Translating Cuba – English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island

Iberostar Follows Blue Diamond’s Lead and Leaves Gaesa Hotels

The Spanish hotel chain remains active in Cuba through six properties belonging to Cubanacán and Gran Caribe.

The Grand Packard in Havana is one of the Gaviota hotels from which Iberostar is withdrawing. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, June 1, 2026 — On Monday, the Spanish hotel company Iberostar severed its ties with Gaviota, the hotel chain controlled by the Business Administration Group S.A. (Gaesa), and stopped managing the twelve hotels associated with that entity. The company will maintain its presence in Cuba through properties whose state-owned partners belong to other tourism groups not linked to the military conglomerate, including Cubanacán and Gran Caribe.

The decision became public shortly before the deadline imposed by the U.S. Department of State under Executive Order 14404, signed by President Donald Trump on May 1, 2026, which called for sanctions against “those responsible for repression in Cuba and threats to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” A few days later, the decree began taking concrete form through specific sanctions against Gaesa, its president Ania Guillermina Lastres, and Moa Nickel S.A.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) set June 5, 2026, as the deadline for companies to terminate their operations or risk exposure to sanctions.

“As of June 1, 2026, these establishments will no longer be managed, marketed, or promoted under the Iberostar brand”

On Monday, 14ymedio confirmed that several hotels previously managed by Iberostar and owned by Gaesa remain open, but are now under the direct administration of Gaviota, as occurred with the withdrawal of Blue Diamond Resorts last Saturday.

Staff at the Grand Packard Hotel explained: “If you try to book an Iberostar hotel in Havana through travel agencies, what will come up is Parque Central, which is still managed by that company. To book with us, you have to do it directly here or through Gaviota.” By contrast, representatives at the Parque Central Hotel—owned by Cubanacán—confirmed to 14ymedio that “Iberostar executives are working here today without any problem, and the company remains at this hotel.”

Iberostar continues operating the Selection Parque Central, a Cubanacán property. / 14ymedio

Iberostar’s withdrawal was announced through the Argentine tour operator Sudameria. In the company’s statement, it explained that, “as part of a process of adaptation to the international regulatory environment” and in order to preserve its standards of quality, compliance, and management, Iberostar Cuba Hotels & Resorts “will cease operating and continue reading

marketing a group of hotels in Cuba as of June 1, 2026.”

The company stated that the measure ends any commercial, operational, or branding relationship between Iberostar Cuba Hotels & Resorts and the establishments included in the decision.

Among the 12 hotels from which Iberostar is withdrawing and whose ownership is linked to Gaesa are the Hotel Grand Packard on Prado Avenue; the Iberostar Selection Habana, located in the controversial Torre K [K Tower] and currently closed due to the crisis; the Iberostar Selection Ensenachos in Cayo Santa María; the Iberostar Origin Bella Vista Varadero; and the Iberostar Selection Esmeralda, among others.

“As of June 1, 2026, these establishments will no longer be managed, marketed, or promoted under the Iberostar brand,” according to the statement. They will now be managed directly by Gaviota.

Although Cubanacán appears on OFAC’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list and is sanctioned by the agency, it is not part of the Gaesa conglomerate, which the United States directly sanctioned on May 7

Through the Iberostar Cuba website, only hotels without links to Gaesa can currently be booked, including the Hotel Inglaterra and Iberostar Selection Parque Central, both Cubanacán properties in Havana, as well as the Iberostar Origin Daiquiri in Cayo Guillermo and the Iberostar Origin Taínos in Varadero, both owned by Gran Caribe.

Although Cubanacán appears on OFAC’s SDN list and is sanctioned by the agency, it is not part of the Gaesa conglomerate, which the U.S. State Department directly sanctioned on May 7.

The sanctions could nevertheless be extended to state-owned entities such as Cubanacán, Gran Caribe, and Islazul if the State Department and OFAC determine that they meet the criteria outlined in Orden Ejecutiva 14400, which includes “ownership, control, or direct management by the Government of Cuba.”

Iberostar is following the path taken by the Canadian hotel company Blue Diamond Resorts, one of the main foreign operators in Cuba’s tourism sector over the past decade, which ended its operations on the Island “with immediate effect” last Saturday.

The hotel chain Meliá, which operates between 32 and 35 properties in Cuba, also faces the possibility of sanctions and is under increasing pressure to define its position before the deadline established by the U.S. Department of State.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Davisleydi Velazco, Triple Jumper Expelled from Cuba, Breaks a Record by 50 Centimeters in France

The athlete from Camagüey has been on the rise since leaving the Island and settling in Puerto Rico, the country she hopes to represent.

Davisleydi Velazco achieved the third-best mark in the world this season with her 14.83-meter jump. / Facebook

14ymedio, Havana, June 1, 2026 — Cuban athlete Davisleydi Velazco shattered the triple jump record at the International Meeting of Forbach, France, on Sunday, breaking a mark that had stood for 17 years. With only two attempts, one of them measuring 14.83 meters, the athlete, who left Cuba in 2023 in search of better opportunities, surpassed by half a meter the previous record of 14.33 meters set by France’s Tereza Nzola Mesa in the 2009 edition of the event.

The 26-year-old triple jumper, who was permanently removed from Cuba’s list of eligible athletes last September, also recorded a jump of 14.77 meters, which would likewise have erased the competition record from the books. Both marks were far superior to those achieved by the second- and third-place finishers. Silver went to France’s Ilionis Guillaume with a jump of 14.09 meters, while Germany’s Kira Wittmann completed the podium with 13.89 meters.

With her performance this weekend, Velazco, who competes as an independent athlete, provided further evidence of her excellent form just days after jumping 14.85 meters, her personal best and the third-best mark in the world this season, which earned her the gold medal at the Coqui International Cup held at Paseo de los Artistas in Caguas, Puerto Rico, on May 17.

“I confirmed that dreams can be achieved when you work with faith, discipline, and heart. We keep dreaming, we keep fighting, because this is only the beginning”

The competition was not easy, as she was engaged in a fierce battle with Dominica’s Thea Lafond, the reigning Olympic champion in the event, whom she defeated by just one continue reading

centimeter. “I confirmed that dreams can be achieved when you work with faith, discipline, and heart. We keep dreaming, we keep fighting, because this is only the beginning,” she said after winning the competition.

According to the specialized website Swing Completo, the athlete is likely to surpass the 15-meter mark, given the steady improvement she has shown since leaving Cuba and settling in Puerto Rico, the country she hopes to represent.

In 2025, she enjoyed the best season of her career. In March of last year, she recorded a jump of 14.36 meters at the Spring Break Classic in Carolina, Puerto Rico. That was followed by marks of 14.32 in Tucson, 14.26 in Kingston, 14.61 in Memphis, and 14.38 meters in Florence.

“Her 14.54-meter jump in Gothenburg last July showed she was ready to reach the biggest stages, and in Brussels, on August 22, she achieved one of her best results and a new personal best of 14.72,” the specialized outlet Deporcuba wrote late last year while following the athlete’s progress.

Although she won a bronze medal for Cuba at the 2018 World U20 Athletics Championships in Tampere, Finland, she was later sidelined in several national selection processes. In an interview published last December by the Puerto Rican newspaper El Vocero, the athlete said that her career in Cuba had become “stagnant.” With no prospects for growth and faced with “the economic situation,” she felt compelled to seek new opportunities and leave the Island.

The athlete said that in Cuba her career had become “stagnant,” with no prospects or growth

Her journey took her through four countries, including several months spent between Mexico and the United States, before a turning point arrived when she was contacted by veteran Cuban coach Ubaldo Duany. Duany helped shape the careers of Colombian triple jumper Caterine Ibargüen, who won Olympic gold at Rio 2016, and Pedro Pichardo, the Cuban-born jumper who has won Olympic gold and silver for Portugal at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024.

The coach invited Velazco to train for a couple of months at his club in Puerto Rico. She accepted and ultimately decided to stay, a decision that marked a major turning point in her career.

The exodus of athletes due to a lack of opportunities has become a common feature of Cuban athletics. In 2021, triple jumper Cristian Nápoles and sprinter Reynier Mena requested their release from the Cuban Athletics Federation. Time has vindicated several of them. In June of last year, Mena won the 200-meter race at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, with a time of 20.05 seconds. Days earlier, he had also won meets in Savona, Italy (20.15 seconds), and Norway (20.20 seconds).

As for the triple jumpers who have left Cuba, the event that most clearly highlighted Cuba’s shortcomings and the development of its expatriate athletes was the Paris 2024 Olympics. At those Games, emigrant jumpers swept the podium. Jordan Díaz, competing for Spain, won gold with a jump of 17.86 meters. Silver and bronze went to Pedro Pablo Pichardo of Portugal (17.84 meters) and Andy Díaz of Italy (17.64 meters), respectively.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Consulate in Cancún Urged to Speak Out Against Wave of Discrimination

Island Residents Report Sackings, Obstacles to Renting Housing and Social Rejection Following an Altercation in Supermanzana 23

The local press reported that the case began with a neighbourhood dispute related to a dog bite and ended with a strong public backlash

14ymedio, Havana, 31 May 2026 / Cuban residents in Mexico have called on the Island’s Foreign Ministry and its Consulate in Cancún to issue a public response to the hostile climate that, they claim, has been unleashed against the Cuban community in Quintana Roo following a recent incident in Supermanzana 23 of that tourist city. In a statement circulated on social media, the signatories denounce the fact that the diplomatic mission has remained silent in the face of episodes of discrimination that are no longer confined to the digital sphere but have begun to affect the daily lives of Cuban families who had no involvement in the events.

The text, titled The Need for Active and Impartial Consular Representation, expresses the “profound concern” of Cuban residents at “the lack of an official statement from the Cuban Foreign Ministry” after the case sparked a strong reaction on social media and, according to those making the complaint, gave rise to “real episodes of exclusion and discrimination” in the state of Quintana Roo.

The source of the tension was an altercation in Supermanzana 23 in Cancún, where Cubans Rigoberto “N” and Yudelmis “N” were detained by Mexican authorities and placed at the disposal of the National Migration Institute. The local press reported that the case began with a neighbourhood dispute related to a dog bite and ended with the intervention of security officers, damage to a property and a strong public backlash against those involved. From that point on, outrage directed at two individuals escalated, according to migrant support organisations, into a broader reaction against Cubans living in the area.

The demand is directed squarely at the Cuban General Consulate in Cancún, located in Supermanzana 20, just a few blocks from where the crisis unfolded

“Sadly, we watched with alarm as this online climate spilled over into daily life, affecting our hard-working families who had absolutely no part in these events,” the statement reads. The document cites reports from the civil organisation Cisvac – International Council Uniting Venezuela – which works with migrants and claims to have documented “multiple daily cases” of Cubans who have lost jobs, faced tenancy disputes or suffered direct workplace exclusion following the incident.

The demand is directed squarely at the Cuban General Consulate in Cancún, located in Supermanzana 20, just a few blocks from where the crisis unfolded. For the signatories, that proximity makes the absence of a public position all the more inexplicable. “We find it paradoxical and incomprehensible that our Consulate in Cancún has maintained absolute public silence,” the text states. continue reading

The absence of any response, they add, left the community “in a position of clear social and media vulnerability.” The reproach is not confined to the Cancún case. The document links that silence to a broader critique of Cuban consular work in Mexico – a country that has become a transit territory for those heading towards the northern border, or a place of waiting or forced return for thousands of Island migrants deported from the United States.

The residents’ perception is of a diplomacy that is absent when it comes to defending nationals who are not part of associations aligned with the Cuban Government

In recent years, Mexico has been one of the main routes for Cubans attempting to reach the United States, but also a chokepoint for those who fail to cross, are detained or are sent back from American territory. Added to this are those left stranded in southern Mexico, at immigration offices or on the northern border, without documents, without steady work and with no clear way out.

“A considerable number of our compatriots are stranded at various borders within Mexico, facing a severe migration limbo,” the statement warns. The text also refers to Cubans “deported or returned from the United States to Mexican territory,” who are left “in conditions of extreme vulnerability.”

The signatories argue that, given this situation, there should be “vigorous, high-level” consular management with Mexican immigration authorities to guarantee dignified treatment for Cubans in transit or forced return. However, the residents’ perception is the opposite: a diplomacy that is absent when it comes to defending nationals who are not part of associations aligned with the Cuban Government.

“Meetings are frequently organised at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico itself, directed exclusively at resident groups that maintain a direct affinity with the official discourse”

The statement touches on one of the most sensitive points in the relationship between the regime and its diaspora: selective representation. The signatories recall that consular protection consists of “inalienable rights, not political concessions,” enshrined in International Law and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In that regard, they question the fact that the Cuban Embassy in Mexico frequently organises meetings with resident groups aligned with the official line, while ignoring a broader majority that is plural, critical, or simply outside those circles.

“Meetings are frequently organised at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico itself, directed exclusively at resident groups that maintain a direct affinity with the official discourse,” they denounce. That practice, they add, “reinforces an unrealistic rhetoric that attempts to project the idea that all of us abroad support the Government, deliberately rendering invisible the vast majority of our community.”

The text insists that the most vulnerable Cubans are typically not members of those privileged associations. They are, precisely, those facing “migration limbo, border returns or workplace discrimination.” For these people, the signatories say, consular assistance should be exercised “in a strict, impartial manner, free from ideological bias of any kind.”

The statement concludes with three concrete demands: that the Cuban Foreign Ministry issue a public declaration on the situation of vulnerability facing the community in Cancún; that it establish transparent communication channels with civil organisations working with migrants on the ground; and that it assume “an active, inclusive and equitable role of diplomatic management in defence of all its nationals, without political conditions.”

Translated by GH

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Cuban Organizations in Europe Sign the Freedom Accord in Madrid

The ceremony, organized by Pasos de Cambio, brought together Cubans from cities across Spain and the rest of Europe in support of the Cuban opposition’s democratic transition roadmap.

MADRID, SPAIN — The Pasos de Cambio coalition held a signing ceremony in Madrid this Sunday for the historic Freedom Accord, with Cuban organizations from cities across Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Spain. The Accord was originally signed on March 2, 2026 in Miami by the two largest coalitions and forces of the Cuban opposition from inside the island and in exile.

The Accord was presented by Rosa María Payá, founder of Cuba Decide and coordinator of Pasos de Cambio; Brian Infante, representative of the Partido del Pueblo; Víctor Dueñas, Director of the NewGeneration Foundation; and Rocío Monasterio, for the first time as a member of the advisory board of the Fundación para la Democracia Panamericana.

Esperanza Aguirre, former President of the Community of Madrid and former President of the Senate of Spain, participated as a guest at the ceremony and shared her experience of solidarity with the cause of Cuba’s freedom from Spain.

Rosa María Payá stated at the close of the event:

“A moving gathering today in Madrid for the signing of the historic continue reading

Freedom Accord by Cuban organizations in Europe. Thank you to all Pasos de Cambio participants who traveled from cities across Spain and Europe to support with their presence and commitment our unity in favor of Cuba’s freedom. We are determined to work together for a free and democratic Cuba. The republic that will be home to all Cubans.”

Rocío Monasterio, who signed the Freedom Accord at the Madrid ceremony, declared:

“The Freedom Accord that we have signed today in Madrid is the path to freedom for all Cubans. It is of the utmost importance because of the role played by the unity of all opposition groups, and the unity of all Cubans — because all Cubans are now part of the opposition.”

The Freedom Accord establishes a three-phase democratic transition roadmap — Liberation; Stabilization and Reconstruction; and Democratization — culminating in Cuba’s first free, fair and multiparty elections in more than seventy years. It provides for a provisional transitional government with a limited mandate, the immediate release of all political prisoners, the restoration of fundamental freedoms, and the creation of nine specialized working commissions covering the principal areas of national life.

The Madrid ceremony takes place at a moment of historic acceleration for the Cuban cause: amid unceasing civic protests in Cuba, days after the United States government announced the indictment of Raúl Castro, and following the recent visit of Pasos de Cambio representatives to the European Parliament, where Members from across the political spectrum called for the suspension of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) between the European Union and the Cuban regime.

The Madrid signing represents a concrete step in broadening and building the unity of Cuba’s democratic forces, and consolidates the Freedom Accord as a transition framework recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

CONTACT: info@pasosdecambio.com

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About Pasos de Cambio

Pasos de Cambio is a platform of Cuban organizations, from inside the island and in exile, signatories of the Agreement for Democracy, which serves as a space to coordinate actions aimed at promoting a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba.

Opposition Figure Roberto Veiga Returns to Cuba After Seven Years in Spain

The Catholic intellectual advocated dialogue with the regime, in contrast to the roadmap of the Pasos de Cambio coalition, which ratified the Liberation Agreement this Sunday in Madrid

Roberto Veiga says his organisation is committed to breaking a dynamic of confrontation that has borne no fruit / Facebook R.V.

14ymedio, Madrid, 1 June 2026 / Roberto Veiga González, director of the Centre for Studies on the Rule of Law Cuba Próxima, has returned to the Island in recent weeks to take up permanent residence there after nearly seven years in exile. The decision was announced by the organisation he founded in 2021 through a statement informing that State Security had already detained him upon his arrival – on a date they have not disclosed – and subjected him to several interrogations.

Veiga took this decision in order to “represent, from within the reality of a people afflicted by power cuts, scarcity, and social fracture, the political proposal entitled The Agreed Opening: A Roadmap for National Reconstruction.” This is a transition pathway proposed by Cuba Próxima last April that would “replace sterile confrontation with political realism.”

The platform – which also includes Michel Fernández, Ileana de La Guardia, and Pavel Vidal, among others – argues that inaction is not an option in the face of “a systemic crisis that has overwhelmed the current model,” and that “profound change is an ethical and national security imperative” under present circumstances. Accordingly, Veiga González returns to promote, alongside others, “a process of reciprocal and verifiable steps” that would break the current dynamic.

“The director of Cuba Próxima calmly accepts the hardships and pressures that political activism from within Cuba entails, which have already begun.”

“The director of Cuba Próxima calmly accepts the hardships and pressures that political activism from within Cuba entails, which have already begun,” the communiqué states, without going into much detail about the measures taken by State Security. “The rigour of commitment demands that personal sacrifice not be an instrument for victimhood or the pursuit of admiration, but a bridge of encounter so that other Cubans may move towards a shared solution,” the text underlines.

Cuba Próxima established eight strategic pillars in its proposal: full guarantee of all rights; a democratic and social rule-of-law state, with separation of powers and local autonomy; equal opportunities and social inclusion without discrimination; efficient public bodies at the service of the citizen; a free economy with social responsibility; centrality of the labour question and dignified wages; health, education, and social security as universal services; and sovereignty and strategic neutrality, grounded in peace and mutual respect. continue reading

The organisation believes that Veiga’s return demonstrates its commitment to this agenda and that “the freedom of the Cuban people is its non-negotiable destiny.” With this gesture, the Centre places itself, the statement asserts, “at the core of national necessity, convinced that Cuba can afford no further delays.”

The agreed opening proposal formalised by the organisation on 13 April last sets out a roadmap divided into three phases for national reconstruction through what it calls an internal “Multi-Actor Sovereign Dialogue” and the normalisation of relations with the United States. The document, drawn up by the board of directors, identifies as immediate priorities the release of political prisoners under an Amnesty Law, the restructuring of the military conglomerate Gaesa, and reform of the Electoral Law, all under the umbrella of international technical mediation.

The document also contains a list of demands addressed to the United States, including an end to the energy blockade imposed by Donald Trump since 29 January last.

The document also contains a list of demands addressed to the United States, including an end to the energy blockade imposed by Donald Trump since 29 January last, the removal of Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, the lifting of the travel ban, and support for certain economic sectors, including emergency financing for an emergency food programme, a healthcare programme, and an energy programme.

The proposal has not been without controversy within the Cuban opposition, as those sectors that favour US intervention argue that the Cuban Government has shown no willingness to engage in dialogue over decades. Veiga and his team, on the other hand, believe that confrontation has likewise led nowhere.

The news comes precisely one day after the Pasos de Cambio coalition ratified in Madrid the Liberation Agreement presented in March in Miami – a document establishing a unified roadmap to guide a democratic transition in Cuba after 67 years of communism. Led by opposition figures such as Rosa María Payá and backed by organisations both on the Island and in exile, the plan opts for a pathway in which the regime plays no part.

The project envisages the creation of a provisional government to address the humanitarian emergency, release political prisoners, and restore citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms.

These opposing positions are precisely what led to the split between the lawyer and intellectual and his partner of more than 15 years, Lenier González. Both served as directors of the magazine Espacio Laical and the think tank Cuba Posible, which over time came to be regarded by the Cuban authorities as a threat, as it promoted conciliatory positions that were gaining traction – as both recounted in various interviews – among the more moderate members of the Communist Party.

The regime launched a campaign of harassment against the pair, who ultimately went into exile. Veiga settled in Spain, where he founded Cuba Próxima, while González moved to the United States and turned to academia, stepping back from politics. However, the latter has publicly criticised the former, attributing to him connections with senior government officials that have caused him serious reputational damage, as Veiga himself has recently lamented.

Translated by GH.

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Héctor Maseda, Prisoner of the Black Spring and Widower of Laura Pollán, Dies in Exile

An independent journalist and nuclear engineer, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2003 and refused for years to accept exile as the price of his release.

Héctor Maseda, after his release in 2011, alongside his wife, Laura Pollán, leader of the Ladies in White. / Euronews

14ymedio Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, an independent journalist, Cuban dissident, and one of the political prisoners of the Group of 75, died this Saturday in exile, according to journalist Camila Acosta. Members of the Cuban American National Foundation confirmed his death in Miami at the age of 83. His name became linked to one of the harshest chapters of Castro’s repression, the Black Spring of 2003, and also to the history of the Ladies in White, the movement that his wife, Laura Pollán, helped found and led for years to demand the freedom of those imprisoned.

A nuclear engineer by training, Maseda was born in Havana on January 18, 1943. Before becoming a leading voice in independent journalism, he worked in the scientific field until his lack of “political credibility” prevented him from pursuing a professional career within state institutions. In the mid-1990s, he began collaborating with the non-official press and was a founding member of the Decoro Working Group, an independent news agency persecuted by the regime.

His life changed forever in March 2003, when Fidel Castro’s regime launched a wave of repression against dissidents, librarians, independent journalists, and human rights activists. Maseda was arrested along with 74 other dissidents and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was 60 years old at the time. The operation, known as Black Spring, sought to decapitate the peaceful opposition and send a warning message to any voice that deviated from the official narrative.

“I will withstand whatever comes”

In prison, Maseda was held in several penitentiaries, including Las Alambradas de Manaca, La Pendiente, and Agüica, according to records released by the Ladies in White. His file within the movement also included a phrase that characterized him: “I will resist whatever comes.”

During those years, Laura Pollán ceased to be merely the wife of a political prisoner and became one of the most recognizable figures of the Cuban dissident movement. Along with other women dressed in white, she walked every Sunday along Fifth Avenue in Miramar after attending Mass at continue reading

the Santa Rita Church. The image of those wives, mothers, and daughters with gladioli in their hands became unbearable for a regime accustomed to repression without witnesses. Pollán died in October 2011, a few months after her husband’s release, leaving behind a legacy of peaceful resistance that transcended the island.

From prison he wrote ‘Buried Alive’, a testimony about Cuban political imprisonment that circulated clandestinely

Maseda was released from prison on February 12, 2011, on parole, after nearly eight years behind bars. He refused the forced exile that the regime negotiated with the Catholic Church and the Spanish government to empty the prisons without acknowledging the innocence of those convicted. Reporters Without Borders emphasized at the time that his release did not overturn the 2003 sentence and that Maseda was part of the group of dissidents who refused to leave Cuba as a condition for their release.

In 2008, while still imprisoned, he received the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists. From prison, he wrote Buried Alive, a memoir about Cuban political imprisonment that circulated clandestinely and whose title encapsulated the experience of those condemned for exercising basic rights.

Maseda belongs to a generation of opposition figures who confronted Castroism without social media, with slower international coverage, and under a much more restrictive surveillance system. His case encapsulated several of the regime’s obsessions: the fear of independent journalism, the suppression of civic autonomy, and the desire to make exile an extension of imprisonment.

First Anniversary of the Death of Laura Pollán / Yoani Sanchez

Raúl Castro, From General to Prisoner

The former Cuban defense minister has many crimes for which he could be tried in the US

File photo of former Cuban President Raúl Castro. / EFE

14ymedio, Miami, Pedro Corzo, May 31, 2026 / I confess that few things would please me more than seeing Raúl Castro dressed in the orange jumpsuit of ordinary US prisoners, serving his sentence in a more severe prison. Although I doubt that a US prison of that kind would be any harsher than the less malevolent Castro regime’s prisons.

For 67 years, there has been no shortage of Cuba experts who emphatically assert that the younger Castro brother, the more organized, familial, and even condescending, compared to his brother, the greatest criminal in Cuban history, thankfully now deceased. While I have no evidence to refute most of the labels applied to Raúl, I can assure you that he is anything but tolerant, because I vividly recall one of the photos of this man published in early January 1959, showing him hanging a peasant in the Sierra Maestra mountains during the insurrection.

He then ordered hundreds of executions, including the San Juan Hill massacre in Santiago de Cuba, which occurred 11 days after the insurrection’s triumph, in which 71 men were summarily executed in a single night. They even used bulldozers, in true Hitlerian style.

Raúl was without a doubt Fidel’s most loyal servant. It is true that there have been stories of disagreements between the two autocrats, but even if they were true, the pair’s shared interests prevailed, to the great misfortune of the Cuban people. continue reading

Unfortunately, the most numerous and horrendous crimes of Castro’s totalitarianism have been against the Cuban people.

Raúl Castro, the serial killer Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the “Butcher of Artemisa,” Ramiro Valdés, chose from the very first days of the revolutionary victory to assume the role of the most intransigent defenders of the process led by Fidel Castro. This bloody triad, headed by the criminal Raúl, was the one that, obeying the orders of the supreme leader, directed the spiritual and material destruction of a country that, with all its flaws, was at the forefront of many of the most important areas of development in Latin America.

I confess I haven’t the faintest idea how the trial will unfold against the man who gave the order to shoot down two unarmed planes flying in international waters, with the sole objective of saving lives in danger. The former Cuban Minister of Defense said, “I said, well, shoot them down in the sea when they appear and don’t ask questions,” a statement very similar to Guevara’s, who advised his henchmen, “Kill him, ask questions later,” or another, more institutional one, from the serial killer: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary.” Of Ramiro Valdés, there are no expressions, only murders.

Unfortunately, the most numerous and horrendous crimes of Castro’s totalitarian regime have been committed against the Cuban people within the country’s borders, but those crimes will have to be judged by their own citizens when the political situation in Cuba changes. For now, we must welcome the fact that the current US government has decided to take legal action against a self-confessed murderer like Raúl Castro, just as it did against the drug trafficker Nicolás Maduro, for a crime that could also be attributed to the second-in-command in the destruction of Cuba.

Raul Castro has many crimes for which he can be tried in the United States

According to a Miami Herald article, Raúl Castro met with Colombian drug traffickers in 1980 and authorized them to use Cuban ports for their drug trafficking to the US, in exchange for providing weapons and ammunition to the M-19 guerrillas. Years later, he met with one of Manuel Antonio Noriega’s men to mediate a dispute the Panamanian general was having with Colombian drug traffickers.

Manuel de Beunza, a former major in the Castro regime’s intelligence services, testified at a Senate hearing in Washington that Raúl Castro ordered Generoso Escudero replaced as head of the naval unit in Cienfuegos because he refused to cooperate in the deployment of speedboats transporting cocaine to the southern coast of Cuba. Furthermore, John Jairo “Popeye” Velásquez, a close associate of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, stated that the fugitive general maintained close ties with the Medellín cocaine cartel and protected drug shipments passing through Cuba en route to the southern coast of Florida.

Raul Castro has many crimes for which he can be tried by the United States.

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Cubans in Mexico Ask the Consulate in Cancún to Speak Out Against a Wave of Discrimination

Island residents report dismissals from jobs, obstacles to renting housing, and social rejection following an altercation in Supermanzana 23.

Local media reported that the case began with a neighborhood dispute related to a dog bite and ended with strong public backlash. / Screenshot

14ymedio, Havana, May 31, 2026 — Cubans living in Mexico have called on Cuba’s Foreign Ministry and its Consulate in Cancún to issue a public response to what they say is a climate of hostility that has been unleashed against the Cuban community in Quintana Roo following a recent incident in the Supermanzana 23 neighborhood of Cancún. In a statement circulated on social media, the signatories denounce the diplomatic mission’s silence in the face of discrimination that, they say, has gone beyond online debate and has begun affecting the daily lives of Cuban families unrelated to the events.

The text, titled The Need for Active and Impartial Consular Representation expresses the Cuban residents’ “deep concern” over “the lack of an official statement from Cuba’s Foreign Ministry” after the case sparked a strong reaction on social media and, according to those making the complaint, led to “real episodes of exclusion and discrimination” in the state of Quintana Roo.

The source of the tension was an altercation in Cancún’s Supermanzana 23, where Cubans Rigoberto “N” and Yudelmis “N” were detained by Mexican authorities and turned over to the National Migration Institute. Local media reported that the case began with a neighborhood dispute involving a dog bite and ended with the intervention of security agents, damage to a home, and strong public condemnation of those involved. From that point on, outrage directed at two individuals evolved, according to migrant-support organizations, into a broader reaction against Cubans living in the area.

The complaint is directed specifically at the Cuban Consulate General in Cancún, located in Supermanzana 20, just a few blocks from where the crisis unfolded

“Unfortunately, we watched with alarm as this online climate spilled over into daily life, affecting our hardworking families who were completely unrelated to those events,” the statement says. It cites reports from Cisvac — International Council Adding Venezuela — a foundation for the defense of human rights, which works with migrants and says it has documented “multiple daily cases” of Cubans who have lost jobs, faced rental disputes, or experienced direct workplace exclusion following the incident.

The complaint points directly to the Cuban Consulate General in Cancún, located continue reading

in Supermanzana 20, only a short distance from where the crisis occurred. For the signatories, that proximity makes the lack of a public position even more difficult to understand. “We find it paradoxical and incomprehensible that our Consulate in Cancún has maintained absolute public silence,” the text states.

The absence of a response, they add, has left the community “in a position of clear social and media vulnerability.” The criticism goes beyond the Cancún case. The document links that silence to broader concerns about Cuban consular work in Mexico, a country that has become a transit point toward the U.S. border, a waiting area, or a destination for forced returns for thousands of Cuban migrants deported from the United States.

Residents perceive a diplomacy that is absent when it comes to defending nationals who are not part of organizations aligned with the Cuban Government

In recent years, Mexico has been one of the main routes for Cubans seeking to reach the United States, but it has also become a bottleneck for those who fail to cross, are detained, or are returned from U.S. territory. Added to that are those stranded in southern Mexico, at immigration offices, or along the northern border, without documents, stable employment, or a clear path forward.

“A considerable number of our compatriots are stranded at various borders throughout Mexico, facing a severe migratory limbo,” the statement warns. It also refers to Cubans “deported or returned from the United States to Mexican territory,” who are left “in conditions of extreme vulnerability.”

The signatories argue that, given this situation, there should be “energetic, high-level consular engagement” with Mexican immigration authorities to ensure dignified treatment of Cubans in transit or facing forced return. However, residents’ perception is the opposite: a diplomacy absent when it comes to defending nationals who do not belong to organizations aligned with the Cuban Government.

“Meetings are frequently organized at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico exclusively for groups of residents who maintain a direct affinity with the official discourse”

The statement touches on one of the most sensitive aspects of the relationship between the regime and its diaspora: selective representation. The signatories recall that consular protection and assistance “are not political concessions, but inalienable rights,” protected by international law and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. In that regard, they question the fact that the Cuban Embassy in Mexico frequently organizes meetings with resident groups aligned with the official narrative while ignoring a broader, more diverse community that may be critical of, or simply uninvolved in, those circles.

“Meetings are frequently organized at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico exclusively for groups of residents who maintain a direct affinity with the official discourse,” they state. This practice, they add, “reinforces an unrealistic narrative that attempts to project the idea that all of us abroad support the Government, while deliberately rendering invisible the immense majority of our community.”

The text insists that the most vulnerable Cubans generally do not belong to those favored associations. They are precisely the people facing “migratory limbo, border returns, or labor discrimination.” For them, the signatories argue, consular assistance should be provided “strictly, impartially, and without ideological bias of any kind.”

The statement concludes with three specific demands: that Cuba’s Foreign Ministry issue a public declaration regarding the vulnerability of the Cuban community in Cancún; that it establish transparent communication channels with civil organizations working directly with migrants; and that it assume “an active, inclusive, and equitable diplomatic role in defense of all its nationals, without political conditions.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Mansions of Vedado Open Their Doors, But Not All Their Secrets

During an event organised by Unesco, former Republican-era palaces converted into state offices revealed stained glass, marble, staircases – and sealed-off areas

“The hardest thing is the contrast with the rest of Havana, which is falling apart.” / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, Darío Hernández, 31 May 2026 — The first thing they ask of you before entering is not silence, nor respect for the heritage, nor care for the old floors. It is your identity card. At the entrance to each building, an official photographs visitors’ documents, as if a visit to a heritage property were also a bureaucratic formality – or entry to the Embassy of the Past. Only after that gesture, so routine in a Cuba under surveillance and so ill-suited to a cultural outing, does the tour of several Vedado mansions begin, opened to the public for the Open Doors Day organised by Unesco.

There were quite a few people. Families, curious passers-by, students, neighbours who had spent years walking past those facades without ever being able to cross the threshold. Some stared upwards, as if trying to take in all at once the cornices, balconies, columns and black ironwork. Others walked with the discretion of someone entering a stranger’s home – even though that home no longer has a visible owner, only acronyms, custodians, offices and official portraits of Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The Mansions of Vedado Open Their Doors, But Not All Their Secrets

In each building, students and professors of Art History were on hand to explain mouldings, stained glass, styles, dates and materials. At times the tour felt like a living lesson in Republican-era architecture; at times, like an excursion through the inventory of a private wealth converted into state heritage. The guides’ voices tried to impose order upon the beauty, but visitors could not help looking also at what was not being explained.

“The hardest thing is the contrast with the rest of Havana, which is falling apart,” murmured a man as he crossed one of the reception rooms. Outside, the city peels, is propped up, collapses, or survives patched together with breeze blocks, corrugated zinc and miracles. Inside, by contrast, there remain chandeliers, sweeping staircases, interior courtyards, gardens and high ceilings – that sense of spaciousness which today seems almost obscene in a capital where so many families live crammed together amid leaking roofs and power cuts.

Some were expropriated; of others it is said, with the convenient formula of the official narrative, that their owners left the country and “left no heirs.” / 14ymedio

The route included some of the most imposing mansions in Vedado: the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture; the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), on Paseo and 13th Street; the Casa de la Prensa, headquarters of the Union of Cuban Journalists (Upec), on 23rd and I; and the Fidel Castro Ruz Centre. All share the fact that they were built or inhabited by wealthy families during the Republic – many of Spanish origin or descent from Spaniards – and after 1959 passed into the hands of the new power. Some were expropriated; of others it is said, with the convenient formula of the official narrative, that their owners left the country and “left no heirs.”

At the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture, the former home of Ernesto Sarrá and Loló Larrea commands attention even before one enters. It occupies almost an entire block and still retains the air of a family palace it must have had when the owner of one of Cuba’s largest pharmaceutical fortunes lived there with his wife. From the street, the building promises a novel of money, parties, alliances, servants, china and automobiles pulling through the gateway. Inside, however, the mansion no longer functions as a home. It is a collection of offices from which the culture of the island is administered – and kept under watch.

“What beauty, and what a waste not to be able to see it in its entirety,” commented a woman as she left one of the rooms. / 14ymedio

Many areas were closed to the public. Some because they are offices; others because they are “not in a fit state.” This was a constant throughout the tour: half-open doors that could not be passed through, staircases leading nowhere, sealed-off corridors, or areas that the guide mentioned without showing them. Visitors could barely reconstruct, from fragments, the scale of what once was.

At the FMC headquarters, amid stained glass windows, a female sculpture and rooms altered by bureaucratic use, the guide explained ornamental details while visitors raised their eyes to the ceilings, the doors and the columns. “What beauty, and what a waste not to be able to see it in its entirety,” commented a woman as she left one of the rooms. The remark hung in the air with an unintentional precision. The heritage is shown, but with caution; conservation is spoken of, but the history of ownership is barely touched upon.

The Casa de la Prensa, headquarters of Upec, preserves an uncomfortable memory for official journalism. The building on 23rd and I is associated with the García Osuna family, connected to Republican-era politics. From 1963, the organisation that brings together pro-government journalists was installed there. In its salons, where private life, receptions and family conversations once took place, propaganda subordinated to the single Party is now produced. The architecture, with its ornate iron grilles and its old-world elegance, seems to retain more freedom than the institution that occupies it.

The former mansion of the Conill family has become a civic temple to the leader who governed the country in which properties such as this one were confiscated. / 14ymedio

The starkest contrast appears at the Fidel Castro Ruz Centre. The former mansion of the Conill family, with its restored grandeur, its well-kept gardens and its museum-style displays, has become a civic temple to the leader who governed the country in which properties such as this one were confiscated, seized or absorbed by the State. Official sources acknowledge that the house belonged to the Hidalgo de Conill family and that Enrique Conill Rafecas was a captain in the Liberation Army. They also admit that, after 1959, the family left the country and the property was put to uses connected with the Ministry of the Interior.

Here the paradox achieves an almost theatrical clarity. A Republican-era palace, born of private wealth, converted into a shrine of the Revolution. A building that must once have held family albums, china, bedrooms, parties and inheritances, now transformed into the stage set of a single, carefully illuminated memory. “You spend your whole life walking past this place and you have no idea what’s inside,” said a visitor standing before the mansion in which Fidel Castro’s Mercedes-Benz is displayed as if it were a relic.

That detail alone would be enough for a different tour – less ornamental and more honest: one that passes not only through the columns, the stained glass and the ironwork, but through property records, nationalisations, exiles, emptied houses and the official versions that explain too much with too little. Who exactly were the owners? What became of them? What documents prove the transfer of ownership? Was there confiscation, abandonment, donation, seizure, litigation? Where are those archives? On the visit, that part appeared only as a footnote, as if the social history of the mansions were less important than the marble.

The public, however, did not seem indifferent. Many entered in amazement; others, with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. They walked slowly, photographed stained glass, discreetly touched a banister, lingered before a staircase, looked up at the ceilings as if discovering a hidden city above the visible one. For decades, a large part of the Republican residential heritage has remained behind railings, custodians, ministries, mass organisations, embassies and state offices.

The Unesco open day has value because it allows one to look. And in Cuba, looking inward is already something. But looking is not enough. A country that prides itself on its heritage should also account for how that heritage came into state hands, who built it, who lived in it, who lost it and through what mechanisms. Without that information, the tour remains an incomplete postcard of a Havana that is beautiful, deteriorating and under surveillance – where the visitor hands over their identity card before entering and leaves with more questions than answers.

Translated by GH.

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Cuba Among the Countries Whose Nationals Most Frequently Obtained Spanish Citizenship in 2025

Around 14,390 Cubans became Spanish citizens in 2025, 79% more than the previous year, according to the INE

Nearly 300,000 people born in Cuba reside in Spain, according to INE data. / X/@monasterioR

14ymedio, Madrid, 31 May 2026 / Cubans ranked among the leading groups of foreigners to acquire Spanish nationality in 2025, according to data published last Thursday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

A total of 14,390 Cuban-born citizens obtained Spanish citizenship during the past year, a figure that places Cuba as the sixth most common country of origin among new Spanish nationals, surpassed only by Morocco, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras and Peru, and ahead of much more populous countries such as Ecuador, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.

Compared to the 8,045 Cuban-born citizens who obtained Spanish nationality in 2024, last year’s figure represents almost double. Cubans represent one of the Latin American migrant communities with the greatest growth in Spain in recent years, a consequence of the wave of emigration triggered by the economic and political crisis on the island.

Cubans are the sixth most frequent nationality among ‘new Spaniards’

Cubans – among nationals of Ibero-American countries – enjoy advantages when it comes to obtaining Spanish citizenship, as they may apply for it after two years of legal residence, compared with the ten years generally required. In addition, many benefit from the so-called Democratic Memory Law, which allows descendants of emigrated Spaniards to obtain nationality. This law has had a particular impact in Cuba, where more than 600,000 people have begun or completed the process through continue reading

this route.

At the start of 2025, there were 252,290 residents born in Cuba living in Spain, according to INE reports. In the subsequent months, a further 43,300 arrivals from the island were recorded, according to the Continuous Population Statistics, as of 1 April 2026.

At the start of 2025, there were 252,290 residents born in Cuba living in Spain. In the subsequent months, a further 43,300 arrivals from the island were recorded.

According to the Jesuit Refugee Service, in 2025 there were 88,367 residents born in Cuba who retained Cuban nationality, and 61,209 held a residence permit. This is a population group that is “growing notably,” the organisation noted. Based on data from the start of 2025 provided by the Foundation of Savings Banks (Funcas), the centre estimated that the number of Cubans in an irregular situation in Spain stood at around 16,000, while 72,270 had legal or “quasi-legal” residency.

14ymedio has reported on several occasions on Cuba’s demographic collapse. The government acknowledges a population of fewer than 10 million inhabitants, while demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos argues that the effective population may be around eight million – 24% less than just four years ago. Between 2021 and 2024, Cuba lost more than one million inhabitants to emigration.

In total, Spain granted nationality to 299,732 foreigners in 2025, the highest figure in the past decade.

In total, Spain granted nationality to 299,732 foreigners in 2025, the highest figure in the past decade. This represents an increase of 18.7% on the previous year.

The majority of the new citizens were of Latin American origin.Most of the grants were made on the grounds of residency. Of the nearly 300,000 applications resolved favourably, 253,836 corresponded to this procedure. The report also notes that the most common year of arrival among those who obtained nationality was 2019, indicating that the full process from arrival to the granting of citizenship took around six years in the majority of cases.

Catalonia, with 70,933 new Spanish citizens, and the Community of Madrid, with 69,566, together accounted for nearly half of all nationalisations recorded across the country.

Translated by GH.

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Cuba: In Ciego de Ávila They Warn: Solar Parks in Cayo Coco ‘Will Harm Local Wildlife’

The “builders, far from merely meeting deadlines and budgets, are called upon to be the foremost guardians of the fragile island ecosystem,” Invasor urges.

The project, which will cover 8.5 hectares, will create “heat islands” that could lead to the loss of forest. / Invasor

14ymedio, Havana, May 31, 2026 – The construction of the first of two photovoltaic solar parks planned for the Jardines del Rey region of Cayo Coco, in Ciego de Ávila, could impact the already “fragile” local ecosystem. Antonio García Quintas, a doctor in Community Ecology and associate researcher at the Center for Coastal Ecosystem Research (CIEC), warns that the project, which will cover 8.5 hectares, “will harm local wildlife, including endemic and threatened species, while migratory birds would be affected by the construction.”

An article published this Sunday in Invasor warns that the installation of the panels, a plan envisioned 10 years ago but only now moving forward, will create “heat islands,” leading to the “loss of a well-preserved evergreen forest that, paradoxically, forms part of the buffer zone that should be protected” in El Bagá Natural Park.

The risk is considerable. According to Raúl Gómez Fernández, a CIEC specialist, in these territories “it is difficult to draw on a map the exact line” separating anthropized zones where human activity has transformed the environment from areas that have not been disturbed.

In response, the specialists consulted by Invasor offer viable alternatives in locations with “secondary vegetation or areas continue reading

converted into solid waste dumps, at higher elevations, less prone to flooding, with lower salt exposure, and located much closer to generating units or electrical substations.”

“What is being proposed is not to halt the investment, but to do it properly, in a place where established forests are not sacrificed”

Because of the impact the project could have, it has undergone modifications since 2016. The site initially selected—western Cayo Coco—was part of non-anthropized ecosystems. Shortly afterward, the Provincial Directorate of Territorial Planning and Urban Development of Ciego de Ávila evaluated the project’s impact there and denied construction in order to protect the flora and fauna. It was then decided that the solar parks would be installed in the eastern part of the cay, although on a smaller area than originally planned, since the initial proposal called for the use of 13 hectares.

“What is being proposed is not to halt the investment, but to do it properly, in a place where established forests are not sacrificed, where existing infrastructure can be utilized, degraded areas rehabilitated, and where construction and maintenance costs would be significantly lower,” Invasor states.

Marialina Herrera Riera, director of investments for the Ciego de Ávila Electric Company, assures that the construction of the photovoltaic solar park will be carried out “under the strictest compliance with all established regulations, without violating any legal provisions.” According to the official, the goal is “to minimize possible impacts on the environment.”

Nevertheless, the provincial newspaper emphasizes that “the solar energy the country so desperately needs, and which is increasingly necessary to generate on the cays themselves where tourism development exists, deserves to be installed in locations that are technically and environmentally justified, not in places that condemn it to greater expenses, accelerated deterioration, or conflict with protective legislation.”

“The solar energy the country so desperately needs, and which is increasingly necessary to generate, deserves to be installed in locations that are technically and environmentally justified”

For this reason, Invasor states in a demanding tone, “its builders, far from merely meeting deadlines and budgets, are called upon to be the foremost guardians of the fragile island ecosystem, protecting wetlands and respecting native wildlife corridors, especially the migratory birds that nest there, ensuring that every panel, every cable, and every movement of earth is carried out with the smallest ecological footprint possible.” Only in this way, it adds, “will this project cease to be a simple renewable-energy undertaking and become a true symbol of coherence.”

The appeal stems from cases such as El Bagá Park, “a themed natural park that existed and disappeared more quickly than it took to build,” because “sustainability is not determined by the type of technology used, but by the way it is integrated into the territory. From the mistakes of the past should finally emerge the wisdom not to repeat them in the present.”

“Today, those same decisions are being paid for through irreversible environmental damage and maintenance costs that no one calculated at the time. This is not about stopping development but about understanding that a poorly located project is not development. It is a legacy of problems for future generations,” the article insists.

The authorities’ strategy for trying to address the country’s energy crisis, with blackouts exceeding 20 hours in several parts of the Island, is the massive installation of solar panels. The program is expected to be fully completed provided the planned schedule is met: within 24 years, by 2050.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The Head of U.S. Southern Command Meets with Senior Cuban Military Officer in Guantánamo

The unusual meeting between Francis Donovan and Roberto Legrá Sotolongo addressed “operational security” around the perimeter of the U.S. naval base

Image shared by the U.S. Southern Command on its Twitter account to report on the meeting. / @Southcom

14ymedio/Agencies, Havana, May 29, 2026 — The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Francis L. Donovan, met this Friday with Cuba’s Chief of the General Staff, Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, at the perimeter of the Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, in an unusual meeting between senior military officials from the two countries.

According to EFE, the meeting was confirmed by the Southern Command itself in a brief statement, which noted that the generals held “a brief exchange on operational security matters.” The discussion also addressed issues related to the safety of military personnel and their families, as well as the operational readiness of the base, together with officers stationed in Guantánamo.

“The Guantánamo Bay Naval Station constitutes a vital operational and logistical hub that supports United States military efforts to counter threats that undermine security, stability, and democracy in our hemisphere,” the Southern Command said in its statement.

Donovan also conducted an assessment of the “perimeter security of the naval base.”

The discussion also addressed issues related to the safety of military personnel and their families

In a brief statement published on social media, Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces confirmed continue reading

that the meeting took place “by agreement of both parties.”

It also stated that the two “delegations considered the meeting positive, where issues related to security around the perimeter dividing the military enclave were discussed,” referring to the naval base. It further added that there was agreement “to maintain communication between both military commands.”

Reuters, which first reported the meeting citing a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that Donovan’s visit to Cuba is the first remembered in recent years involving a Southern Command chief and senior Cuban military leaders. The agency placed the contact in the context of growing concern in Havana about the possibility of U.S. military action against the Isand.

The meeting comes after the unusual visit to Havana on May 14 by the Director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, amid increasing pressure from Washington on the Cuban regime.

Guantánamo, where the meeting took place, is one of the most sensitive points in relations between the two countries

The military contact comes at a particularly tense moment in bilateral relations. The administration of Donald Trump has hardened its policy toward Havana and placed Cuba among its foreign policy priorities in the hemisphere.

On May 20, Washington formally charged former president Raúl Castro with four counts of murder for the 1996 shootdown of civilian aircraft operated by Miami exiles. The charges were presented as a new step in the United States’ judicial and political offensive against figures within the Cuban leadership.

Guantánamo, where the meeting took place, is one of the most sensitive issues in relations between the two countries. The United States has maintained a naval base there since the beginning of the twentieth century.

In March, Donovan told U.S. lawmakers that the Southern Command was not preparing an invasion, although he stated that its forces were ready to defend the Guantánamo base, protect the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and support a potential response to a large-scale migration crisis.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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UNESCO Warns That Cuban Classrooms Are at Risk Due to the Energy Crisis

Official data show that the deterioration of the system is not due to the embargo

The UNESCO warning does not reveal a new problem but rather validates, through an international institution, what thousands of Cuban families have been experiencing for years. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Havana, May 29, 2026 — “Education in Cuba is at risk because of the current energy crisis.” The phrase, spoken by Anne Lemaistre, director of UNESCO’s Regional Office in Havana and the organization’s representative on the Island, describes the impact of blackouts, fuel shortages, and the deterioration of basic services in Cuban schools.

In a statement circulated on social media, the diplomat warned that the situation “makes it difficult for teachers and students to attend classes, learn effectively, and enjoy a normal social life with their friends.” The problem, she added, “jeopardizes the future of an entire generation, with long-term consequences.”

The official newspaper Granma, however, reacted immediately with its customary reflex. In its headline, the Communist Party’s newspaper added a phrase to Lemaistre’s quote that was not part of her main statement: “resulting from the blockade.” In this way, the paper transformed a warning about the daily collapse of classrooms into another piece of the official narrative, according to which every Cuban crisis has an external cause and a single culprit: Washington.

Before protecting classrooms, the State has protected tourism, hotel investments, political events, propaganda, and mechanisms of control

UNESCO itself, in February, had called for international cooperation to ensure that Cuban children could continue learning and that educational institutions remained safe spaces. In that appeal, Lemaistre said that “every day without fuel compromises school meals, transportation for teachers and students, and the electricity necessary to sustain continue reading

educational programs.” She also concluded with a statement that should make the Cuban Government uncomfortable: “For us, a functioning society begins with the school; it is the first thing that must be restored.”

But in Cuba, schools do not appear to be a government priority. Before classrooms, the State has protected tourism, hotel investments, political events, propaganda, and mechanisms of control. In April 2025, amid the economic crisis, education had already become a secondary issue. Investment in the sector was reduced by about 400 million pesos compared to the previous year. Health and Education combined accounted for barely 3% of the state budget, compared with 37.4% allocated to tourism.

That figure undermines any attempt to portray the educational catastrophe as an unavoidable accident. A country that invests far more in hotels, surveillance and repression than in classrooms has made a political decision. It can blame the embargo, hurricanes, or fuel shortages, but its priorities are reflected in its budget.

“We promote children to the next grade without providing them with sufficient knowledge”

The signs of collapse continue to accumulate. By March 2025, education in Cuba had become “optional” in several schools, which were forced to reduce schedules and hold classes only in the mornings or from Monday through Thursday. A mother in Placetas, Villa Clara, reported that her third-grade daughter was barely receiving instruction and that the school itself had established a Monday-to-Thursday week, forcing the family to find someone to care for the child while the adults worked.

Blackouts affect more than classroom lighting. In Cienfuegos, parents and teachers were already speaking in 2024 about children arriving tired and sleepy, without breakfast, after nights of ten to sixteen hours without electricity. A teacher admitted at the time that schools had been forced to adjust lesson plans because of power outages and low attendance. “We promote children to the next grade without providing them with sufficient knowledge,” she lamented.

The energy crisis has been compounded by the exodus of teachers, which had already raised alarms before the current school year began. In Sancti Spíritus, one of the hardest-hit provinces, teacher staffing reached only 68.2%. In Camagüey, with 716 schools and 98,000 students, there was a shortage of 2,468 teachers, and 19 schools were closed to “optimize resources.” The official formula for plugging the gap has been to hire part-time teachers, merge schools, and overcrowd classrooms.

Education is at risk because the State abandoned schools while continuing to inaugurate hotels, organize political rallies, and harass students who have participated in protests

Authorities also admitted that there was a shortage of 1.3 million uniform items and that only 20% of students would receive new clothing. In classrooms, parents found few materials, poorly photocopied notebooks, and outdated textbooks. For families, the “creativity” demanded by the Government means patching uniforms, improvising backpacks, and obtaining supplies on their own. For teachers, it means reusing notebooks, dictating notes, and paying for photocopies out of their own pockets.

The UNESCO warning does not reveal a new problem but rather validates through an international institution what thousands of Cuban families have been experiencing for years. Education in Cuba is at risk, but not only because of the energy crisis or solely because of the embargo. It is at risk because the State abandoned schools while continuing to inaugurate hotels, organize political rallies, and harass students who have participated in protests.

In Cuba, the future of a generation is not being lost for lack of speeches. It is being lost because the Government decided that education is not a priority.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba’s Guiteras Power Plant Goes Offline Again Due to “Lack of Raw Water”

The UNE forecasts a 2,072 MW shortfall during Saturday’s peak hours after a full day of blackouts

The “lack of raw water” now joins the peculiar catalog of explanations that the National Electric System (UNE) has used to justify the repeated shutdowns of the Guiteras plant. / Periódico Girón / Archive

14ymedio, Havana, May 30, 2026 — The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the largest single generating unit in Cuba, has once again gone offline from the National Electric System (SEN) for a reason that encapsulates the deterioration of the country’s basic infrastructure: a “lack of raw water.” The shutdown occurred shortly after the plant had been reconnected to the grid, forcing the Electric Union (UNE) to acknowledge that Friday’s power deficit exceeded projections “due to the emergency shutdown” of the Matanzas facility.

The “lack of raw water” now joins the peculiar catalog of explanations that the UNE has offered for the Guiteras plant’s repeated outages, a list that increasingly seems written for Cuba’s brand of dark humor. Added to “unavoidable maintenance” are such causes as “control valve malfunction,” a “false superheated steam signal,” and the famous “boiler puncture”: expressions that have transformed technical jargon into popular satire.

The latest shutdown came at a particularly delicate moment. The Guiteras had synchronized with the grid on Thursday at 7:48 a.m., after spending several days out of service due to a “small hole in the economizer,” a failure that forced the unit offline on May 24. Its return provided only a few hours of relief before the plant continue reading

once again went out of operation.

For peak demand hours, when solar energy no longer contributes to the SEN, the state utility is forecasting a deficit of 2,072 MW, one of the most severe figures of recent days

Although authorities typically present each outage as an isolated incident, the pattern of recent weeks shows that Cuba’s main thermoelectric plant is operating at its limits, with partial repairs, brief restarts, and recurring shutdowns. Every disconnection has an immediate impact on blackouts, because the Matanzas facility can contribute more than 200 megawatts (MW) when operating steadily, although that is still far below its original installed capacity of 330 MW.

The national situation on Saturday confirms the continuing deterioration. At 6:00 a.m., SEN availability was only 1,113 MW against demand of 2,720 MW. At that time, 1,562 MW were already affected, and the UNE estimated a 1,600 MW deficit by midday.

The nighttime outlook is even worse. During peak demand hours, when solar generation contributes nothing to the grid, the state company forecasts a shortfall of 2,072 MW, one of the highest figures recorded in recent days. The only generation expected to come online for the evening peak is Unit 3 of the Renté thermoelectric plant, contributing 45 MW, far too little to alter the overall situation.

The list of breakdowns leaves little room for optimism. In addition to the Guiteras, Unit 2 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez thermoelectric plant in Felton and Units 3 and 5 of the Antonio Maceo plant in Renté remain out of service due to failures. Unit 5 in Mariel, Unit 6 in Renté, and Unit 5 in Nuevitas are under maintenance. Added to this are 318 MW unavailable due to limitations in thermal generation.

Solar generation drops as night approaches, precisely when residential demand rises and blackouts intensify

Fuel shortages continue to worsen the situation. The UNE reported that 106 distributed-generation plants are out of service for lack of fuel, removing 890 MW from the system. Also idle are the Regla floating power plant, the Mariel fuel-oil plant, and the engine facilities in Moa. In total, the company acknowledges that 1,203 MW are unavailable due to fuel shortages.

Not even solar power can offset the collapse in thermal generation. The country’s 54 new photovoltaic parks produced 3,643 MWh on Friday, reaching a maximum output of 526 MW around midday. The UNE presented the figure as a source of relief, but solar generation falls sharply as evening approaches, exactly when residential demand increases and blackouts become most severe.

For ordinary Cubans, however, the technical explanations matter less than the outcome. This will be another Saturday of prolonged power outages, with entire provinces subjected to increasingly difficult rotating blackout schedules. The government continues to manage the crisis through daily reports, but each new bulletin confirms that the system has no real reserve capacity. When one unit comes online, another goes offline; when demand falls, a boiler breaks down; when fuel becomes available, there is a shortage of “raw water.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuba and US Intervention: Is History Repeating Itself?

The Island faces in 2026 the same structural crises that the US military occupation found in 1899. A thorough review of what that administration did reveals a historical parallel so precise that it is difficult to ignore

Nations are sustained by educated citizens, not by ignorant subjects. / Archive

14ymedio, Rolando Gallardo, Alicante (Spain), May 30, 2026/ The image is the same, even though the century has changed. In the Havana of 1899, US sanitary brigades moved through neighbourhoods devastated by war, destroying breeding grounds of the Aedes aegypti mosquito and fumigating homes to combat the yellow fever that was decimating an exhausted population. In the Havana of 2026, those same neighbourhoods accumulate tonnes of refuse on every corner, while dengue, chikungunya and the Oropouche virus spread unchecked under the same vector that Cuban physician Carlos J. Finlay identified more than a century ago. The mosquito has not changed. Nor has the neglect.

This parallel is not a metaphor: it is a diagnosis. Cuba today faces the same structural urgencies that the US military occupation found when it landed in January 1899, when General John R. Brooke inherited a territory in absolute ruins. The war of independence and the scorched-earth tactic had displaced hundreds of thousands of peasants towards the cities and shattered the Island’s economic foundations. Infrastructure was destroyed, public finances were non-existent, and institutional order was an aspiration more than a reality. What that administration had to build from scratch, incredibly in 2026, a third US intervention in Cuba would have to do exactly the same thing.

Brooke’s successor, General Leonard Wood, was a physician by training. He understood from the first day that no political order is sustainable over a sick population. Drawing on Finlay’s theory – who had spent decades trying to convince the scientific world that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquito bite – the Army organised an unprecedented environmental sanitation campaign: drainage of pools, destruction of Aedes aegypti breeding grounds, fumigation of homes, closure of insanitary cemeteries, construction of sewerage systems in Havana. The result was historic: in September 1901, the city recorded its last indigenous case of a disease that Spanish colonial rule had been unable to eradicate in four hundred years.

Drawing on Finlay’s theory, the US Army organised an unprecedented environmental sanitation campaign on the Island. / Archive

Today, the water and sewerage networks modernised in the early years of the revolution and left to their fate since the 1990s have collapsed in most provinces. The unofficial rubbish dumps that the State lacks the operational capacity to clear are feeding arbovirus outbreaks that spread without restraint. Any external stabilisation would have to launch, from day one, exactly the same all-out offensive that Wood and Dr Walter Reed carried out with the tools of 1900: elimination of breeding grounds, mass public hygiene, reconstruction of sanitary infrastructure. The difference is that in 1899 there was a three-year war to account for the destruction. In 2026, there are six decades of socialism and mismanagement.

The war had destroyed bridges, ripped up rails and left the roads in a state that made it impossible to move agricultural produce to the ports. The Wood administration undertook the repair and expansion of the rail network, restoring the continue reading

connections between the sugar-growing zones and the export ports. The logic was impeccable: without logistics there is no economy, and without economy there is no republic.

Cuba’s roads in 2026 are, across wide stretches of the interior, obstacle courses where metre-deep potholes coexist with stretches that are simply non-existent. The railway, which at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the most modern in Latin America, today operates with Soviet rolling stock from the 1960s and 1970s on routes that take double or triple the reasonable journey time when they manage to function at all. A new administration could not repair this infrastructure: it would have to rebuild it. The accumulated deterioration far exceeds what a three-year war caused; it would demand an effort proportional to what Wood carried out, but incomparably more complex in technological and budgetary scale.

One of the least celebrated – but perhaps most decisive – chapters of that occupation was the dissolution of the Cuban Liberation Army

The Cuban sugar industry – the most sophisticated in the world in its day – had been dismantled by the conflict. The occupation administration actively fostered foreign investment to rebuild the sugar mills and modernise the machinery. Sugar began to flow again, and with it the fiscal revenues that would finance the rest of the reforms. In parallel, Wood reorganised the banking system and laid the groundwork for a currency that would be, in the following decades, on a par with the dollar: a reflection of an economy that, when operating under predictable market rules, was capable of generating real prosperity.

Cuba’s sugar output today does not reach 150,000 tonnes, compared to the ten million that the great epic harvest of 1970 attempted without success. The financial system operates with a schizophrenic monetary duality that has destroyed any external investor confidence. A hypothetical stabilisation would have to open to private capital – both domestic and international – the only sector with a proven track record of performance, while unifying and restoring credibility to a currency whose worth is not decreed: it is built with institutions that function.

One of the least celebrated – but perhaps most decisive – chapters of that occupation was the dissolution of the Cuban Liberation Army. Heroic in war, dysfunctional in peace, it was discharged in an orderly fashion, with compensation payments that allowed soldiers to reintegrate into civilian life. In its place, professional armed forces were built, sized to meet the real needs of the republic rather than the political appetites of strongmen. A nation cannot build democracy when it has an army that surpasses it in actual power.

More than a thousand Cuban teachers travelled to Harvard in the summer of 1900 to be trained in modern pedagogical methods. / Archive

The current Armed Forces, together with the Ministry of the Interior and the constellation of repressive entities that sustain the regime, are oversized relative to any real defensive need. They constitute, in practice, an apparatus of political control rather than an instrument of national defence, and a budgetary burden that the economy simply cannot bear.

A new administration would have to undertake, as Wood did with the Liberation Army, an orderly discharge process with the civilian reintegration of personnel. This chapter also has a geopolitical dimension that deserves to be named: Cuba is a North Atlantic nation, was an ally of the United States in the Second World War, and its position at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico makes it a strategic actor of the first order. A professional, modern Cuban army aligned with democratic standards could, in the medium term, present solid arguments for integration into the security architecture of the Western Hemisphere.

Wood imported the US educational model with an ambition unprecedented in the region. Cuba went from having barely a few hundred operational schools to more than two thousand in three years. More than a thousand Cuban teachers travelled to Harvard in the summer of 1900 to be trained in modern pedagogical methods. It was the most lucid wager of the entire occupation: nations are sustained by educated citizens, not by ignorant subjects.

A nation that in the twenty-first century faces the same structural urgencies as in the nineteenth century has paid an extraordinary historical price for its political experiments

The paradox of 2026 is that the revolution achieved high literacy rates only to then produce decades of single-party thinking, intellectual hollowing-out and a brain drain that has left the Island without its best-trained generations. More than two million people have left Cuba between 2020 and 2024, a proportion of the population without precedent in peacetime. The reconstruction of a free, pluralist education system connected to international standards would be, as in 1900, the most worthwhile investment of any process of national reconstruction.

To name this scenario is not to desire it. It is to measure honestly the depth of the accumulated failure. A nation that in the twenty-first century faces the same structural urgencies as in the nineteenth century – the same diseases transmitted by the same mosquito, the same broken infrastructure, the same dependence on an external order to provide what the State cannot – has paid an extraordinary historical price for its political experiments.

The Cuban republic was born under the tutelage of a power that knew how to act as the adult when the Island could not yet be one. It grew up denouncing that tutelage as an affront, without ever building the institutional consensuses that make guardians unnecessary. And it reached old age – more than six decades of revolution – with the same shortcomings of its infancy, magnified by the pride of one who has not learned from its mistakes.

The true emancipation of Cuba will not come from any occupation or any tutelage, however well-intentioned. It will arrive on the day when its society, with its own institutions and its own democratic consensus, is capable of providing its citizens with the clean water, electricity, healthcare and freedom they have been waiting for across generations. Until then, history will continue doing what it does best: repeating itself, with a faithfulness that no longer surprises, but that still hurts.

Translated by GH.

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