Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint warn that democratisation will require dismantling Gaesa’s economic power
“Members of the FAR [Revolutionary Armed Forces] do not enjoy as many privileges as those who are connected to FAR companies.”14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 14 June 2026 / Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint have spent years studying one of the most sensitive issues in any democratic transition: the role of the Armed Forces when an authoritarian regime falls, exhausts itself or transforms. Both Argentine academics – Tedesco is a professor at Saint Louis University in Madrid, and Diamint is a member of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research in Argentina (Conicet) and a professor at the Torcuato Di Tella University – have researched civil-military relations in Latin America, the limits of military power, the democratic management of defence, and the risks that arise when uniformed personnel retain political, economic or corporate privileges after a change of regime.
Together they have analysed the Cuban case from a perspective rarely seen in public debate: not just what would happen to the Communist Party or to the opposition in a transition, but what role the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), the Ministry of the Interior and the business network formed by the powerful military conglomerate Gaesa – which controls the majority of the national economy – would play.
14ymedio submitted the questionnaire to both experts in writing; they agreed on their answers and replied jointly, except on one question, where they offered their opinions separately.
“Resistance to change does not come so much from the FAR as from other political and economic structures”
García Aguilera. Can there be a real democratic transition in Cuba without explicit negotiation with the military?
Tedesco and Diamint. There can be, although it is very difficult, and the military who enjoy privileges and benefits do not want to lose them. A transition without negotiation will weaken the new government. The first government must be clear that it will have to make concessions in order to achieve governability.
García Aguilera. After studying Latin American transitions and the Cuban case, do you believe the FAR can be part of the democratic solution, or are they, given their current structure, the main obstacle to any real change?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. They are not the main obstacle, but there is no visible leadership at this moment pointing towards a democratisation of the FAR. It is possible that the FAR will initially defend the new regime and, when existing conditions are no longer favourable, will find ways to adapt, just as happened continue reading
in other countries in Latin America.
García Aguilera. In a transition, how can one avoid the risks of a military coup, clandestine resistance from the repressive apparatus, a split between factions, or pockets of internal rebellion?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. Resistance to change does not come so much from the FAR as from other political and economic structures. Just as happened in the countries of the former Soviet Union, they adapted to change, and Cuba has forces accustomed to the party’s command – they have no tradition of staging coups.
In the Cuban case, what is uncertain is how those military personnel connected to the economy through Gaesa will react. Members of the FAR do not enjoy as many privileges as those who are connected to FAR companies.
“Truth, justice and reparation are necessary processes for a democratic transition”
García Aguilera. How can one prevent military commanders from converting their economic power into political impunity during a transition?
Diamint. The military are soldiers of the economic owners. They are not the ones who give the orders, but the economic reforms will be the easiest to implement and the ones that will face the least resistance.
Tedesco. I do not agree with this one hundred per cent. I believe that military hierarchs will negotiate their economic and political role. The military hierarchs connected to companies have a great deal to lose.
García Aguilera. What combination of truth, justice and reparation would be viable to address the victims without falling into the extremes of amnesia or vengeance?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. Without transitional justice there will be no change, but today there are no leaders visible with sufficient legitimacy to convince society of the futility of revenge.
Truth, justice and reparation are necessary processes for a democratic transition. It must be borne in mind that the dictatorship has been in government for decades. Will it be possible to return the properties confiscated in the 1960s? Probably not. Perhaps only those that have been converted into schools or other public institutions. Those properties that are in private hands should not be expropriated.
García Aguilera. Do you believe that a Ministry of Defence led by civilians should be created from the outset?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. Yes, with clear mandates defining what will and will not be accepted. And what role the FAR will have in a democracy. With a new name that separates them from the failure of the Revolution.
“We believe that leaders and society do not understand the military problem and the power they represent”
García Aguilera. Costa Rica abolished its army and Panama eliminated its military forces after the fall of Noriega. Are these useful models for Cuba, or historical exceptions that are difficult to replicate? Could part of the FAR structures be transformed into civil protection corps, coastguards, firefighters, forest rangers, natural disaster response units or infrastructure reconstruction teams? Once Castroism is over, would Cuba need an army?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. In a country so militarised it is difficult to contemplate eliminating them. All armed forces have secondary or subsidiary missions, but these cannot be their primary purpose. Furthermore, Costa Rica had an elite agreement to eliminate the military, and Noriega held a genuine military rank, unlike Raul Castro. Those experiences cannot be transplanted to Cuba – the times, the conditions and the hegemony of the United States are all different.
García Aguilera. What should the democratic opposition, civil society and the exile community be doing right now to prepare for the military problem?
Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint. We believe that leaders and society do not understand the military problem and the power they represent. The wave of remilitarisation sweeping our region is closely linked to that ignorance among politicians of what the military is and how to use it.
The FAR will not vacate their privileged position of their own accord. A leader with broad legitimacy and well-advised must, in his or her first days in government, send a clear message and execute the necessary measures to begin the path towards civilian control of the Armed Forces.
In the case of the FAR, there must be civilian control of the military and the elimination of the economic role they exercise through Gaesa. The negotiation will be complicated and the FAR will put up every obstacle necessary to maintain their privileged position.
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This text was produced in collaboration with Cuba Siglo 21 as part of the project “Cuba: stabilise and develop”.
Translated by GH.
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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.
Eduardo López-Collazo proposes a universal public healthcare system, compatible with the private sector – more or less along the lines of the Spanish model
“The first thing is to know the truth: how many people are falling ill, how many are dying, what is lacking and who is accountable.” / Universidad de La Rioja
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 6 June 2026 / Eduardo López-Collazo belongs to that rare breed of scientists who are not content to observe the world from the laboratory. A nuclear physicist by initial training, with a doctorate in Pharmacy from the Complutense University of Madrid and a researcher in fields including immunology, sepsis, cancer and immune response, he has built a distinguished career in Spain within the field of biomedicine.
For many years he directed the Health Research Institute at La Paz University Hospital in Madrid, one of the benchmark institutions of the Spanish healthcare system. But his trajectory does not end with science. López-Collazo has also been a science communicator, columnist, cultural critic and author of books in which he tackles difficult subjects – cancer, HIV, pandemics – in prose capable of making the complex accessible to a general readership.
Born in Cuba and resident in Spain since the 1990s, he looks at the Island from the distance of exile, but also with the precision of a scientist and the sensibility of a writer.
A patient who became infected, the infection progressed to sepsis, and from there transitioned to a shock state in which the entire system has collapsed.
Question. If Cuba were a sick organism, what would its diagnosis be today?
Answer. Good question – I love analogies. I would say it is a patient in multi-organ failure. A patient who became infected, the infection progressed to sepsis, and from there transitioned to a shock state in which the entire system has collapsed. I would like to find another figure to describe it – one with a better prognosis – but I cannot find one. And it is a complicated situation because, with the resources currently available, there is nothing truly continue reading
effective against septic shock. I say this from first-hand knowledge. Sepsis and its complications have been, alongside metastasis, one of my main lines of research ever since I left the metaphorical Island – nearly three decades ago now.
Question. As a scientist, what concerns you most about a transition: the lack of resources, the lack of talent and consensus, or the lack of method?
Answer. I believe everything plays a part, but if I had to single out one cause, I would point to the lack of method. Both in science and in art – two fields that have far more in common than we generally care to admit – method is essential. Cuba has lived with its back turned to it; that is to say, turned away from the tool that makes it possible to identify an error, acknowledge it and correct it. Of course, the lack of resources is crucial. So too is the loss of talent, today scattered largely throughout the diaspora. And, regrettably, that diaspora does not appear to have reached any great consensus; nor do I see any within the Island itself.
“The talk of a medical powerhouse was propaganda with some grains of truth and a great many holes.”
Question.For decades Cuba was presented as a medical powerhouse. How much of that narrative was real, and how much was propaganda?
Answer. I want to believe that a number of public health programmes were set up on the Island that did work. Vaccination, the family doctors and nurses scheme, epidemiological surveillance – these are good examples, difficult to deny. There were also attempts to introduce cutting-edge technology, but in that area the failures were considerable, because as a rule everything is coloured by ideology. When that happens, it all goes down the drain – can I say down the drain? We see the same thing in Spain and in many other places. Either way, the talk of a medical powerhouse was propaganda with some grains of truth and a great many holes.
As I answer you, a vivid scene comes back to me. I am from a town called Jovellanos, in Matanzas, but I did my university studies and then stayed on to live in Havana. It was at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, while attempts were being made to contain the spread of the virus by methods that were, to put it mildly, rather unorthodox, when I saw that at the laboratory of the Jovellanos hospital they were pricking patients with the same lancet that, between one patient and the next, they would dip in alcohol. I remember I kicked up a tremendous fuss – and they listened to me because “he comes from Havana.”
In short: the narrative was inflated until partial virtues were turned into national myth. Cuba had good doctors; it did not have the perfect system it sold to the world.
Question.What should be the healthcare priority for a Cuba in transition: hospitals, primary care, medicines, doctors’ salaries, training, or statistical transparency?
Answer. You’re making this difficult for me. Let me think for a few seconds… The priority must be transparency. Yes, transparency. Without reliable data, nothing can be rebuilt. After that, and with equal urgency, come medicines, salaries, hospitals and primary care. But the first thing is to know the truth: how many people are falling ill, how many are dying, what is lacking and who is accountable.
“Cuba needs a universal public system, and if you press me, a mixed one with a strong public foundation.”
Question.What healthcare model might work for Cuba: a universal public system, a mixed system, a decentralised one, or would something entirely bespoke need to be designed?
Answer. I know that a large part of the diaspora is expecting me to say: private. But no – that would be a serious mistake. Cuba needs a universal public system, and if you press me, a mixed one with a strong public foundation. More or less along the lines of the Spanish model. What I am clear about is that it cannot be opaque, nor militarised. Public does not mean absolute state control. It must be decentralised, open to evaluation, compatible with regulated private initiatives and underpinned by robust primary care.
Question. Should scientists, doctors, artists and intellectuals take up public office during a transition, or should they remain as a critical conscience?
Answer. Some will need to take office and others should remain as a critical conscience. I will be among the latter, and from a distance – I’ll say it plainly, so we can spare ourselves a follow-up question (laughter). A transition cannot be left solely in the hands of recycled bureaucrats. But nor is it wise to turn every intellectual into a minister. I believe that lucidity is also a service that can be rendered from outside power.
Question. What risks do you see in a rapid opening-up of Cuba’s scientific sector: brain drain, opaque privatisation, technological dependence, capture by foreign interests, or the continuation of old structures under new names?
Answer. Allow me to put inverted commas around “Cuba’s scientific sector.” It is something rather anecdotal within the Island today. There are no longer centres of excellence doing science, and the scientists who have not yet left the country are worried about having electricity, not about interferon signalling pathways or the unification of the laws of physics.
At a certain point in history – I am talking about the late 1980s – there was a flowering of scientific infrastructure that is, by today, obsolete. Nor does a rigorously trained replacement generation exist. Many things would need to be picked up almost from scratch, and experience shows that science and its offshoots are never a priority for those who bring about the kind of social change the Island now needs.
“I research with a very artistic vision, and when I write fiction or do dance criticism I make great use of the scientific method – without that diminishing beauty in the slightest; quite the contrary.”
Question. Can artistic sensibility improve the way a scientist observes, questions, imagines and makes sense of life?
Answer. At last you’re letting me out of the scientific straitjacket. I was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen – that once you’ve been pigeonholed there’s no way to let people see the other facets.
Look, I don’t see the division between art and science; to me it’s a continuum. In fact, I research with a very artistic vision, and when I write fiction or do dance criticism I make great use of the scientific method – without that diminishing beauty in the slightest; quite the contrary.
I’ve told the story several times that one of my great laboratory projects took shape during the pas de deux in the second act of Swan Lake, in a production I saw at the Teatro Real in Madrid. I’ll just add, as an aside, that when I was getting close to having seen that ballet a thousand times, I stopped counting.
I’m not sure I’m making myself clear: without fiction, without dance – classical or contemporary – without cinema, without visiting galleries and museums… I would not be the scientist I am.
To conclude: art trains a different way of seeing. A scientist without imagination only measures; one with sensibility also suspects, connects and doubts. Science needs data, but it also needs beauty in order to formulate good questions. I always tell my university students that there are few things more beautiful than Maxwell’s equations. They are simple, concrete and only four. With them, the whole of electromagnetism is described. Pure beauty, comparable to the Sistine Chapel, the David or the Mona Lisa. And if we move on to quantum physics, relativity, or the theory of cell fusion to explain metastasis – well, that’s where we enter the territory of the sublime.
“I learned early that I had to camouflage my homosexuality, wrap it in newspaper, tuck it into a pocket and not let it show too much.”
Question. In a democratic Cuba, what place should sexual freedoms, family diversity and equality before the law occupy within the project of national reconstruction?
Answer. I am grateful for the question, because these things need to be said out loud. I am openly gay – I think at this point that is hardly a scoop – but I always remember that when I was very young, I must have been around ten, I wrote a sentence in my diary that still haunts me: “I will be myself later.” Later. Like someone who hides a suitcase under the bed to open it once the hurricane has passed.
I was born in a town, on an Island, and under a regime where anything out of the ordinary was punished. I learned early that I had to camouflage my homosexuality, wrap it in newspaper, tuck it into a pocket and not let it show too much. Otherwise, you didn’t even make it to the corner. Literally.
Question. Do you believe that a country which created forced labour camps for homosexuals is as tolerant today as it tries to project itself to the world?
Answer. I am told things have changed on the Island. Perhaps. A little. Just enough for some people to get a photograph taken. The truth is that Cuba continues to be a profoundly homophobic country, and the average Cuban – even the most educated, the most progressive, the most inclined to quote Lezama, that writer almost nobody has actually read – after the third rum, drags that particular deadweight along.
I notice it on the few occasions I find myself around people from the Island. On certain faces you can still read it, clear as day: “Fine, but don’t take it too far with the gay business.” I’ve also heard: “He’s gay, but the guy’s a genius at what he does.” The “but” as a safe-conduct pass. As if professional success earns you a temporary reprieve. As if excellence somehow compensates for the deviation. How generous!
That is why I consider it essential that any country aspiring to call itself free must have full freedom as its foundation – including sexual diversity. Without that, it excludes an enormous part of its own people. And no system, no party, no transition, no national project will have my endorsement if it intends to leave this matter for later.
Because we already know what “later” looks like.
I once sent a friend packing – a friend who was telling me, in all seriousness, that first many other things needed to be resolved before talking about LGBT rights. Of course. She had been born with those rights already in place. For her, they could wait. For us, they cannot. No one can spend an entire lifetime queuing to have the right to exist.
“Cuba needs memory so as not to repeat the harm, tolerance to integrate differences, and control mechanisms to prevent political inflammation from destroying the social fabric.”
Question. You have spent years studying the immune response. How can Cuba defend its future without turning the transition into another form of self-destruction?
Answer. Like the immune system: Cuba must defend itself without attacking itself. It needs memory so as not to repeat the harm, tolerance to integrate differences, and control mechanisms to prevent political inflammation from destroying the social fabric.
On that note, I recently published an essay entitled The Limits of Democracy in which, with the help of a neurologist friend, Pepe Castillo, we explain democracy through the lens of science. It would do no harm for those who are going to build democracy in Cuba to read it.
Question. What would be, for you, an unmistakable sign that Cuba has begun to heal?
Answer. A good sign would be that people are no longer afraid. I experienced that myself when I left in the 1990s – suddenly I stopped being afraid to talk about my plans, to criticise what was wrong, to talk about my dreams, to kiss my boyfriend in the street, and a long list of other freedoms. You know what? In recent times I have started to feel afraid again – afraid to be myself in certain places – and that means something troubling is afoot…
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This piece was produced in collaboration with Cuba Siglo 21 as part of the project “Cuba: Stabilise and Develop.”
Translated by GH
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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.
Joe García describes eight issues on the table, including political prisoners, the embargo, confiscated properties, internal reforms, and financial reintegration
According to García, the talks would not point toward an immediate expulsion, but rather a gradual scheme. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, May 24, 2026 — Much has been speculated in recent weeks about the secret agenda between Havana and Washington. But now, for the first time with this level of detail, a source with access to officials from both Governments is laying out a concrete roadmap. Businessman and former Democratic congressman Joe García speaks of eight points ranging from the release of political prisoners to the lifting of the embargo. At the center of this possible negotiation, however, appears an issue more thorny than any diplomatic gesture: the return to the Island of up to 500,000 Cubans currently living in the United States.
The figure alone is enough to shake both sides of the Florida Straits. Half a million people is not an abstract category in a federal file. They are families, workers, people who arrived under humanitarian parole, asylum seekers, and individuals with pending cases. It would also include individuals considered inadmissible because they committed crimes. Mixing everyone into the same bag may be politically useful, but humanly dangerous.
In an article published by The Palm Beach Post, García identifies eight main points in the conversations between the United States and Cuba: the release of more than 1,000 political prisoners, economic reforms, compensation for confiscated properties, political reforms, lifting the embargo, readmission of the Island into multilateral organizations, Most Favored Nation status, and the repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Cubans.
The release of political prisoners would be the minimum moral condition needed to sell any agreement to the exile community and to Congress
It would, therefore, not be a simple immigration arrangement, but rather a return to the entire chessboard of the bilateral relationship. Speaking with 14ymedio, García acknowledges that the issue of the half million migrants “is the one that moves the heart,” but he considers the other seven aspects also very “specific” and constituting “a fairly large movement.”
The release of political prisoners would be the minimum moral condition needed to sell any agreement to the exile community and to Congress; economic reforms would open the door to investments that today collide with state and military control over strategic sectors; compensation for continue reading
expropriations would touch an open wound dating back to 1959 and would require the creation of legal and financial formulas for American and Cuban claims; and political reforms would be the most sensitive point for Havana, because any real opening would call into question the monopoly of the Communist Party.
García’s statements rest on an old rule of American foreign policy: sometimes only a hawk can negotiate with the enemy without being accused of weakness. Nixon was able to open the door to China because his anti-communist record protected him from suspicion. Reagan was able to sit down with Gorbachev after having called the Soviet Union “the evil empire.” And George H. W. Bush was able to manage the Soviet collapse without turning it into a public humiliation that would push Moscow toward chaos. In all those cases, the rapprochement was not sold as
The Cuban opposition leader analyzes the challenges of a democratic transition, the role of the opposition, and the need to prevent Castroism from being recycled.
“We must put the nation above ideologies and political ambitions.” / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, May 20, 2026 / For years, the Cuban regime’s propaganda machine has attempted to sow prejudice against opponents, activists, and critical voices. Few have been the object of a smear campaign as sustained as that against José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).
It is surprising, however, to encounter this Cuban, raised in Palmarito de Cauto (Santiago de Cuba), and discover, behind the tale of persecution and dungeons, a profoundly Cuban sense of humor, a simplicity that contrasts with his physical and political stature, a culture capable of moving from the verses of Samaniego and Lope de Vega to the history of Cuba or the countries of Eastern Europe, and a rare ability to move naturally between very different worlds: sitting with diplomats and high-level politicians, stopping on a street in Madrid to talk to a Cuban who recognizes him, or standing up to the regime’s thugs from a punishment cell.
14ymedio spoke with José Daniel Ferrer in Madrid’s Plaza de Santa Ana. We talked about prison, justice, Cuba’s democratic future, and the challenges of a transition that, for many Cubans, is beginning to seem closer than ever.
Yunior García Aguilera: What did prison teach you about the type of state Cuba should never have again?
José Daniel Ferrer: From the moment I began defending human rights and fighting nonviolently for the democratization of Cuba, I knew I was fulfilling my duty as a Cuban. I was clear that we were facing a cruel dictatorship that not only violates fundamental human rights but also deeply despises Cubans.
When I was first arrested, I realized I hadn’t been wrong. The repression against me solidified that certainty. When I was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2003, I told myself again: “You weren’t wrong. You have to keep fighting against this system, because it is the worst thing that can happen to Cuba, or to any people.”
Prison taught me a fundamental lesson: never give up. Never lose heart. And even when Cuba is free, continue defending freedom and democracy in other lands as well.
That is one of the great challenges of democratic Cuba: to ensure that Cubans have equal rights and opportunities, both in the capital and in the rest of the country.
Yunior García Aguilera: You have led much of your life from eastern Cuba, not from Havana or from traditional exile. How should that eastern, rural, impoverished, and marginalized Cuba be reflected in the design of a new Republic?
José Daniel Ferrer: When the Patriotic Union of Cuba began to grow in Havana, many activists and friends told me: “Go live in Havana.” And I went. But they expelled me time and time again.
The eastern region, and indeed all of Cuba outside the capital, has suffered poverty more severely than Havana. The capital has always had some advantages, though not many. But the further east one travels, the greater the poverty has been.
I remember the 1990s, when many young people from eastern Cuba tried to go to Havana, to Ciego de Ávila to work in agriculture, or to Camagüey to work in rice farming. They looked for jobs on rice farms and then took rice back to Santiago to sell and earn a few pesos.
That is one of the great challenges of democratic Cuba: to ensure that Cubans have equal rights and opportunities, both in the capital and in the rest of the country.
The first democratic government will have the responsibility of implementing policies that allow the East to catch up in development. Cuba will become democratized, and I am sure it will be quite soon. Then will come the reconstruction. We will see the country move forward, prosper, and develop. But that development must be continue reading
as equitable as possible.
What has happened to us for 67 years will never be repeated in the history of Cuba. / 14ymedio
Yunior García Aguilera: What would you say to Cubans on the island who fear that the opposition intends, as happened in 1959, to replace one dictatorship with another?
José Daniel Ferrer: They have no reason to worry. What has happened to us for 67 years will never be repeated in the history of Cuba.
When we conquer our rights and freedoms, when we recover our democratic Republic, I am convinced that we Cubans will take such good care of freedom that it will be very difficult for another Fidel Castro, another Fulgencio Batista like the one from 1952, or a Gerardo Machado like the one from the 1930s to appear.
Freedom—and we are in a square surrounded by illustrious names of Spanish literature—as Cervantes said in Don Quixote, is one of the greatest gifts that humankind has received. After suffering the oppression, misery, and lack of basic rights imposed by the communist regime, we will understand how much we must cherish it.
The people of Eastern Europe who lived under communism understand us best. On this tour of Europe, we find it very easy to explain to Poles, Lithuanians, or Czechs what is happening in Cuba and the need for the European Union to take a firmer stance against the Cuban regime.
On the other hand, it is sometimes surprising that the French, Dutch, or Belgians do not understand the risk of neglecting freedom in the same way. They seem unaware of the danger they face when they take it for granted.
Freedom is hard-won. Martí said that either you decide to buy it, paying its price, or you have to resign yourself to living without it. But once won, you have to keep fighting to keep it.
That’s why I don’t share that fear. My exhortation to Cubans is to think positively: if we defend the conquest of freedom today, we will know how to defend it tomorrow as well.
They destroyed the economy themselves, and every reopening is used to survive, not to change. / 14ymedio
Yunior García Aguilera: Some European politicians behave like Aesop’s frog that rode the scorpion on its back: they do not know the nature of dictatorships.
José Daniel Ferrer: That’s a very clever way of explaining it. When Barack Obama launched his new policy toward the Cuban regime between 2014 and 2015, I was in the United States and in Europe. In Brussels, many interlocutors from the European Union told me, “Now, with this new US policy, Cuba is going to move toward respecting human rights and democracy.” I replied, “It’s not going to happen.” They said, “Why? There will be more contact; the Cuban government will be forced to respect the rights of Cubans a little more.” And I insisted, “It’s not going to happen.” Then I told them a story I had read years before in an old edition of Selections from Reader’s Digest. A Western journalist was secretly interviewing a disgraced Soviet official and asked him what he thought about the détente process between the West and Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviet looked at him, smiled maliciously, and said, “We Soviets are never sincere.”
That’s exactly what I told them about the Cuban regime: don’t trust them. The regime is always negotiating something, trying to buy time, gain economic benefits, and political breathing room. They destroyed the economy themselves, and they use every opening to survive, not to change. That’s what they’re trying to do now: buy time, hope that circumstances in the United States change, that things get complicated internally, and that Washington forgets about Cuba and Venezuela. But I think this time that calculation could backfire. Their dream could turn into a nightmare.
With the will of the majority, we can ensure that reason and justice prevail, not revenge.
Yunior García Aguilera: There is much talk of truth and justice to redress the crimes of the dictatorship, but also of national reconciliation. How can the damage caused be judged without turning tomorrow’s democratic courts into instruments of vengeance?
José Daniel Ferrer: It is as complex as maintaining perfect balance on a tightrope. Guaranteeing a 100% impartial justice system is a dream. I wish it were so, but wishing for it and what might happen in practice are two different things.
It must be remembered that the regime has been truly cruel to many Cubans. It has been sadistic. From the very beginning of its struggle to seize control of Cuba, it employed terrorist methods. They executed anyone for the mere accusation that they might be an informer or collaborator of Batista.
Then, those revolutionary tribunals committed many crimes. And for decades, in the prisons, there has also been torture, humiliation, and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.
That’s why it will be difficult to completely control the impulse for revenge that some Cubans may feel during a transition. But with the will of the majority, we can ensure that reason and justice prevail, not revenge.
We are not going to build a fraternal, humane, prosperous, and civilized Cuba on the basis of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” because, as someone already said, we would all end up blind and toothless. And we already have enough blind people, and enough dental problems in Cuba, without making them worse.
I believe that in a free and democratic Cuba, the support of human rights organizations, international actors, advisors, and experts, including those from countries that lived under communism, will be very important. The Poles and the Czechs, for example, have very valuable experiences.
It’s preferable that the change be Czech-style. However, who is the main obstacle to an orderly, less traumatic, and less violent process? The regime, which is determined to cling to power at all costs.
The United States, regardless of our opinions or desires, is now a decisive actor in this process, imposing certain rules. And it is still offering those who rule the tyranny a chance: “Leave, even keep what you’ve already stolen, which is far too much.” But it seems they don’t want to accept that option, as happened to Nicolás Maduro.
“You can’t just remove all the police officers overnight and replace them with new ones. It takes a process.”
Yunior García Aguilera: In a Cuba marked by increased crime and the discrediting of repressive institutions, how can public order be guaranteed in a democratic transition without preserving the dictatorship’s police apparatus intact or creating an authority vacuum?
José Daniel Ferrer: I don’t see it as impossible, but it can’t be done radically or all at once. You can’t just remove all the police officers overnight and replace them with new ones. It takes time.
In my opinion, a first step could be to gradually replace the current police force with members of the Armed Forces who are willing to assume responsibility for public order. I’m not saying there isn’t corruption or complicity with the tyranny within the FAR. Of course there is. The Army is subordinate to the Communist Party.
But the police are extremely discredited and excessively corrupt. The rules imposed by the regime have led many officers to be more concerned with how to get food, clothes, or money to celebrate their children’s birthdays or quinceañeras than with maintaining order. And how do they get it? By taking from the population, by accepting bribes from those with businesses or political influence.
Therefore, initially, it would be necessary to begin replacing those repressive bodies, which are deeply involved in corruption and discredited in the eyes of the people.
Next, it will be necessary to professionalize the security forces, depoliticize them, and rid them of corruption. We have already heard from Cubans with extensive experience in security and public order in the United States, such as Manuel Morales, Miami’s police chief, offering their expertise in this process.
“When you analyze how the regime stays in power, you discover that it is sustained by people who don’t want it.”
Yunior García Aguilera: Taking into account the experience of Venezuela, do you believe that the Cuban opposition has enough respect and strength to not be left out of a possible change or transition?
José Daniel Ferrer: The Cuban opposition, with an effective structure, true unity in action, and the necessary coordination, would be so powerful that we could achieve freedom for Cuba even without help from the United States or any other international actor.
When you analyze how the regime maintains its grip on power, you discover that it relies on people who don’t support it. When you get to know the police officer, the soldier, the civil servant; when you establish trust with them and guarantee that what they say won’t be overheard, you reach one conclusion: the regime has no one who supports it.
In prison, for example, I convinced sergeants, non-commissioned officers, lieutenants, captains, and even majors that our fight was also for them and their families. I told them there was no intention of settling scores or seeing them as enemies to be persecuted.
When I managed to make them understand me, they became collaborators. I was completely isolated, but I knew everything. I had to play dumb, pretend I didn’t know what was happening outside the prison, so that the political police would believe the isolation was working.
They came to tell me things themselves. At first they were afraid. They would say, “There are microphones.” I would reply, “Speak softly, no one will hear. And I’ve already checked every inch of this place.”
They told me, “¿Hasta cuándo? [Until when?] I can’t take it anymore. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have any oil at home. My shoes are worn out. My TV broke and I can’t afford to fix it. I get paid in electronic money and I can barely buy anything. If I want to convert it to cash, the bank charges me 20%.”
When they were with me, they seemed like opponents. But if three of them came together, they’d give me dirty looks and say, “Hey, Ferrer, how are you?” And I was dying of laughter inside, because I knew that when they came individually, they were all sweetness and light and would ask, “How long, José Daniel? When is this going to end?”
“That’s why I think the possibility of a bloodbath, like the one Díaz-Canel is announcing, is ridiculous. The people don’t want it, but neither do his own military personnel.”
I’m telling you this because we have several advantages. In Venezuela, many military personnel were more aligned with the regime because the regime prioritized them over society. In Cuba, on the other hand, the military is just as affected as most of the population. The privileged few are the top generals, a small group. Most of them also want this to end. They are tired of blackouts, hunger, poverty, transportation crises, health crises, and lack of medicine.
That’s why I think the possibility of a bloodbath, like the one Díaz-Canel is announcing, is ridiculous. The people don’t want it, but neither do his own military officers.
We have another advantage: Venezuela didn’t have a Secretary of State who was the son of a Venezuelan. We have Marco Rubio, who has been committed to freedom and democratization in Cuba for many years.
I am sure that, whatever happens – and it will happen soon – the Cuban opposition will have a much faster and more effective leading role than Venezuela has had so far.
That said, how do we ensure that happens? With greater unity, greater coordination, and above all, by putting the nation above ideologies and political ambitions.
If some try to use this moment as an election campaign for Cuba’s democratic future, they will harm the cause. That would create rivalries and mistrust: “This person wants to use my sacrifice for political gain.” And that’s not good.
They could bring out a Carlos Lage, or another well-known face, and say: “He was removed because he wanted freedom and democracy.”
This is the moment to remember José Manuel Cortina: political parties out; the homeland must be what matters. The more we talk, get to know each other, unite, and act together, the greater our capacity will be to participate in the change that Cuba needs.
We need something similar to what Solidarity was in Poland, the Indian National Congress in the struggle for independence, the African National Congress in South Africa, or that Chilean coalition where center-left and center-right forces, social democrats and Christian democrats, participated to promote the “No” vote against Pinochet. [see also] They won by a narrow margin, but they won because they put together a very organized and united campaign.
Later, in a democracy, everyone will know what alliances to form and how to run in elections. But even then, we will have to build alliances with those who are closest to our goals, because alone we cannot face an enemy that will try to reinvent itself.
Yunior García Aguilera:. How could that enemy be recycled?
José Daniel Ferrer: They could bring up a Carlos Lage, or another well-known figure, and say, “He was sidelined because he wanted freedom and democracy.” They could make him their star candidate and try to win the election against a pro-democracy opposition that has suffered imprisonment, torture, exile, and death.
But if the opposition can’t organize itself, it could lose. The World Series isn’t won by the team with the best players, but by the one with good players who truly play as a team. That’s what we have to do.
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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.
Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro, but he is terrified of ending up like Ceausescu
The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, May 16, 2026 – Havana looks like a bombed-out city, even though no enemy has yet signed the order to attack. Buildings split open like broken ribs. Balconies hang over the sidewalk with the stubbornness of the hanged. The city—one of the most beautiful in the region—now looks like a mouth full of cavities. Almost all the photos arriving from the capital seem taken by a war correspondent.
Smoke rises from several corners. Garbage accumulated for days burns in the streets. Plastic burns, rotten food burns, and patience burns. The air seems to come from a diseased factory. People cross those toxic clouds dodging sewage water, loose wires, holes, and rubble. Havana breathes with lungs full of ash.
But the bombs still have not fallen. The Island reached the postwar period before going through the war. The entire country has been devastated by a regime more persistent than white phosphorus.
In that landscape, the external threat appears almost like a gift for those in power. The Trump Administration mixes sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and increasingly harsh warnings. But everything indicates, for now, that Washington prefers to force a negotiation rather than open fire. The regime’s strategists seem to have understood this. That is why they play for time, raise the tone, overact resistance, and transfer—as always—the full weight of the crisis onto the shoulders of the people.
When there is no prosperity left to promise nor future left to administer, there is always the besieged square. / 14ymedio
Díaz-Canel is not afraid of ending up like Maduro. The former Venezuelan dictator, at least until today, remains alive, protected, and turned into a judicial piece rather than a corpse. The gray-haired diva from Placetas fears another kind of ending. He fears ending up like Ochoa, like the de la Guardia brothers, or like Alejandro Gil: devoured by the same machinery he helped sustain. But what truly should keep him awake at night is ending up like Ceausescu, suddenly facing a crowd that no longer obeys or applauds.
That is why the external threat seems less nightmarish to him. It allows him to play the victim, gather international solidarity, and demand absolute loyalty within the borders. The external enemy is the narrative oxygen of every exhausted dictatorship. When there is no prosperity left to promise nor future left to administer, there is always continue reading
the besieged square.
In political science there is a social phenomenon called rally round the flag: the closing of ranks around the flag. John Mueller studied it in 1970 while analyzing spikes in presidential popularity during international crises. William Baker and John Oneal later expanded the debate about its causes. When a community feels attacked from outside, even those who detest the government may lower the volume of their reproaches so as not to appear allied with the aggressor.
Iran offers a recent example. The Islamic Republic has repressed protests, imprisoned dissidents, and governed through terror. However, in the face of attacks or external threats, critical sectors may close ranks in the name of national sovereignty. The external threat does not erase internal discontent, but it can discipline it for a time. It does not convince everyone; it is enough if it paralyzes a few.
A real external threat would allow him to disguise mediocrity as martyrdom
Cuba is not Iran, but the mechanism is similar. Many critical voices inside and outside the Island perfectly recognize Castroism’s responsibility for the national ruin. But faced with the possibility of foreign intervention, some weigh every word, postpone demands, and moderate their tone. They fear appearing, through manipulation or clumsiness, in the invader’s photo. The regime knows that hesitation. It exploits it without scruples. It needs Washington to shout so it can demand silence in Havana.
For Díaz-Canel, a war against the United States could also function as retrospective absolution. His administration has been disastrous. His authority is borrowed. His popularity has never even approached discreetly decent figures. A real external threat would allow him to disguise mediocrity as martyrdom.
And part of the international press would seize the opportunity to tell the worn-out story of the besieged small country, the uncompromising leader, the modern Numancia. That is all the stage scenery Castroism needs to hide hunger, garbage, blackouts, prisons, and fear.
Raúl Castro’s grandson has been closer to the CIA than the most radical of the Cuban opposition
But reality insists on ruining their script. In Cuba, despite the blackmail of the besieged flag, protests are indeed taking place. They are not always massive nor organized. Sometimes they are merely a street standing its ground, a neighborhood shouting, pots and pans banging in the middle of blackouts, a garbage dump in flames, or a mother who cannot take it anymore. But they exist. And that is precisely what terrifies the regime.
Those in power would like to convince the world that every internal protest is an enemy operation. They would like every outraged Cuban to have to choose between patriotic hunger and the foreign missile. They would like to reduce the country to two miserable options: obey the Party or serve as a pretext for Washington. But after decades of accusing us of being “CIA agents,” now it turns out they are the ones sitting comfortably chatting with the ogre from the story. Raúl Castro’s grandson has been closer to the CIA than the most radical of the Cuban opposition.
The scenario the regime fears most is the insubordination of the hungry. Not the aircraft carrier facing the Malecón, but the entire neighborhood facing Party headquarters. Not the attack order signed in Washington, but the intimate, collective, and irreversible decision to lose fear in Cuba. If the social explosion repeats itself, Díaz-Canel will discover that his true ending was not written in English, but in Cuban.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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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.
Amelia Calzadilla achieved something difficult: connecting with real Cubans, with ordinary people, exhausted by blackouts, shortages, abuses, lies, and fear.
It is unfair to demand from every opponent the perfection that the dictatorial machinery itself prevented us from achieving. / Facebook / Amelia Calzadilla
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, May 2, 2026 / One of the most common sports among Cubans is public shaming. I’m not talking about honest, necessary, even harsh criticism. I’m talking about that emotional machinery that kicks in against anyone who dares to step forward. The moment someone tries to organize an idea, propose a path, found a project, or take on a responsibility, the stones appear.
Some of these attacks, of course, come from the apparatus of the dictatorship. We know how they operate. They have resources, agents, smear campaigns, fake accounts, television programs, and spokespeople trained to destroy reputations. But not all the stones come from there. Some are born from ourselves, from our wounds, our frustration, from that anthropological damage left by decades of living under a system that rewards obedience and punishes initiative.
One doesn’t have to agree with every project to recognize the value of boldness. Nor do you have to applaud everything, suspend critical judgment, or make anyone untouchable. We’ve already suffered enough from absolute rule. And a democracy isn’t built by replacing one altar with another. But neither is it achieved by demolishing every leader at their founding moment, before they can breathe, make mistakes, correct themselves, and mature.
We want one person to carry the shortcomings of an entire nation on their shoulders.
No opposition leader emerges fully formed. That is a dangerous fantasy. Political maturity is a complex process, especially for those of us who come from authoritarian backgrounds. In a free society, people can join parties, debate platforms, lose internal elections, learn from campaigns, study others’ experiences, and train themselves in the exercise of citizenship. In Cuba, on the other hand, real politics has been hijacked for more than six decades by a single group in power. We were educated to repeat their slogans, not to deliberate. We were conditioned to in-or-out, and were never allowed to organize ourselves. We were taught to distrust everyone, not to build public trust.
That is why it’s unfair to demand from each new opposition figure the perfection that the dictatorial machinery itself prevented us from developing. We expect impeccable biographies, carefully crafted programs, perfect teams, flawless language, a heroic past, academic preparation, popular appeal, serenity, audacity, humility, charisma, strategy, and immediate results. We want one person to shoulder the shortcomings continue reading
of an entire nation. And when they can’t, we accuse them of being unprepared, ambitious, naive, or worse, a product manufactured by the regime itself.
Perfect leadership only exists in retrospect. They are a dubious construct of time. After victory, history smooths over contradictions, polishes doubts, erases blunders, organizes the narrative, and presents as destiny what was often trial and error, chance, mistakes, persistence, and learning. But in real life, leadership is born chaotic. It contradicts itself. It changes tone. It makes mistakes. The consolidation of ideas almost never happens in a straight line. It happens amidst noise, pressure, exhaustion, urgency, and also human vanity, because no leader is made of marble.
Amelia Calzadilla doesn’t have to be to everyone’s taste. Her political project can and should be discussed. Her ideas should be examined. Her party, like any other, will have to demonstrate whether it has structure, a platform, a vision, a team, and the ability to coordinate with other efforts. No one is obligated to follow her blindly. But it would be unfair not to acknowledge some of her merits.
Willpower, in exile, is no small thing. Exile wears you down. It disrupts your life. It forces you to start over.
Amelia achieved something difficult: connecting with real Cubans, with ordinary people, exhausted by blackouts, shortages, abuses, lies, and fear. Her voice emerged from a concrete, everyday, and relatable discontent. And that authenticity allowed her to reach many. Not all opposition figures achieve that. Some have a track record, but they don’t connect. Others have intellectual preparation, but they aren’t known outside certain circles. Amelia, with her successes and her limitations—like everyone—has demonstrated communication skills, social awareness, and a will that shouldn’t be underestimated.
Willpower in exile is no small thing. Exile is exhausting. It disrupts life. It forces you to start over. It brings hardship, grief, guilt, loneliness, bureaucracy, low-paying jobs, homesickness, attacks, and suspicion. Many arrive with a desire to act and end up crushed by the routine of survival. Maintaining political intent amidst these ups and downs requires considerable energy. That a young woman, a mother, in exile, decides not to limit herself to denouncing injustice, but to attempt to build a political platform, deserves at least our respect.
This isn’t about declaring her project infallible. It isn’t. No human project is. It is about understanding that pluralism can’t just be a pretty word to use against dictatorship. It has to be practiced among ourselves as well. Pluralism means accepting that parties, movements, platforms, leaders, and proposals will emerge that don’t fully align with our expectations. It means discussing without annihilating. Questioning without humiliating. Recognizing risks without turning disagreement into a moral condemnation.
Cuban democracy, if it ever arrives, will need more than slogans against the Communist Party. It will need a different political culture. And that culture cannot be improvised after the fall of the regime; it must be practiced now. Every time we respond to the emergence of an initiative with mockery, automatic suspicion, or public condemnation, we reproduce a part of the authoritarian country we claim to want to overcome.
Criticism is essential, but spite does not build. High standards are healthy, but paralyzing perfectionism can be another form of sterility. We have been waiting too long for the ideal leader, the definitive project, the figure capable of single-handedly toppling a military regime that has been in power for over six decades. Perhaps that waiting is also a trap. Perhaps the solution lies not in finding the perfect leader, but in allowing many imperfect leaders to emerge, compete, collaborate, fail, learn, and try again.
______________________
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.
Amelia Calzadilla achieved something difficult: connecting with real Cubans, with ordinary people, exhausted by blackouts, shortages, abuses, lies, and fear.
It is unfair to demand from every opponent the perfection that the dictatorial machinery itself prevented us from achieving. / Facebook / Amelia Calzadilla
14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, May 2, 2026 / One of the most common pastimes among Cubans is public shaming. I’m not talking about honest, necessary, even harsh criticism. I’m talking about that emotional machinery that kicks in against anyone who dares to step forward. The moment someone tries to organize an idea, propose a path, found a project, or take on a responsibility, the stones appear.
Some, of course, come from the apparatus of the dictatorship. We know how they operate. They have resources, agents, smear campaigns, fake accounts, television programs, and spokespeople trained to destroy reputations. But not all the stones come from there. Some are born from ourselves, from our wounds, our frustration, from that anthropological damage left by decades of living under a system that rewards obedience and punishes initiative.
You don’t have to agree with every project to recognize the value of boldness. Nor do you have to applaud everything, suspend critical judgment, or make anyone into an untouchable figure. We’ve already suffered enough from the absolute chiefdoms. And a democracy isn’t built by replacing one altar with another. But neither is it achieved by demolishing every leader at their founding moment, before they can breathe, make mistakes, correct themselves, and mature.
We want one person to carry the shortcomings of an entire nation on their shoulders.
No opposition leader emerges fully formed. That’s a dangerous fantasy. Political maturity is a complex process, especially for those of us who come from authoritarian backgrounds. In a free society, people can join parties, debate platforms, lose internal elections, learn from campaigns, study others’ experiences, and train themselves in the exercise of citizenship. In Cuba, however, real politics has been confiscated for more than six decades by a single group in power. They educated us to repeat their slogans, not to deliberate. We were conditioned to in-or-out, and were never allowed to organize ourselves. We were taught to distrust everyone, not to build public trust.
That is why it is unfair to demand from each new opposition figure the perfection that the dictatorial machinery itself prevented us from developing. We expect impeccable biographies, carefully crafted continue reading
programs, perfect teams, flawless language, a heroic past, academic preparation, popular appeal, serenity, audacity, humility, charisma, strategy, and immediate results. We want one person to shoulder the shortcomings of an entire nation. And when they can’t, we accuse them of being unprepared, ambitious, naive, or worse, a product manufactured by the regime itself.
Perfect leadership sonly exists in retrospect. They are a dubious construct of time. After victory, history smooths over contradictions, polishes doubts, erases blunders, organizes the narrative, and presents as destiny what was often trial and error, chance, mistakes, persistence, and learning. But in real life, leadership is born chaotic. It contradicts itself. It changes tone. It makes mistakes. The consolidation of ideas almost never happens in a straight line. It happens amidst noise, pressure, exhaustion, urgency, and also human vanity, because no leader is made of marble.
Amelia Calzadilla doesn’t have to be liked by the whole world. Her political project can and should be discussed. Her ideas should be examined. Her party, like any other, will have to demonstrate whether it has structure, a platform, a vision, a team, and the ability to coordinate with other efforts. No one is obligated to follow her blindly. But it would be unfair not to acknowledge some of her merits.
Willpower, in exile, is no small thing. Exile wears you down. It disrupts your life. It forces you to start over.
Amelia achieved something difficult: connecting with real Cubans, with ordinary people, exhausted by blackouts, shortages, abuses, lies, and fear. Her voice emerged from a concrete, everyday, and relatable resistance. And that authenticity allowed her to reach many. Not all opposition figures achieve that. Some have a track record, but they don’t connect. Others have intellectual preparation, but they aren’t known outside certain circles. Amelia, with her successes and her limitations—like everyone—has demonstrated communication skills, social awareness, and a will that shouldn’t be underestimated.
Willpower, and in exile, is no small thing. Exile is exhausting. It disrupts life. It forces you to start over. It brings hardship, grief, guilt, loneliness, bureaucracy, low-paying jobs, homesickness, attacks, and suspicion. Many arrive with a desire to act and end up crushed by the routine of survival. Maintaining political intent amidst these ups and downs requires considerable energy. That a young woman, a mother, in exile, decides not to limit herself to denouncing injustice, but to attempt to build a political platform, deserves at least our respect.
This isn’t about declaring her project infallible. It is not. No human project is. It is about understanding that pluralism can’t just be a pretty word to use against dictatorship. It has to be practiced among ourselves as well. Pluralism means accepting that parties, movements, platforms, leaders, and proposals will emerge that don’t fully align with our expectations. It means discussing without annihilating. Questioning without humiliating. Recognizing risks without turning disagreement into a moral firing squad wall.
Cuban democracy, if it ever arrives, will need more than slogans against the Communist Party. It will need a different political culture. And that culture cannot be improvised after the fall of the regime; it must be practiced now. Every time we respond to the emergence of an initiative with mockery, automatic suspicion, or public condemnation, we reproduce a part of the authoritarian country we claim to want to overcome.
Criticism is essential, but brutality is not productive. High standards are healthy, but paralyzing perfectionism can be another form of sterility. We have been waiting too long for the ideal leader, the definitive project, the figure capable of single-handedly toppling a military regime that has been in power for over six decades. Perhaps that waiting is also a trap. Perhaps the solution lies not in finding the perfect leader, but in allowing many imperfect leaders to emerge, compete, collaborate, fail, learn, and try again.
______________________
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.
One doesn’t need to hold any position to represent true power
Internal struggles to eliminate competitors, gain influence, or secure exclusive patronage have always been intense. / EFE/ Ernesto Mastrascusa
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, April 23, 2026 — It is true that power in Cuba is no longer as concentrated as before, that command has fragmented, and that the country seems to have moved from absolute verticalism to a kind of collective management of disaster. Today, more operators, more layers, more intermediaries, and more sectoral elites are visible than in the years of classic Fidel Castroism. But this does not imply that power has ceased to be concentrated. Management has fragmented, but what has not fragmented is command. And that command, even today, still points to a single name and his inner circle: Raúl Castro.
The Cuban regime no longer functions as it did in the years when the bearded leader monopolized the discourse and transformed every governing problem into an extension of his personal will. That model, for both biological and historical reasons, is exhausted. In its place has emerged another architecture, less charismatic and more bureaucratic. But opacity does not equate to a distribution of power. The fact that today the administrators of the apparatus, the trusted technocrats, the military-businessmen, the guards, and the ideological commissars have a greater presence in public affairs does not mean that they all carry equal weight or that they collectively decide the strategic direction of the system.
This nuance corrects the illusion that true power simply erodes through attrition. Sometimes the opposite occurs. The disappearance of the founding leadership opens the door to new, more discreet concentrations of power. In Cuba, authority no longer needs to appear as frequently as before to maintain its monopoly on power.
Raúl Castro unquestionably determines when to set limits, order successions, or bless high-risk contacts
Last March, in the midst of negotiations with the United States, Miguel Díaz-Canel was quick to emphasize that the talks were being led by him — with an almost anxious emphasis on that “by me”—along with Raúl Castro and other officials. The inflection in his voice betrayed more than it clarified. It seemed to reflect the increasingly widespread perception that he plays a largely decorative role, not truly occupying the center of power. His formal titles—President of the Republic and First Secretary of the Communist Party—are not enough to dispel that suspicion. Even less so when, at those same crucial moments, the presence of Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Raúl’s grandson and bodyguard, served as a reminder that the truly sensitive areas of power still revolve around the old inner circle, and that no official position is necessary to represent the true authority.
In fact, when one looks at where Raúl Castro appears, he always appears in the decisive position. He unquestionably determines when to set limits, order successions, or bless high-risk contacts. It was he, and no one else, who chose Díaz-Canel for all his posts and who has allowed him to remain there. It was also he who proposed indefinitely postponing the Party congress scheduled for 2026, and then the Central Committee unanimously approved the proposal. To call that “collective leadership” requires a rather generous imagination. continue reading
And yet, that is precisely the formula that Díaz-Canel repeats. Last April 12, in the interview with NBC, he said that the leadership of the Revolution was not “personalized in one person” and affirmed “we have a collective leadership,” with unity, cohesion, revolutionary discipline, and hundreds of people capable of assuming responsibilities and making decisions collectively.
In Cuba there is collective administration, yes, but in the sense that an apparatus distributes functions, not in the sense that it distributes ultimate command. The collegiality serves to share responsibilities, so that several cadres bear the weight of deterioration and so that no one appears indispensable on the surface. But when the matter touches on the regime’s security, the relationship with Washington, or the architecture of succession, the system does not revert to a horizontal collective; it gravitates once again toward the intimate center where family, security, and historical trust converge.
Outside the family, all those who occupy these positions of micro-power do so precariously. They can disappear with the snap of a finger.
During the thaw with Obama, the key player was Alejandro Castro Espín, Raúl’s son, who was then linked to the national security apparatus. And now, all eyes are on Raúl Guillermo, known as El Congrejo, [The Crab]. In other words, when Washington wants to know who to talk to so that a conversation isn’t just a formality, it ends up reaching into the orbit of the Castro family and their most trusted contacts.
The same thing happens within the country. There are, of course, the administrators of the apparatus: Díaz-Canel, Roberto Morales Ojeda, Manuel Marrero, governors, ministers, and Party secretaries. There are the reliable technocrats, promoted to manage critical areas without altering the logic of command. There are the military businessmen, heirs to the economic power concentrated for years in Gaesa and in the circle of the late López-Calleja, Raúl Castro’s son-in-law and father of El Cangrejo.
But outside the family, all those who occupy these positions of micro-power do so precariously. They can disappear with the snap of a finger. The list of officials, cadres, and technocrats wiped off the political map is too long for this space, but a quick glance reveals inevitable patterns. No matter how high an administrator has climbed within the system, nothing protects them from a swift fall. There are the cases of Arnaldo Ochoa, José Abrantes, and the de la Guardia brothers, but also, on a different scale and at a different time, those of Carlos Lage, Felipe Pérez Roque, and Alejandro Gil.
No one is certain that Donald Trump will drastically end Castroism
Nor is the supposed “unity” within the power structures real. In the digital-propaganda sphere, the irreconcilable differences between Iroel Sánchez and Abel Prieto were well known. Internal struggles to eliminate competitors, gain influence, or secure exclusive patronage have always been intense. Today, the battle for the narrative is not only cultural; it also involves surveillance, defamation, mobilizing alliances, and managing fear.
Cuban power no longer takes the simple form of the one-man rule of previous decades. But when Fidel Castro died, everyone knew who his successor was. Now, new concentrations of power have emerged, various groups that manage different parts of the system, while a small core retains the ability to dictate the essentials. The big question is what will happen when Raúl Castro physically disappears.
No one can be certain that Donald Trump will drastically end Castro’s regime. But even surviving his threats, the regime doesn’t seem capable of sustaining itself indefinitely. If social and external pressure continues, it is unlikely anyone will be able to demonstrate sufficient credentials to proclaim themselves the legitimate heir to the dictatorial power. And that moment is inevitably approaching at full speed.
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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.
More details emerge from the NBC interview: the Cuban leader avoided any self-criticism, denied the existence of political prisoners, and blamed the crisis on the United States
Díaz-Canel during the interview broadcast by NBC this Sunday. / EFE/Screenshot
14ymedio, Yunior García, Madrid, April 13, 2026 – The U.S. network NBC published this Sunday the full interview with Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, conducted by journalist Kristen Welker on the program Meet the Press.
Not accustomed to facing the foreign press—until now he has moved almost exclusively among official media or international interlocutors aligned with the regime—Díaz-Canel responded harshly and took refuge in the most worn-out repertoire of Cuban power.
Over more than 50 minutes, he did not assume a single political responsibility for the country’s deterioration. On the contrary, he defended the continuity of the system, rejected any conditions from Washington, and presented himself as part of a “collective leadership” willing even to “give their lives for the Revolution.”
In the face of threats from Donald Trump, Díaz-Canel also suggests that aggressive language toward Cuba has not come solely from the U.S. president but also from other members of his administration, in a barely veiled reference to Marco Rubio, whom he avoids mentioning by name in that part of the interview.
Instead of using the space to ease tensions or outline a political solution, the president once again situates himself on the terrain of resistance, the ‘besieged plaza’, and a nation permanently on guard. A serious leader would have spoken of de-escalation, international legality, and the protection of civilians. Díaz-Canel, however, preferred the liturgy of martyrdom and the use of the population as a rear guard for the doctrine of “war of the whole people.”
In the face of threats from Donald Trump, Díaz-Canel also suggests that aggressive language toward Cuba has not come solely from the U.S. president
The Cuban leader avoids drawing parallels between Cuba and other countries and takes refuge in the Island’s historical singularity, but that caution does not erase a recent uncomfortable fact. The doctrine of “civic-military unity,” which Chavismo copied from Castroism, has already shown its most resounding failure in Caracas. continue reading
In the section devoted to fuel, Díaz-Canel admits, perhaps more clearly than at any other moment in the interview, the magnitude of Cuba’s energy precariousness. He acknowledges that the recently arrived Russian tanker “will only cover one-third of Cuba’s monthly oil needs,” that this crude still has to be refined and distributed, and that much of it will be used to recover 1,200 megawatts that have been out of service for four months.
From there he tries to wrap the Island’s dependence on Russia in the language of resistance and sovereignty, but what remains is the admission of a country that cannot sustain its economy or its electrical system without immediate external assistance.
When the journalist asks whether he assumes any responsibility for “the suffering Cubans are experiencing,” Díaz-Canel does not offer a single concrete admission of mismanagement, economic design errors, state inefficiency, or internal obstacles. He simply turns the question back: “What is the main cause of that suffering?” His answer is evasive: “It is not the Cuban government’s fault.” With that statement, he abruptly shuts down any serious examination of the State’s role in the electrical collapse, food shortages, lack of medicines, or mass emigration.
His evasiveness becomes even more evident when visible poverty in Havana, 20-hour blackouts, and the departure of hundreds of thousands of Cubans are addressed. He acknowledges that “our people are living very harsh conditions daily,” but avoids linking that suffering to a centralized, unproductive, and politically closed model.
He prefers to describe the population as resilient. “The Cuban people feel frustrated,” yes, but “the majority of the Cuban people do not blame the Cuban government.” The claim contradicts what can be observed on social media and even in the streets, where more and more citizens openly reject not only his management but also the power structure that sustains it.
When NBC lists some of the demands Washington typically puts on the table—release of political prisoners, multiparty elections, independent unions, and a free press—Díaz-Canel responds with a mix of denial and disdain. He first claims that “no one” has raised those demands with him. Then he makes it clear that, in any case, the Cuban political system and “constitutional order” are not subject to negotiation.
The most revealing moment comes when he reduces democracy, human rights, freedom of the press, and union autonomy to mere “paraphernalia” of manipulated concepts loaded with “prejudices.” That is, he does not refute the accusations, offer evidence, or address the substance of the issue. He simply discredits in advance the language used to question him. His closing escape—“we don’t have time now,” “it would take a long time to discuss it”—completes the picture of the maneuver.
NBC presses on, mentions Maykel “Osorbo,”* and places the number of those imprisoned for political reasons at more than 1,200. “It is a big lie,” the president responds.
NBC presses on, mentions Maykel “Osorbo,”* and places the number of those imprisoned for political reasons at more than 1,200. “It is a big lie,” the president responds. According to his version, in Cuba protest is not punished, but rather vandalism and subversion encouraged from abroad. But reviewing case by case the files, charges, and sentences imposed on protesters, artists, opponents, and activists shows that it is Díaz-Canel himself who distorts reality.
In the diplomatic arena, the leader presents himself as open to negotiating with the United States but under an absolute condition: that “our political system” and “our constitutional order” not be touched. He asserts that dialogue and agreements “are possible but difficult,” and lists areas of cooperation such as migration, drug trafficking, terrorism, and investments.
One of the most revealing moments comes at the end. When asked whether he would be willing to resign to “save Cuba,” Díaz-Canel responds irritably with a phrase that sums up the essence of the entire interview: “The concept of revolutionaries abandoning and resigning is not part of our vocabulary.”
*Maykel Castillo Pérez is the real name of Maykel Obsorbo, an independent musician. He co-founded the San Isidro movement in protest of Decree Law 349, which required artists to get State permission for exhibitions and performances.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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What must they be thinking in Washington and Moscow about the bovine logistics introduced by Havana in the “war of all the people”?
Following the same logic, the Strait of Hormuz could be closed with a pair of barracudas. / Screenshot
14ymedio,Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, April 11, 2026 – Social media of the regime have once again delivered one of those scenes conceived halfway between parody, mockery, and Cuban-style ridicule. In the videos of defense preparations circulating this Saturday, several half-malnourished uniformed men deploy around a rural house, crouch down, take positions, and simulate a military operation with the seriousness of someone who believes they are participating in the prelude to the Normandy landings. Except that in the middle of the scene, a camouflaged cart bursts in, pulled by a pair of oxen, as if it were a secret, decisive, and impregnable weapon.
In some Pentagon office, one imagines U.S. generals watching the videos in silence, first with confusion, then rewinding them to make sure they are not looking at a meme, and finally wondering whether it is a military exercise or a Gaesa agricultural fair. Perhaps one of them has concluded that there is no need to deploy drones, satellites, or precision missiles against an adversary that still seems to fight its battles in the Middle Ages.
On the other side, it is also easy to imagine the discomfort of Havana’s allies. In Moscow, perhaps someone has looked away to avoid admitting that, after sending weapons, oil, and political support, the great showcase of Cuban “resistance” ends up making such blunders. Even in Tehran, perhaps some strategist has thought that, following the same logic, the Strait of Hormuz could be closed with a pair of barracudas, three sharks, and a boat covered with dry grass. continue reading
It’s one thing is to improvise in a ruined country and quite another to turn precariousness into military doctrine
While the world discusses autonomous drones, electronic jamming systems, highly precise guided missiles, and wars fought thousands of miles away through screens, satellites, and sensors, in Cuba the defensive epic seems to continue relying on bovine logistics. The ox, slow and completely alien to the rhetoric of the “imperial enemy,” thus enters the cast of the “war of all the people.”
There will be no shortage of those who say it is ingenuity, adaptation to shortages, or a display of “creative resistance.” But it’s one thing to improvise in a ruined country and quite another to turn precariousness into military doctrine and, on top of that, to showcase it. In the images, soldiers run around, smear their faces with mud, cover themselves with grass and bushes, as if thermal weapons, night vision, and satellite surveillance had not yet been discovered.
What is laughable, however, stops being amusing when the context is observed. Since January, after the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the cutoff of Venezuelan oil shipments, the Cuban regime has intensified its military maneuvers and the staging of defense exercises. In parallel, the energy crisis has worsened to extremes that affect daily life, the electrical grid, and essential services.
That is where the oxen from Villa Clara come into the scene, not as a tactical innovation, but as a prop resource to disguise waste
The Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin arrived with about 730,000 barrels of crude, a limited amount whose real dilemma is not its volume but what the authorities will decide to spend it on. That aid will not last long if it ends up squandered on absurd war drills. While operations in hospitals are suspended, supplies are scarce, and the healthcare system operates at the limit due to blackouts and lack of fuel, the State continues to find thousands of liters, week after week, to move tanks, helicopters, and heavy equipment, as has been seen in previous maneuvers.
Now propagandists seem to have understood that it is no longer effective to denounce to the world that there is no fuel for pediatric services but there is for weekly military deployments. The narrative of permanent victimization runs into the evidence of a power that, when it comes to shielding itself, always finds reserves, diesel, mobilization, and staging. Perhaps that is where the oxen from Villa Clara come in, not as a tactical innovation, but as a prop resource to disguise waste.
In a collapsed country, wasting fuel on useless exercises to reassure a nervous leadership does not convey strength. It conveys fear. And also disconnection. The distance between power and the needs of the people is measured today in hours of blackouts, canceled bus routes, lost harvests, and exhausted hospitals. But also, it seems, it can be measured in the length of a cart pulled by oxen and presented as if it were a strategic resource.
The scene provokes laughter, yes. But then it leaves something worse: the certainty that, while the country sinks, those in power continue playing at war with the fuel they deny the population. And so, among dry grass, mud camouflage, and the weary pace of military cattle, the Revolution ends up demonstrating that it no longer knows how to run a country and barely manages to herd its own decline.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The moral dilemma of those of us who aspire to democratic change on the Island
José Martí defined love for one’s homeland as a bifurcation of angers. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, Yunior García Aguilera, April 2, 2026 – A large part of the world looks toward Cuba without fully understanding what is happening on the Island or the moral tensions that run through its citizens. Some are scandalized that there are Cubans who come to wish for foreign intervention to escape the regime. Others do not understand how there are still people willing to defend, even with their lives, a system that has ruined the country and can only offer misery, surveillance, and calls to battle. There are also those who view Cuba as an abstract symbol, a stage of sacrifice useful for feeding others’ ideological nostalgias.
In Abdala, written when he was barely 15 years old, José Martí defined love for one’s homeland as a bifurcation of angers: “the invincible hatred of those who oppress it” and “the eternal resentment toward those who attack it.” More than a century and a half later, the Cuban drama remains trapped in that same emotional logic, though distorted by history.
A portion of Cubans who long for a free Cuba concentrate their moral energy on invincible hatred toward the dictatorship; that is, toward the apparatus of control, fear, and servitude that Castroism turned into a system. Another portion, made up of regime loyalists or those still trapped in its worldview, cling to eternal resentment toward the United States: its threats, its real or imagined grievances, and the ever-invoked hypothesis of intervention. Between hatred and resentment, Cuba risks never becoming a true project of freedom but merely an endless battlefield of grievances.
In countries where free elections, alternation of power, and institutional channels exist, it would be absurd to wish for a foreign army to enter and overthrow the government
It must be said plainly: I do not want bombs to fall on the land where I was born. But neither do I want a regime that has destroyed the nation and represses its inhabitants to remain in power, condemning us to a slow extinction. That is my moral dilemma.
From consolidated democracies, this may be difficult continue reading
to understand. In countries where free elections, alternation, and institutional channels exist, it would be absurd to wish for a foreign army to enter and overthrow the government. But Cubans have been stripped precisely of that basic possibility.
In Cuba, the electoral system is hijacked by the Candidacy Commissions and State Security. There is not a single deputy who represents the opposition, even though its weight within society is already undeniable. The ballot used by the National Assembly in 2023 to “elect” the president contained a single name: Miguel Díaz-Canel. To call such a procedure an election is a mockery. If Cubans cannot organize politically, compete at the polls, protest in the streets, or express themselves without risk on social media, then the question becomes inevitable: what real options do we have left to remove the tyrants from power?
Cuban civil society has attempted even the most peaceful and civic avenues imaginable within a dictatorship. Opponents such as Oswaldo Payá died under never-clarified circumstances. Others were exiled. Many are imprisoned or subjected to constant harassment. It should not be surprising, then, that ideas once considered marginal, such as foreign intervention or annexation, have gained ground. Those of us who oppose such outcomes must at least recognize that they are a direct consequence of the Revolution’s failure as a national project. When a regime closes off every internal avenue for change, the temptation of an external solution stops seeming like an extravagance and becomes a symptom of disaster.
Almost no one can seriously defend the “achievements of the Revolution” anymore, because little remains of them but rubble
Meanwhile, part of the international left celebrates our misery as if it were a badge of dignity. From comfortable stages, scarcity, repression, and immobility are exalted as proof of resistance against the Empire. We are expected to preserve the authoritarian system intact to satisfy the nostalgia or ideological fascination of those who would not have to suffer its consequences.
Many of these admirers only know Cuba from hotels, ruins turned into photographic scenery, or the screens of their phones. Almost no one can seriously defend the “achievements of the Revolution” anymore, because little remains of them but rubble. Yet the embargo continues to be invoked as a universal excuse. It is forgotten that when Cuba received nearly unlimited resources from the USSR, it did not use them to modernize the country but for military and ideological adventures abroad. It is also forgotten that the Venezuelan subsidy did not correct the model’s structural flaws. The problem was never a lack of resources. The problem has been, above all, the system.
That is why the metaphor of Cuba as a “new Numancia*” -used to praise its supposed resistance- is so perverse. Numancia does not symbolize abstract dignity, but siege, hunger, degradation, and extermination. Presenting Cuba as Numancia amounts to suggesting that its greatness lies in enduring suffering indefinitely.
In Cuba, those in power seem more willing to negotiate with external actors capable of pressuring them than with their own citizens, whom they treat as subjects
Talking about solutions requires abandoning both naïve epic narratives and providential superstition. It is unlikely that Cuban civil society, alone and without fractures within the power structure, can defeat the regime through open rebellion. Asking an unarmed, impoverished, and surveilled citizenry to overthrow a police state willing to fire on its people resembles an invitation to sacrifice. This does not make civil society irrelevant. Without an active citizenry, there is no real transition. But almost no recent transition from authoritarianism has occurred without a combination of internal resistance, fractures within the elite, and external pressure.
History shows that authoritarian regimes do not usually yield through moral persuasion alone. They do so when the cost of staying in power becomes unbearable. In Cuba, moreover, those in power seem more willing to negotiate with external actors capable of pressuring them than with their own citizens, whom they treat as subjects. Recognizing the possible role of external factors does not mean calling for occupation or renouncing sovereignty. It means accepting that, when all internal channels have been closed, international pressure can open space for a transition.
But that transition should not repeat the worst vices of our history. Cuba carries a traumatic legacy of coups, armed solutions, and messianic leaders. We have already paid too high a price for the temptation to replace politics with epic narratives, law with exception, and citizenship with obedience to the savior of the moment. The goal cannot be to replace one command with another, nor to move from one form of tutelage to another. The goal must be to rebuild the republic on civil, pluralist, and legal foundations.
Cuba does not need the miserable immortality of a symbol. It needs the concrete life of a country. It does not want to be admired for enduring. It wants to stop enduring. It does not want to remain an emblem of others’ sacrifice. It wants, like any mature nation, the basic right to live in freedom.
*Translator’s Note: Numancia was an ancient city in Spain that resisted the Romans for 20 years, a symbol of stubborn and hopeless endurance.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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With the regime’s top brass present, the presentation of an AKM assault rifle to the old troubadour has something grotesque about it.
Silvio Rodríguez [left], at 79, belongs to a generation of artists who experienced firsthand the structural distrust of those in power. / Facebook / Minfar Cuba
Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, March 20, 2026 / It looked like a meme or an image created with artificial intelligence. But it wasn’t. The official website of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) released a photograph of the moment an elderly Silvio Rodríguez received an AKM rifle. Alongside him are the Minister of the FAR, Álvaro López Miera, and Cuban PresidentMiguel Díaz-Canel. It was not, therefore, a social media prank or an apocryphal parody, but an official act: the delivery of a weapon of war to a civilian, endorsed by the highest authorities in the country.
The scene is both grotesque and revealing. Grotesque, because it is difficult not to see in that image the symbolic collapse of a figure who for decades sought to embody the critical, or at least reflective, conscience of the Revolution. Revealing, because it ultimately reveals with brutal clarity what was perhaps always there. Silvio never managed to escape the magnetic pull of the “r” in Revolution, with all its implicit violence. Everything else—his doubts, his nuances, his tactical silences, and his occasional gestures—is dwarfed by this photograph in which he appears not as a troubled singer, but as a privileged wielder of a firearm.
From a legal standpoint, the scene is also incongruous. Decree-Law 262 on weapons and ammunition allows civilians to obtain certain licenses under very restrictive conditions, but generally excludes weapons of war such as rifles with a caliber greater than 5.6 millimeters and automatic or military-grade weapons. An AKM, in its standard configuration, hardly fits the bill as a civilian weapon for home defense, hunting, or sport shooting. Hence, the photograph not only carries a disturbing political undertone but also a clear whiff of impunity. In a country where the average citizen’s every move is regulated, seeing a troubadour publicly receive an assault rifle with the blessing of those in power conveys not legality, but arbitrariness.
Silvio, at 79, belongs to a generation of artists who experienced firsthand the structural distrust of power
queuing in front of a store in the area. We asked an older woman if she knew where Ojalá Studios was located. And she, with that blend of dry humor and popular wisdom that survives even in poverty, replied, “I wish I could get some chicken in that line.”
The conversation with Silvio lasted about 70 minutes and was recorded at his request. In that meeting, he promised to make “a call” to request the release of political prisoners. It is possible he did. It is also possible that, if he did, no one on the other end paid much attention. The episode accurately portrays his true place within the system. Because those in power are willing to use him whenever his rhetoric suits them, just as they are willing to ignore him when it becomes inconvenient.
Silvio, at 79, belongs to a generation of artists who experienced firsthand the Cuban regime’s deep-seated distrust of intelligence, sensitivity, and independent thought. Some broke with the regime outright. Others remained silent. Others learned to survive in hushed tones. And some, like him, dedicated a considerable part of their lives to demonstrating loyalty to their oppressors, whom they never fully trusted.
This is not to deny his musical stature or his importance in Cuban culture. His work is part of the country’s emotional archive. But it is also true that, for many young people, his songs evoke less lyrical epics than open-air public demonstrations, acts of self-affirmation, the pedagogy of sacrifice, and the background noise of a system that has turned scarcity into doctrine. It is no wonder, then, that the number of Cubans for whom Silvio no longer represents poetry, but rather the soundtrack of a failed and dying regime, is growing.
When those in power distribute rifles in the midst of a social crisis, the message ceases to be metaphorical and becomes dangerously concrete. / Facebook / Minfar Cuba
In recent days, Silvio had publicly demanded* his AKM, “if they attack,” referring to a hypothetical US aggression. But while that external enemy has yet to appear on any shore, within Cuba signs of discontent are multiplying: protests, pot-banging demonstrations, student sit-ins, repression, and surveillance. The real threat is not the US Marines; it is the citizens who can’t take it anymore.
Hence the inevitable question: Why arm a well-known civilian now? Against whom is this “resistance” envisioned? Against a nonexistent landing or against Cubans protesting because they have no electricity, no food, no hope? Has the order to start a civil war been given? When the government distributes rifles in the midst of a social crisis, the message ceases to be metaphorical and becomes dangerously concrete. Especially when, in Morón, there are reports of a teenage protester being shot—and not just with a rubber bullet.
That’s what makes the photograph so sinister. While in various parts of the country young people are harassed, repressed, or shot for protesting, the State stages the presentation of an AKM to one of its most famous artists. While some young people demand the bare minimum to study and live, other aging—and wealthy—men continue to embody the internal violence of the besieged city. While the youth try to free themselves from fear, the nomenklatura and their well-paid cronies cling to the stagecraft of war.
The memes about Silvio don’t stem solely from the cruelty of the internet and social media. They arise, above all, from the brutality with which Cuban reality has become more ferocious than any war anthem. For years, the singer-songwriter sought to present himself as an uncomfortable conscience within the Revolution. Today, he appears as something else entirely: the disciplined image of an artist who couldn’t overcome the “r” in Revolution, but seems capable of wielding a Soviet rifle. Silvio has just composed his own requiem.
*On social media he posted: I demand my AKM, if they [the US] launch an attack. And let it be known that I mean it, Silvio. 18 March 2026
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Lacking charisma, authority, and with a penchant for repression, the Cuban leader embodies the political exhaustion of Castroism. He is, without a doubt, the failed statesman of a dictatorship in its death throes.
Attributing his disastrous management solely to bad luck would be an oversimplification. / EFE
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 13 March 2026 — There are leaders who, even in authoritarian systems, manage to project a certain aura of command. A tone of voice that commands respect. A gesture that conveys confidence. A phrase that, even if it’s propaganda, seeks to remain in the memory. Miguel Díaz-Canel does not belong to that category.
Since assuming the presidency of Cuba, his figure has been marked by a deficiency that is difficult to conceal: the complete absence of ashé. In the island’s popular culture, this word encapsulates the feeling that someone possesses a special force, an energy that commands respect, influence, and effectiveness. Díaz-Canel, on the other hand, seems to have come to power accompanied by an almost uninterrupted string of calamities.
During his presidency, tragedies have occurred, including the 2018 plane crash, the devastating tornado that struck Havana a year later, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the massive fire at the Matanzas supertanker base. To this succession of disasters was added a geopolitical blow of enormous magnitude: the loss of control of Caracas following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
That operation not only exposed the fragility of the Cuban security apparatus but also deprived Havana of its main oil benefactor. For the Cuban regime, losing Venezuela to the United States has been a blow similar, in contemporary terms, to what losing Cuba meant for Spain in 1898.
But attributing his disastrous administration solely to bad luck would be an oversimplification. The worst catastrophe of his term has not been chance, but political obstinacy. Decisions such as the poorly designed continue reading
Tarea Ordenamiento an economic ‘reordering’ plan, the persistence with an unproductive economic model, and the inability to reform structures that no longer function have pushed the country into an ever-deepening crisis.
Díaz-Canel completely lacks a sense of humor, a fundamental political tool in Cuban culture
On the communication front, the sub-dictator also fails to compensate for his lack of leadership with style. He completely lacks a sense of humor, a fundamental political tool in Cuban culture, where irony and double entendre are part of everyday language. His public appearances tend to be delivered in a rigid, almost schoolboyish register, incapable of connecting with the people. This is compounded by unnatural diction, with forced pronunciation, irregular cadence, and sentences strung together in a monotonous tone that conveys more weariness than conviction.
In terms of body language, his stage presence doesn’t help either. He frequently appears before the cameras with a tense, almost disgusted expression that hardens his face and makes him seem less approachable. While speaking, his body sways slightly from side to side, a repetitive movement that betrays nervousness and a lack of stage presence. Instead of projecting confidence, these gestures reinforce the impression of a leader uncomfortable in his role, as if each public appearance were a chore he must complete rather than a moment of leadership.
His ascent was not the product of genuine competition within the power structure. On the contrary. When Raúl Castro announced his appointment, he let slip a revealing phrase: Díaz-Canel was the sole survivor of an initial list of twelve potential candidates.
The statement, far from reinforcing his authority, exposed the method by which the system chooses its leaders. It is not about selecting the best, but the most manageable, the least dangerous, someone who won’t overshadow those who truly control the power.
He did not have his own political base nor did he have a strong international profile
For decades, the Cuban political apparatus has demonstrated a remarkable ability to neutralize its own members when they begin to stand out too much. The system does not reward boldness or initiative. It rewards obedience. The ideal leader is not the one who proposes changes, but the one who guarantees continuity.
In this context, Díaz-Canel was a perfect choice. He lacked his own political base and a strong international profile. Nor did he possess a heroic biography that could compete with the revolutionary mythology of the old guard. He was, essentially, a disciplined cadre who had climbed the ranks within the Party without causing too much turmoil. Mediocrity, in that sense, served as an advantage.
Those who designed the succession probably sought precisely that: a lackluster leader, incapable of challenging the real power structures. A bureaucrat who would manage day-to-day operations without altering the system’s architecture. The problem is that this formula might work for a while, but not in the midst of a complex crisis.
In a country mired in the worst economic collapse in its history, the leader who formally occupies the pinnacle of power seems incapable of connecting with the reality of the people. Under his mandate, Cuba has experienced accelerated deterioration, unprecedented protests, and a migratory exodus that has reached historic figures. Agricultural production is plummeting while food prices are skyrocketing. The national currency has become a mere accounting fiction. And the state, trapped in its own inefficient structure, seems unable to offer real solutions, only timid and belated reforms.
The phrase that remained etched in the collective memory: “The combat order is given”
This political weakness is compounded by another trait that has come to define his presidency: internal repression. The clearest example came during the Island-wide protests of 11 July 2021, when he uttered the phrase that has become etched in the collective memory: “the combat order is given.” That call to confront the protesters marked a point of no return. Hundreds of young people ended up in prison with disproportionate sentences, thousands were arrested, and the repressive apparatus was deployed with an intensity unseen for decades.
Since then, many Cubans have begun referring to him by a nickname that was already circulating in rap lyrics or whispered about: El Singao.* In the island’s popular slang, the term describes someone abusive, vile, or morally despicable. It is the verdict of a citizenry that perceives its president not only as an incompetent leader, but as a thug willing to maintain power at the cost of punishment and bloodshed.
He is, without a doubt, the failed statesman of a dictatorship in its death throes.
The average Cuban does not need economic reports to perceive the system’s collapse. They simply have to step outside. After Díaz-Canel’s pointless public appearance this Friday, the desire for his disappearance from the national scene has resurfaced on social media: some fantasize about him being abducted by Trump or aliens; others, that he’ll voluntarily pack his bags and vanish into some psychiatric clinic in Siberia. He is, without a doubt, the failed statesman of a dictatorship in its death throes.
*Translator’s note: Diaz-Canel and ‘Singao’ rhyme. The latter is variously translated as motherfucker, bastard and similar epithets.
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The Island suffers a civil confrontation of nearly seven decades that today reaches its most tense moment
With Washington, the top leadership of the Communist Party has always been willing to dialogue, talk, “reach understandings.” / Screenshot (Raul Castro) / Cubadebate
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 28 February 2026 — It is obvious that Washington and Havana are antagonists, but the real conflict is not between two countries, but between citizens of the same Island irreconcilably opposed to each other. The recent events in Cayo Falcones, where Ministry of the Interior authorities claim to have engaged in combat with other Cubans from Florida, demonstrate this once again.
Those who hold power in Cuba today came to it through arms. And for decades they have insinuated—when not openly stated—that this is also the only way to remove them. Cubans who dissent are not allowed to publicly express their discontent. Organizing protests is illegal, articulating politically outside the single party is forbidden, and the mere aspiration to participate in free and plural elections belongs to the realm of legal fantasy. All civic avenues are closed off, and then violence is invoked as a pretext.
With Washington, on the other hand, the top leadership of the Communist Party has always been willing to dialogue, talk, “reach understandings.” Against the Cuba that opposes Castroism, the repressive apparatus has been implacable, unleashing a virtual civil war from 1959 to the present. And in 67 years, there has never been a serious attempt at a truce.
Since the Revolution began to radicalize, the new power rushed into the arms of Moscow while its opponents sought the support of Washington. But the White House did not even want to involve its marines in the Bay of Pigs. And after the Missile Crisis, it committed to the USSR not to invade the Island. Even after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States preferred gradual economic pressure over resorting to military force to finish off the regime. continue reading
No one in the world would lift a finger in favor of the regime if it were too evident that the conflict is really against its own citizens.
The geographical argument, by the way, borders on the picturesque. For decades it has been repeated that the United States does not tolerate “a socialist state 90 miles from its coasts.” But geography is stubborn. The U.S. is closer to Russia than to Cuba. At the narrowest point of the Bering Strait, only 82 kilometers separate Alaska from Chukotka, while between Miami and Havana there are about 150 kilometers. So during the entire Cold War, Washington coexisted with the USSR literally on the other side of the polar fence.
U.S. conduct itself dismantles the thesis of an existential enemy. After the 1996 shoot-down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes—where U.S. citizens died—the response was not to mobilize aircraft carriers, but to tighten the embargo. Even now, everything points to the U.S. strategy continuing to be to pressure for negotiation, not military intervention.
The regime’s official narrative, however, insists that the essence of the problem is the historical dispute with the United States. It sounds epic, cinematic, and—above all—politically profitable, because that discourse attracts international solidarity and allows every internal disaster to be justified. No one in the world would lift a finger for the regime if it were too evident that the conflict is really against its own citizens.
The dictatorship has shown scandalous clumsiness against high-profile external threats—as happened on January 3 in Caracas— in contrast to the notable efficiency it displays when it comes to neutralizing and annihilating other Cubans. The bulk of the apparatus, from the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution to the political police and the army itself, is designed to monitor and discipline its own compatriots. In any serious strategy manual, that is called a structural internal conflict.
The leadership’s response to the largest civilian protests was never to call for national dialogue, but to give the “order to combat.”
In the early years of revolutionary power, the confrontation between Cubans reached levels of open violence. The mass executions of the 1960s set the tone for a policy that turned disagreement into a capital crime. The “Escambray cleanup” was, in essence, an irregular war within its own territory, where thousands of Cubans fought—and died—at the hands of other Cubans.
What is revealing is that, once the armed insurgency was exhausted, the State did not dismantle the logic of war. It simply changed the target. The same rhetoric of “terrorists” and “mercenaries” was recycled to confront peaceful opponents, independent journalists, and human rights activists. And the leadership’s response to the largest civilian protests—the July 11, 2021—was never to call for national dialogue, but to give the “order to combat.”
Currently, the climax of this historical confrontation responds less to Donald Trump’s return to the White House than to the presence of a politician of Cuban origin in a key position in the current Administration: Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
For the regime, Trump is a predictable figure in his tough rhetoric but also in his pragmatic negotiating style. Rubio, on the other hand, embodies the memory of anti-Castroism, the political capital of the diaspora, and above all, the ability to translate the Cuban conflict into the language of U.S. national security without intermediaries.
That is why the real conflict—Cuba versus Cuba—has now reached its most tense moment. And it occurs, moreover, when the Castroist model looks more exhausted than ever, incapable of convincing, of satisfying the basic needs of its population, or of finding an external ally truly committed to its survival. Is it possible to imagine a scenario in which Cubans resolve their differences through civic means? The challenge remains open.
Translated by GH
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The double standard as the foreign policy of Castroism
The most obscene example occurred in August 1968, when Warsaw Pact tanks crushed the Prague Spring. / Public domain image
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 15 February 2025 — The Cuban regime has constructed much of its political narrative on two concepts it repeats ad nauseam: sovereignty and anti-imperialism. In practice, both function less as principles than as rhetorical crutches. A minimally honest look is enough to show that, in the real Cuba, sovereignty does not reside in the people nor is it expressed through freely elected representatives, but rather has been hijacked by the sectarian interests of a single party. Anti-imperialism, for its part, operates like a broken compass that points only toward Washington.
The most obscene example of this double standard was seen in August 1968, when Warsaw Pact tanks crushed the Prague Spring. While thousands of Czechoslovakians watched their attempt to build democratic socialism evaporate, Fidel Castro delivered a lengthy televised speech endorsing the invasion. All his previous rhetoric about self-determination and the sovereignty of the peoples vanished at once. After an elaborate ideological sleight of hand, he justified the entry of Soviet troops as a “necessary” measure to save socialism and prevent Czechoslovakia from “falling into the arms of imperialism.”
More than half a century later, the script was repeated with less grandiosity and greater cynicism. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Miguel Díaz-Canel chose to blame NATO, denounce the so-called “Western military expansion,” and present the aggression as a defensive reaction. In official statements and declarations, the regime decided to align itself with “the just demands of the Russian Federation,” without ambiguity or shame, adopting the Kremlin’s narrative as its own.
Everything indicates that the same reasoning would apply to a potential Chinese attack against Taiwan. Cuban foreign policy has made it clear that its strategic loyalty in Asia lies with Beijing and Xi Jinping, not with the right of any people to freely decide their future. continue reading
In May 1987, units involving Cuban troops were implicated in repressive operations in Luanda, in the context of internal MPLA struggles.
The history of the Cuban Revolution is marked, also, by systematic interference in the internal affairs of other countries. Since the 1960s, Havana has promoted, trained, and financed guerrilla movements throughout much of Latin America. This amounted to an armed export of its political model, carried out without regard for the human cost or the social rejection it generated in the countries where it intervened.
In Africa, this policy reached the dimensions of conventional warfare. In May 1987, units that included Cuban troops were involved in repressive
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 14 June 2026 / Laura Tedesco and Rut Diamint have spent years studying one of the most sensitive issues in any democratic transition: the role of the Armed Forces when an authoritarian regime falls, exhausts itself or transforms. Both Argentine academics – Tedesco is a professor at Saint Louis University in Madrid, and Diamint is a member of the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research in Argentina (Conicet) and a professor at the Torcuato Di Tella University – have researched civil-military relations in Latin America, the limits of military power, the democratic management of defence, and the risks that arise when uniformed personnel retain political, economic or corporate privileges after a change of regime.
