, with pot-banging demonstrations, garbage fires, and road blockades
These incidences are compounded by generation limitations caused by fuel shortages. A total of 106 distributed-generation plants remain out of service, creating a deficit of 890 MW. The Turkish floating power plant [“patana“] in Regla is in the same situation.
According to the UNE report, electrical service was affected by insufficient generating capacity throughout all 24 hours on Sunday, and the disruption continued during the early morning hours, reaching a maximum deficit of 1,953 MW at 9:20 p.m. For Monday, a deficit of 2,045 MW is forecast during peak hours, equivalent to nearly 67% of the estimated demand of 3,050 MW.
Protests were also reported on Sunday in the municipality of Regla during the daytime. Demonstrations have become frequent in different areas of Havana and other provinces, especially during blackout nights, involving pot-banging protests, the burning of garbage piles, and road blockades. Many of these demonstrations have ended with police repression and the detentions of participants.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Since March, “the presence of the disease in a number of people higher than the usual figure of recent years” has been reported.
Authorities indicate that the incidence of this disease could surge this month. / Tele Pinar
14ymedio, Havana, June 7, 2026 — Without providing figures, Belkys González Robaina, head of the Digestive Disease Transmission Program in Pinar del Río, reported that the province has experienced “an unusual increase in cases” of hepatitis A. In a report published by Radio Guamá, the specialist warned that outbreaks are most prevalent in the Jagüey Cuyují and Cuba Libre people’s councils in the municipality of Pinar del Río, and in the Urban People’s Council in San Luis.
In statements to the provincial media outlet, the official also explained that the incidence of this disease, as well as other digestive-transmission illnesses, could increase due to rainfall and contamination of groundwater sources.
In light of this, González Robaina emphasized the need to strengthen hygiene and sanitation measures to curb the spread of the virus, which is transmitted primarily through the consumption of contaminated water or food. Recommendations include chlorinating water, applying disinfectant solutions in bathrooms to eliminate fecal and urine residue from patients, properly washing the clothing of infected individuals, and avoiding contact with healthy people.
Health alerts over hepatitis outbreaks in Pinar del Río have accumulated in recent months. Last March, Yusmary Estévez Mitjáns, deputy director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, reported an increase in suspected cases in the municipality of Minas de Matahambre and in the provincial capital, specifically in the town of La Coloma.
González Robaina stressed the need to reinforce hygiene and sanitation measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
“In these territories, the presence of the disease in a number of people higher than the usual figure of recent years is likely,” she said at the time, although, as now, she did not provide any figures.
This viral disease, which can be contracted through the consumption of contaminated water or food that has not been properly washed or that has been washed with contaminated water, has also been reported in other continue reading
parts of the country. In Matanzas, Andrés Lamas Acevedo, director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, confirmed in early May the existence of active hepatitis cases in the province, in areas such as Versalles, the Plácido district, La Cumbre, and “isolated cases in all municipalities.”
Although the physician stated in an interview with Girón that all outbreaks were “fairly well controlled,” the same outlet noted at the beginning of its report that, a couple of weeks earlier, “residents of Matanzas Province remain concerned” about the situation.
Regarding the province, the official explained that hepatitis transmission cases had spread “from person to person” and not through water, “as happened 20 years ago in Versalles.” He also attempted to downplay the outbreak: “In reality, there have been few cases.”
Provincial authorities had already announced that epidemiological surveillance had been strengthened in response to the outbreaks
In early April, provincial authorities announced that they had reinforced epidemiological surveillance due to hepatitis outbreaks in several municipalities, with the most critical situation concentrated in the Versalles neighborhood, where 18 active cases were recorded at that time.
Other outbreaks have also been reported in Camagüey. On April 23, provincial television interviewed a health-sector official who acknowledged that there was “an increase in our province of suspected and probable hepatitis A virus cases, mainly concentrated in our municipality.”
In the report, Televisión Camagüey stated that “in a scenario where there are serious problems with solid waste collection, it is urgent to intensify hygiene and sanitation measures.” Despite this situation, the health official interviewed maintained that “at this time, we do not have an outbreak in the municipality of Camagüey, despite a notable increase in the disease.”
“Camagüey has been full of hepatitis cases for months. Where I live, more than 20 people that I know of have had hepatitis. Please, take this seriously,” one user responded to the report published on Facebook. Another commenter also questioned the official message: “Calling them isolated cases is not accurate, because when you diagnose 30 to 40 positive cases in a single day in an emergency room, that is an outbreak.”
“Calling them isolated cases is not accurate, because when you diagnose 30 to 40 positive cases in a single day in an emergency room, that is an outbreak”
At the beginning of the year, health authorities in Ciego de Ávila reported through official media that they were investigating several suspected hepatitis cases detected in different municipalities of the province.
As often happens, no figures were provided, and officials limited themselves to reporting that, after detecting the first patients with symptoms consistent with the disease, the protocols established by the health system had been activated.
Hepatitis is a disease characterized by inflammation of the liver. Among its most common symptoms are fatigue, yellowing of the skin and eyes, nausea, abdominal pain, and dark urine, although it may also occur without symptoms. In severe cases, however, extreme fatigue, fever between 37 and 38 degrees Celsius, headache, muscle aches, loss of appetite, and bleeding gums may occur.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Publishing releases related to Cuba moved between poetry, testimony, novels, and essays to narrate a nation marked by diaspora and uprootedness.
The books of May reflect a shared concern with preserving memory and understanding the human consequences of exile. / Collage
14ymedio, Havana, June 7, 2026 — Memory, the wounds of exile, and the mass exodus that has redefined the Cuban nation both inside and outside the Island dominated many of the literary publications and presentations linked to Cuba during May. From poetry to novels, as well as testimonial essays, art criticism, and anthropological research, the month’s new releases confirmed an increasingly visible trend in contemporary Cuban intellectual production: the need to tell the story of a national experience fragmented by emigration, distance, and the profound social transformations of recent decades.
Among the most notable releases is Efluvios (Effluvium), by Cuban poet Joaquín Gálvez. The work arrives with a foreword by writer and journalist José Hugo Fernández, who has noted that the volume, “dispensing irreverence and professional rigor in equal measure, transcends the philosophical, the literary, and the introspective to illustrate how poetry often rises above human frailties and reaches its zenith.”
Writer and filmmaker Carlos D. Lechuga presented in Madrid his most recent book, Perro cubano (Cuban Dog), a work preceded by winning the 2026 Franz Kafka Essay/Testimony Prize
Living in the United States for many years, Gálvez is a recognized figure within Cuban exile poetry. In addition to his creative work, he has carried out intense activity as a cultural promoter, editor, and organizer of literary projects that have helped maintain ties among Cuban writers scattered across different countries. Efluvios brings together reflection, personal experience, and a mature perspective on the existential dilemmas that run through much of contemporary Cuban literature.
Also in May, writer and filmmaker Carlos D. Lechuga presented in Madrid his latest book, Perro cubano [Cuban dog], a work that comes after receiving the 2026 Franz Kafka Essay/Testimony Prize. Defined by jury member Ernesto Menéndez Conde as a “non-book,” the volume moves between personal memory, social observation, and political reflection.
Lechuga, internationally known for films such as Melaza and Santa y Andrés, transfers many of the concerns that have marked his filmmaking into his writing. The result is a text charged with existential weight that explores the fractures of contemporary Cuban society from an intimate continue reading
and deeply subjective perspective. In a time of mass emigration and collective disillusionment, Perro cubano joins a current of works seeking to document, through individual experience, the emotional and social transformations taking place on the Island.
Morir de exilio: Lejos de Cuba (To Die in Exile: Far from Cuba), by Uva de Aragón, returns this year in an expanded edition published by Eriginal Books
The memory of exile also occupies center stage in Morir de exilio: Lejos de Cuba, by Uva de Aragón, which returns this year in an expanded edition published by Eriginal Books to mark the twentieth anniversary of its original publication. The work brings together nearly ninety articles and biographical sketches dedicated to Cuban figures who died outside their native country.
More than a collection of biographical profiles, the book functions as an extensive emotional map of the Cuban exile experience. Writers, artists, activists, academics, and public figures are portrayed in texts that reconstruct individual trajectories while documenting a collective history marked by separation, nostalgia, and the rebuilding of identities far from Cuba.
Another significant publication is the bilingual monograph devoted to Cuban-American painter Humberto Castro, written by art historian and critic Francine Birbragher. The volume examines in detail the three fundamental stages of the artist’s career: his formative years in 1980s Cuba, where he became one of the leading figures of the so-called Golden Generation of visual arts; his period in France during the 1990s; and his subsequent creative development in the United States.
Throughout May, Objetos perdidos (Lost Objects), the new novel by Karla Suárez published by Editorial Comba in Spain, continued its publishing journey
The study allows readers to explore a complex body of work that engages with mythology, memory, displacement, and the cultural tensions of contemporary life. Beyond its artistic value, the book offers a valuable perspective on the many ways in which the migratory experience has shaped Cuban visual production over the past decades.
Although officially released in April, Objetos perdidos, the new novel by Karla Suárez published by Editorial Comba in Spain, continued to gain attention throughout May. The story follows Giselle, a Cuban dancer who becomes stranded in Barcelona after losing her handbag and being forced to survive for several days in the area surrounding the Sagrada Familia.
The search for documents, memories, and objects laden with sentimental meaning becomes a much deeper exploration of identity, shattered dreams, emigration, and the need to rebuild oneself. With restrained and effective prose, Suárez once again addresses some of the themes that have defined her fiction: uprootedness, memory, and the fragility of personal projects. It is no coincidence that the novel has been enthusiastically received by critics, who have highlighted both the strength of its protagonist and the sensitivity with which it approaches the visible and invisible losses that accompany human displacement.
Through conversations held inside a taxi, Wig documents decisive events
Finally, May continued to consolidate the impact of Havana Taxi: Cuba y Los años de ilusión (Havana Taxi: Cuba and the Years of Illusion), by Norwegian anthropologist Ståle Wig. The result of several years of field research in Havana, the book reconstructs the everyday lives of three Cuban individuals during a decade marked by expectations of change and subsequent disappointment.
Through conversations he conducted inside a taxi, Wig documents decisive events such as the expansion of the internet, the diplomatic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, the death of Fidel Castro, and the protests of July 11, 2021. The result is a work that combines anthropological rigor with a remarkable narrative ability to capture the tensions between hope and stagnation that have defined the recent Cuban experience.
Taken together, May’s publishing releases reflect a shared concern with preserving memory and understanding the human consequences of exile, migration, and social transformation. From poetry to academic research, and from novels to testimonial writing, the books published or presented during the month paint a portrait of a nation geographically dispersed, yet determined to tell its own story.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The promotion of Dorisbel Martin Ojeda to brigadier general places a woman in the generalship of the Ministry of the Interior for the first time
Far from the crowds convened to celebrate him, Raul Castro’s reappearance takes place only under the protection of uniforms.
14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2026 /The Cuban regime marked the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior on Saturday with a series of promotions and decorations for officials of the body, in ceremonies headed by Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel. The main ceremony, presented by the official press as a tribute to the “career trajectory” of the heads of the national security apparatus, also served to reaffirm the central role of that body in internal repression, political surveillance, and population control.
“Together with the Army General and on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the glorious Ministry of the Interior, we took part in promotion and decoration ceremonies for officers and officials of outstanding career,” Diaz-Canel wrote on X. The ruler congratulated the decorated officials on their “noble and self-sacrificing work” – the standard formula by which the regime presents as public service the functions of State Security, the political police, counterintelligence, the prisons, and the National Revolutionary Police.
The name that stands out most on the day is that of Dorisbel Martin Ojeda, head of the institution in Sancti Spiritus, who was promoted to brigadier general. The province’s official press confirmed the rank in an unusual note dedicated to the presentation of a gift basket to the first baby born on 6 June. It mentioned that the event coincided with the anniversary of the institution, the 95th birthday of Raul Castro, and “the promotion of the head of the Ministry of the Interior in Sancti Spiritus, Dorisbel Martin Ojeda, to the rank of brigadier general.”
Pro-regime profiles celebrated Martin Ojeda as the first female general of the Ministry of the Interior.
Although the state media have not highlighted it as the central fact of the day, pro-regime profiles celebrated Martin Ojeda as the first female general of the Interior. What is verifiable to date is that her promotion places her in the generalship of a body historically dominated by men and by continue reading
cadres schooled in political repression. The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba includes her in its database of repressors and identifies her as head or delegate of the body in Sancti Spiritus since 2016.
In Sancti Spiritus, Martin Ojeda has presided over ceremonies of State Security and Counterintelligence. In March 2024, the newspaper Escambray showed her conferring distinctions on “combatants” during a State Security ceremony. At that same event, three lieutenant colonels with “senior responsibilities in the Counterintelligence Body” were also decorated.
The province she heads is not outside the repressive map either. During 11 July 2021, protests took place in Sancti Spiritus and Trinidad. The official press at the time acknowledged five criminal proceedings against 11 people, while independent organisations documented convictions and subsequent harassment of demonstrators. Among the best-known cases are Luis Mario Niedas Hernandez, sentenced to three years in prison for taking part in the protests, and Alexander Fabregas Milanes, an opposition figure from Sancti Spiritus linked to 11J who was subsequently punished with new criminal charges.
Promotion ceremonies were replicated across several provinces, though without a complete national list of those promoted
Martin Ojeda’s reward therefore does not appear to reflect a province without discontent, but rather a leadership that has managed to keep it contained, dispersed, and with low media cost for the regime. Sancti Spiritus was not one of the national epicentres of 11J, but it did see protests, prisoners, and surveillance of opponents. In the logic of Cuban power, that combination – controlled conflict and territorial obedience – is rewarded.
After weeks away from the public scene and absent even from the open rallies organised in his honour for his 95th birthday, the Army General reappears on two consecutive days at closed, military-profile events: first at the Karl Marx Theatre, surrounded by the regime’s top leadership, and now at a promotion and decoration ceremony of the Ministry of the Interior. His return, far from the crowds convened to celebrate him, takes place only under the protection of uniforms, armed commanders, and security structures.
Promotion ceremonies were replicated across several provinces, though without a complete national list of those promoted. In Camaguey, the newspaper Adelante reported the promotion of Ismael Villalon Labanino to lieutenant colonel and of Yannier Rios Gomez to major. Villalon said the new rank reinforced his “honour” and his duty to remain faithful to the teachings of Fidel and Raul Castro, while Rios Gomez stated that the promotion was an incentive to take on new missions “always in keeping with revolutionary principles.”
The regime does not reward ordinary police work, but the political loyalty of a body that functions as the Communist Party’s first line of defence. / X / Miguel Diaz-Canel
In Las Tunas, those mentioned were Rolan Hernandez Perez, head of the Interior in the provincial capital municipality, promoted to lieutenant colonel, and Yanisleydis Alvarez Bello, coordination officer at the criminal investigation body, promoted to captain. Both told the local press that the recognition committed them to continue defending the homeland “under any circumstances” – a phrase which, in official vocabulary, typically encompasses the persecution of opponents, activists, and critical citizens.
In Granma, the official press gave figures but not a complete list: 27 officers promoted to lieutenant colonel and 43 to major. Speaking on behalf of those promoted and decorated was Lieutenant Colonel Mailen Martinez Olivera, though the report did not clarify whether she herself was among those promoted. In other provinces – including Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Villa Clara, Ciego de Avila, Artemisa, and Isla de la Juventud – reports were limited to references to “officers,” “combatants,” and “outstanding cadres,” without disclosing their specific responsibilities.
The regime does not reward ordinary police work, but the political loyalty of a body that functions as the Communist Party’s first line of defence. Official notes repeat words such as “loyalty,” “missions,” “State Security,” “internal order,” and “revolutionary principles.” These are the keywords of a system that conflates public safety with ideological control.
Translated by GH.
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The United States modernized an island devastated by war, but also placed conditions on its sovereignty: reading the Cuban present through the lens of 1899 demands more history and less rescue epic
Perseverancia Street, in Centro Habana, reflects the urban decay affecting large areas of the Cuban capital. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, José A. Adrián Torres, Málaga, Spain, June 6, 2026 /
Rolando Gallardo published on 30 May, in 14ymedio, a thought-provoking article on North American intervention in Cuba and the possibility that history might repeat itself. His argument has a defensible core: the US occupation of 1899-1902 effectively addressed the sanitary, administrative, educational and logistical problems the island was suffering acutely in the aftermath of war. To deny this would be absurd. The Cuba that the United States encountered was wounded, impoverished, exhausted and disorganized. The war of independence, the reconcentration policy, the destruction of fields, roads and sugar mills, and the final collapse of Spanish power had left a critical situation.
But acknowledging that reality is one thing, and quite another to present the Cuba of 1899 as though it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch. That is where the comparison becomes too convenient. And convenient comparisons tend to have a problem: they explain a great deal all at once, but they understand very little. Complex matters are not explained by simple reasons – those only make them more digestible for the public or the voter. Turning 1899 into a template for the present distorts history and oversimplifies the future.
Late nineteenth-century Cuba was not a blank page. It was a society devastated by war, yes, but also an urban, port-based, sugar-producing, commercial and culturally rich society. Havana, Matanzas, Santiago, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Camagüey and Holguín were not villages lost among palm trees, mosquitoes and tropical resignation. They were centers with history, architecture, printing presses, theatres, cultural societies, international trade, ports, economic activity and a complex social life. One must not confuse an island ravaged by war with an island that had no existence before the arrival of the North American administrator with his ledger, his sanitation brigade and his wholesome faith in efficiency.
Avenida Zulueta in Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress
It bears saying plainly, because otherwise one falls into a new version of the old Black Legend, now pressed into the service of a North American White Legend. Spain arrived at 1898 breathless, politically defeated and with a manifest inability to offer Cuba any acceptable way forward.
Spanish administration had been tardy, uneven, rigid and often incapable of grasping the depth of Cuban demands, trapped as it was in the tensions of the peninsular political system and in an alternation between conservatives and liberals that failed to deliver a real solution to the Cuban problem in time. Slavery was abolished late, autonomy came late, reforms came late, and war eventually blew everything apart. But from that to suggesting that under Spanish sovereignty Cuba – let alone its great cities – had known no material, cultural or economic development is a distance that history does not permit. continue reading
One thing is to acknowledge that reality and another to present the Cuba of 1899 as if it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch
Havana was not invented by Leonard Wood. Matanzas did not wait for the US occupation to become an economic and cultural center of the first order. Cienfuegos was not born from a North American sanitary decree. The Cuban railway did not appear by spontaneous generation between 1899 and 1902. The Albear Aqueduct did not spring up like a mushroom after an imperial shower. The Cuban sugar industry, with all its shadows – including the slavery that sustained it for far too long – was already one of the great economic realities of the Atlantic. The North American intervention rebuilt, reorganized, sanitized and modernized; but to modernize is not to create from nothing.
That nuance is not a scholarly footnote. It is the crux of the problem. Because if one starts from the idea that the United States found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation: the Seventh Cavalry of the Western movies arriving, once again, to the rescue. The image may work in a film, but it should not suffice for
interpreting Cuban history.
Paseo del Prado, Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress
The US occupation had genuine merits. In the sanitary field, the campaign against yellow fever was decisive, though one should not forget that the fundamental theory regarding the transmitting mosquito had been formulated by the Cuban physician Carlos J. Finlay. The United States contributed resources, organization, administrative discipline and executive capacity. In education, it promoted an ambitious reform, expanded the school network and fostered teacher training. In infrastructure, it repaired roads, bridges, railway lines and urban services damaged by war.
In the years that followed, the new republican era also left a vanguard, eclectic and often dazzling architecture, marked by North American and European influences, which gave Havana – and other Cuban urban centers – an essential part of its cosmopolitan splendor. In administration, it introduced more effective procedures and helped to organize a country emerging from a devastating conflict.
All of this must be acknowledged. But the reverse must also be remembered. That modernization was not an act of international charity nor an angelic mission of tropical sanitation. The United States acted with a mixture of pragmatism, economic interest, strategic vision and a will to regional influence. The Platt Amendment was the political price of that reconstruction: a formally independent republic, but one held under tutelage.
If one starts from the idea that the US found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation
Cuba entered the twentieth century with its own flag, yes, but also with a sovereignty conditioned by Washington. The modernization brought sewers, schools and sanitary campaigns; it also brought naval bases and the right of intervention. That tutelary shadow fed for decades an anti-interventionist nationalism that would later be exploited, with varying intensity and no small degree of manipulation, by several generations of Cuban politicians, including the revolutionary one.
This is why the parallel with present-day Cuba must be handled with care. There are visible similarities: health crisis, infrastructure deterioration, shortages, power cuts, transport collapse, productive ruin, mass emigration and an exhausted population. But the historical causes are not the same. The Cuba of 1899 emerged from a war of independence against a retreating European metropolis. The Cuba of today emerges – if it manages to emerge at all – from more than six decades of communist rule, political monopoly, managed economy, repression, exodus, external dependence and institutional decay. One emerged from war; the other emerges from a long administration of failure and bearded messianism.
Cubans in front of Havana Bay, in 1899. / Library of Congress
The difference is no small matter. In 1899, the United States occupied a country that had just broken violently with Spain and needed to organize its transition to a republic. Today, Cuba does not need to replace Spanish tutelage with North American tutelage, because it is not under Spain or any European colonial power. It is under a national regime that turned sovereignty into a slogan while emptying the real freedom of Cubans of all content. That regime cannot be explained as a simple legacy of 1898 or as the inevitable consequence of the colonial past. The historical alibi has its limits, even in the Caribbean, where certain alibis tend to age in admirable health with a curiously gallego pedigree – in the old Cuban sense of the word.
The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality
It is true that republican Cuba inherited deep-seated conditioning. It is true that the United States intervened too much in the political, economic and strategic life of the island. It is true that the Platt Amendment left a mark of dependence. But it is also true that Castroism has spent more than sixty years administering the country, controlling its institutions, monopolizing patriotic discourse, expelling talent, impoverishing the economy and turning the supposed revolutionary exceptionalism – the eternal special period – into a routine of power cuts, queues, surveillance and flight. The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality. At this point, the Revolution is no longer a betrayed promise: it is a result.
Hence any eventual external assistance to Cuba, necessary in many respects, must not be conceived as a repetition of 1899. Cuba will need investment, technical assistance, energy reconstruction, institutional rehabilitation, productive recovery, sanitary modernization, educational opening and economic reintegration. But that is not equivalent to calling for a new foreign administration, nor to imagining that a North American intervention would resolve, on its own, what Cubans must rebuild with their own institutions, political pluralism and genuine sovereignty.
The underlying problem is not whether the United States can help. Of course it can. The problem is whether that help is conceived as cooperation with a free nation and a future ally, or as a temporary replacement for its political capacity. The first option may be necessary. The second reopens an old temptation: the belief that Cuba only functions when someone administers it from outside.
After more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture
That idea, however well-intentioned in its formulation, sidesteps an uncomfortable question: after more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture. Not from any natural incapacity, but because the regime has denied them for generations the everyday practice of deliberation, responsibility for public affairs – replaced too often by the national verbresolver [to resolve, to manage, to get by] – alternation in power, institutional trust, a culture of effort and free decision-making.
A society subjected to obedience, to double standards, to surveillance and to the liturgy of collective sacrifice will also need to rebuild civic habits, a culture of work, a sense of individual responsibility and ethical values damaged by decades of real socialism. But that political maturation cannot be imported packaged from Washington or decreed by a foreign administration: it can only be learned by exercising freedom.
The history of 1899, therefore, serves as a double warning. It warns against the delusional self-sufficiency of the Cuban regime, incapable of guaranteeing basic services while boasting of sovereignty. But it also warns against the fantasy of the external savior — that hope that a power will arrive, impose order, clean up, invest, discipline and then hand over a republic ready to be unwrapped. The American experience demonstrated efficiency, but it also left dependence. The Castroite experience proclaimed independence, but has left ruin. Between these two lessons, a third way should open up: national reconstruction with external support, but without ultimate political tutelage.
Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision
Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision. The island needs to free itself from an exhausted regime, yes; it needs to rebuild infrastructure, healthcare, education, currency, agriculture, industry and public trust. But it needs to do so without comfortable, false mythologies: not that of a Spain that left only backwardness, nor that of a United States that brought only modernity, nor that of a revolution that continues to blame the past and the external enemy for a ruin that is, for the most part, its own work.
History does not repeat itself exactly, but neither does it absolve — nor will it ever absolve — those who destroyed Cuba. Sometimes it merely disguises itself to confuse us. And in Cuba, where the political disguises in olive green have lasted far too long, it is worth looking carefully before applauding the entrance of the next savior.
Translated by GH.
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Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat suspend flights and vacation packages as Washington’s deadline for severing business ties with the Cuban Government expires
A Boeing 737 MAX 8 belonging to Air Canada, one of the models used by the airline on its routes to Cuba. / Colin Brown Photography
14ymedio, Madrid, 6 June 2026 / Canadian airlines Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet Airlines have indefinitely suspended their operations to Cuba, along with the vacation activities of Sunwing Vacations – currently integrated into WestJet Group -, citing ongoing political and economic uncertainty and a deepening supply crisis on the Island.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick explained that the decision was a response to “ongoing conditions of political and economic uncertainty,” and added that affected customers will be able to opt for refunds, among other alternatives. Air Canada had already temporarily suspended its flights in February due to warnings about fuel supplies at Cuban airports, and had subsequently postponed its return to 1 November 2026.
For its part, Air Transat announced that the decision was taken owing to “the current geopolitical situation in Cuba,” obliging it to suspend operations “for an indefinite period.” The announcement adds that affected customers will be notified of other available flight options.
In the case of WestJet, the company described it as a “difficult decision” driven by the “current operating environment,” in reference to the suspension of its vacation programs to Cuba. “We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents,” the company stated, emphasising the impact of the measure on local communities and the Cuban tourism continue reading
sector.
“We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents”
The Sunwing Vacations travel group – integrated into WestJet Group – also announced the indefinite suspension of its operations in Cuba, affecting the Sunwing Vacations, WestJet Vacations and WestJet Vacations Québec brands. The company explained that the decision was taken following a review of its programme on the Island and current operating conditions, and confirmed that the suspension will remain in place “until further notice.” Travellers with existing bookings will be contacted regarding rebooking or full refunds.
The announcements coincide with the expiry of the deadline set by Washington for foreign companies with ties to sectors controlled by the Cuban Government to sever those ties, under threat of sanctions.
Canada has historically been the primary source of tourists to Cuba. However, the current crisis has accelerated the withdrawal of key operators. In February, Canadian airlines had scheduled more than 600 flights bound for Cuba, according to data from analytics firm Cirium cited by The Globe and Mail.
This June, approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years
According to information released by the Cuban Airports and Airport Services Company (Ecasa), this June approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years.
Among the routes with the greatest presence, American Airlines holds the largest market share, with several daily flights from Miami to Havana, as well as connections to Santa Clara, Camagüey, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. Delta Air Lines and, on a more limited basis, Southwest Airlines also operate in the US market.
From Panama, Copa Airlines maintains daily flights to Havana, Santa Clara and Holguín. From Spain, Air Europa is the only Spanish airline with direct flights to the Island, while Air China operates the Beijing-Madrid-Havana route, which also allows boarding in Madrid as an intermediate point.
Other international airlines maintaining operations in Cuba include Aeromexico, Conviasa, Wingo, Caribbean Airlines, InterCaribbean Airways, Cayman Airways, TAAG Angola Airlines, Bahamasair, Rutaca, Aruba Airlines, Fly All Ways, Sky High and Neos, as well as various charter operations from the United States and the Caribbean – though with a significant reduction in flight frequencies.
So far in 2026, at least eleven airlines have suspended their operations in Cuba, among them Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, Air Transat, Iberia, LATAM Peru and Turkish Airlines, caused primarily by the fuel crisis, the collapse of tourism and pressure stemming from US sanctions.
Translated by GH.
______________________
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.
