Producers will face restrictions on leaving Cuba if they want to retain ownership or use of their land.
“The land was in poor condition and we had to prepare it with our own hands,” say the farmers. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Madrid, June 9, 2026 — Foreigners will be allowed to buy a home in Cuba, but not own land. That is one of the conclusions drawn from the publication this Monday of the draft Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, a measure that consolidates as many as 25 previous laws and is expected to be approved by the National Assembly during its next session in July. The legislation safeguards socialist ownership, except for land belonging to private individuals or agricultural cooperatives (13% and 7%, respectively, while the State owns 80%).
The law is explicit regarding the “protection of land against any transfer of ownership in favor of foreigners,” although interested parties may gain access to land through usufruct by two avenues. As private individuals, this applies to those who have effective residence in Cuba; for foreign or joint-venture companies, authorization will be granted provided they have a legal basis and are aligned with the development strategies of the area.
This is precisely how the Vietnamese company AgriVMA established itself on the Island. Between late November 2024 and January 2025, it obtained 308 hectares of land in Pinar del Río for rice cultivation, becoming the first experience of its kind since 1959. The project has performed well, achieving crop yields far above national averages, and as early as June 2025 the company requested an expansion of its land holdings. Nevertheless, it is still considered almost a unique case.
One of the significant changes compared with previous regulations is the introduction of inheritance agreements, which will allow people to decide during their lifetime who will inherit ownership of the land
One of the significant changes compared with previous regulations is the introduction of inheritance agreements, which will allow people to decide during their lifetime who will inherit ownership of the land, replacing the previous system in which wills were the only means of transferring it. However, it remains mandatory that the land continue to follow the socialist principle that it belongs to those who work it. The new owner must demonstrate continue reading
active involvement—or ensure that others are involved—in making the land productive, applying good agricultural practices, and delivering to the State what has been agreed upon.
These agreements may be revoked if the heir fails to fulfill the obligations assumed with the owner. At the same time, the owner is prohibited from selling or donating the land to a third party while the agreement remains in force; otherwise, compensation must be paid to the heir. Such agreements cannot be verbal and must be registered before a notary and in the corresponding registry.
Another sensitive issue is the treatment of land owned by emigrants. The law divides them into two categories depending on whether they left the country before or after July 2024. Those who emigrated before that date, when the Migration Law was approved but not published until a few weeks ago and still not in force, retain ownership of their land as long as it was not confiscated. However, they lose the right to transfer it, meaning that upon their death the land passes to the State, according to an additional provision of the law.
The only concession to heirs is that they will have a preferential right to obtain the land in usufruct if it is determined that they have no other means of livelihood. In that case, and if authorized by the Municipal Commission on Agrarian Affairs, family members will receive preferential rights to use the land.
The second group consists of emigrants who left after July 2024 and are already subject to the current regulations. It is presumed that they benefited from the elimination of the “automatic confiscation of assets upon permanent departure from the country,” although this was never confirmed because the law remained unpublished for two years. In their case, the determining factor is effective migratory residence, meaning they may lose their land if they fail to keep it actively productive.
If an owner exceeds the permitted absence period without legal justification, it will be considered “abandonment of the land,” triggering sanction procedures that may lead to confiscation of both the land and agricultural assets
The current law imposes travel and residency restrictions abroad on landowners, tied directly to the productivity of the land. Farmers may remain outside Cuba for a maximum of one year and must grant a notarized power of attorney authorizing someone else to temporarily manage the farm during that period. The only exception is in cases of force majeure.
If the owner remains absent beyond the allowed period without legal justification, the situation will be classified as “abandonment of the land,” activating sanctions that may result in the seizure of the land and agricultural assets for failing to fulfill the social function of production.
For producers who do not own their land but hold it in usufruct, the restrictions are even stricter, since the land belongs to the State and their contract requires active use. These farmers must also grant a notarized power of attorney authorizing another person to manage the land, but only for a maximum period of six months. If that period is exceeded without justification, the usufruct contract is terminated and the State reclaims the land.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Interior Trade Minister Betsy Díaz and President Miguel Díaz-Canel have thanked both countries for their support of the Island.
The commercial vessel Asian Katra docked this Sunday at the Port of Havana. / EFE
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, June 8, 2026 / Cuba received a donation of 1,700 tons of food and other basic necessities this Sunday from Mexico and Belize, intended to help alleviate the shortages affecting most of the Island’s population as a result of the energy and economic crisis.
State media reported that the commercial vessel Asian Katra arrived at the Port of Havana carrying the humanitarian aid shipment as a “demonstration of cooperation and solidarity from the governments and peoples of Mexico and Belize.”
They also indicated that solidarity organizations supporting Cuba, Cuban residents in both countries, and a campaign launched by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, among other participants, contributed to “managing, organizing, and assembling” the operation.
Upon receiving the donation, Interior Trade Minister Betsy Díaz highlighted Mexico’s “unconditional and historic” assistance and thanked the authorities, public figures, and organizations of both nations for their support of the Island.
Solidarity organizations supporting Cuba, Cuban residents in both countries, and a campaign launched by the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, among other participants, contributed to “managing, organizing, and assembling” this operation
President Miguel Díaz-Canel also expressed his gratitude on social media. “The ship carrying 1,700 tons of food and supplies from Mexico and Belize is now continue reading
in Havana. An effort by both governments, solidarity groups, Cubans residing in those sister nations, and La Jornada. We are grateful for this embrace of solidarity in such difficult times. #CubaNoEstáSola [#CubaIsNotAlone],” he posted.
In recent years, Mexico has established itself as one of Cuba’s most active regional partners in humanitarian assistance, sending fuel shipments and several cargoes of essential goods.
The arrival of this shipment adds to other aid operations received from Spain, Brazil, Uruguay, China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, United Nations agencies, and a shipment sent by Colombia, which has announced that it is currently en route to the Island.
In March and April, the Convoy Nuestra América, made up of activists from several countries in Europe, Mexico, and the United States, also delivered several tons of food, medical supplies, solar panels, photovoltaic systems, and educational materials.
The Island, already burdened by six years of deep economic crisis, is now virtually paralyzed by fuel shortages, from hospitals to gas stations, and from public transportation to state-run enterprises, with medicine shortages, high inflation, partial dollarization, and blackouts that affect large regions of the country for more than 20 hours a day.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Protests are multiplying during one of the worst weeks for Cuba’s electrical system, which is unable to meet more than one-third of national demand.
Protesters block the Vía Blanca in Havana as a demonstration against power outages. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, Havana, June 8, 2026 — More than 50 people blocked the Vía Blanca in Havana this Sunday, according to documentation obtained by this newspaper, which witnessed the police deployment in the protest area. Residents demonstrated against the lack of electricity service, which they said they had been without for three days, according to one participant’s testimony.
Women, teenagers, and children were the main participants in the protest. Standing on the roadway and blocking one of the main highways connecting the capital to Matanzas, demonstrators banged pots and pans to express their discontent. After nearly half an hour, several police patrol cars arrived in the area to persuade protesters to end the traffic disruption.
Scarcity and desperation are pushing more and more citizens to take to the streets and protest, even in broad daylight, despite the usual police response and the arrests that often accompany these demonstrations.
The energy crisis affects virtually every aspect of daily life on the Island. Power outages also interrupt water service, make food preservation difficult, prevent sleep during hot, humid nights filled with mosquitoes—carriers of diseases such as dengue—and complicate medical care in hospitals.
Scarcity and desperation are pushing more and more citizens into the streets despite police responses and arrests
Cuba’s Electric Union (UNE) has spent weeks reporting disruptions affecting more than 60% of national demand during peak consumption hours after sunset. This situation has resulted in blackouts lasting more than 48 consecutive hours in some parts of the country and more than 20 hours per day in Havana. continue reading
Yesterday, Sunday, eleven of the country’s 16 thermoelectric generating units—most of which operate on domestically produced crude oil—were out of service due to breakdowns or maintenance work. Forecasts for Monday are very similar, with 10 units offline.
Among them is the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the Island’s largest power generator, which had been contributing 220 MW. It disconnected from the National Electric System (SEN) last Friday for the thirteenth time this year, and repairs will still “take the necessary time under established controls,” according to its director, Román Pérez Castañeda.
The structural problems affecting thermoelectric plants, which are responsible for 40% of electricity generation, stem mainly from decades of operation beyond their intended service life and from a chronic lack of investment.
Protests are recurring frequently in different parts of Havana and other provinces, with pot-banging demonstrations, garbage fires, and road blockades
These incidences are compounded by generation limitations caused by fuel shortages. A total of 106 distributed-generation plants remain out of service, creating a deficit of 890 MW. The Turkish floating power plant [“patana“] in Regla is in the same situation.
According to the UNE report, electrical service was affected by insufficient generating capacity throughout all 24 hours on Sunday, and the disruption continued during the early morning hours, reaching a maximum deficit of 1,953 MW at 9:20 p.m. For Monday, a deficit of 2,045 MW is forecast during peak hours, equivalent to nearly 67% of the estimated demand of 3,050 MW.
Protests were also reported on Sunday in the municipality of Regla during the daytime. Demonstrations have become frequent in different areas of Havana and other provinces, especially during blackout nights, involving pot-banging protests, the burning of garbage piles, and road blockades. Many of these demonstrations have ended with police repression and the detentions of participants.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Since March, “the presence of the disease in a number of people higher than the usual figure of recent years” has been reported.
Authorities indicate that the incidence of this disease could surge this month. / Tele Pinar
14ymedio, Havana, June 7, 2026 — Without providing figures, Belkys González Robaina, head of the Digestive Disease Transmission Program in Pinar del Río, reported that the province has experienced “an unusual increase in cases” of hepatitis A. In a report published by Radio Guamá, the specialist warned that outbreaks are most prevalent in the Jagüey Cuyují and Cuba Libre people’s councils in the municipality of Pinar del Río, and in the Urban People’s Council in San Luis.
In statements to the provincial media outlet, the official also explained that the incidence of this disease, as well as other digestive-transmission illnesses, could increase due to rainfall and contamination of groundwater sources.
In light of this, González Robaina emphasized the need to strengthen hygiene and sanitation measures to curb the spread of the virus, which is transmitted primarily through the consumption of contaminated water or food. Recommendations include chlorinating water, applying disinfectant solutions in bathrooms to eliminate fecal and urine residue from patients, properly washing the clothing of infected individuals, and avoiding contact with healthy people.
Health alerts over hepatitis outbreaks in Pinar del Río have accumulated in recent months. Last March, Yusmary Estévez Mitjáns, deputy director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, reported an increase in suspected cases in the municipality of Minas de Matahambre and in the provincial capital, specifically in the town of La Coloma.
González Robaina stressed the need to reinforce hygiene and sanitation measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
“In these territories, the presence of the disease in a number of people higher than the usual figure of recent years is likely,” she said at the time, although, as now, she did not provide any figures.
This viral disease, which can be contracted through the consumption of contaminated water or food that has not been properly washed or that has been washed with contaminated water, has also been reported in other continue reading
parts of the country. In Matanzas, Andrés Lamas Acevedo, director of the Provincial Center for Hygiene, Epidemiology and Microbiology, confirmed in early May the existence of active hepatitis cases in the province, in areas such as Versalles, the Plácido district, La Cumbre, and “isolated cases in all municipalities.”
Although the physician stated in an interview with Girón that all outbreaks were “fairly well controlled,” the same outlet noted at the beginning of its report that, a couple of weeks earlier, “residents of Matanzas Province remain concerned” about the situation.
Regarding the province, the official explained that hepatitis transmission cases had spread “from person to person” and not through water, “as happened 20 years ago in Versalles.” He also attempted to downplay the outbreak: “In reality, there have been few cases.”
Provincial authorities had already announced that epidemiological surveillance had been strengthened in response to the outbreaks
In early April, provincial authorities announced that they had reinforced epidemiological surveillance due to hepatitis outbreaks in several municipalities, with the most critical situation concentrated in the Versalles neighborhood, where 18 active cases were recorded at that time.
Other outbreaks have also been reported in Camagüey. On April 23, provincial television interviewed a health-sector official who acknowledged that there was “an increase in our province of suspected and probable hepatitis A virus cases, mainly concentrated in our municipality.”
In the report, Televisión Camagüey stated that “in a scenario where there are serious problems with solid waste collection, it is urgent to intensify hygiene and sanitation measures.” Despite this situation, the health official interviewed maintained that “at this time, we do not have an outbreak in the municipality of Camagüey, despite a notable increase in the disease.”
“Camagüey has been full of hepatitis cases for months. Where I live, more than 20 people that I know of have had hepatitis. Please, take this seriously,” one user responded to the report published on Facebook. Another commenter also questioned the official message: “Calling them isolated cases is not accurate, because when you diagnose 30 to 40 positive cases in a single day in an emergency room, that is an outbreak.”
“Calling them isolated cases is not accurate, because when you diagnose 30 to 40 positive cases in a single day in an emergency room, that is an outbreak”
At the beginning of the year, health authorities in Ciego de Ávila reported through official media that they were investigating several suspected hepatitis cases detected in different municipalities of the province.
As often happens, no figures were provided, and officials limited themselves to reporting that, after detecting the first patients with symptoms consistent with the disease, the protocols established by the health system had been activated.
Hepatitis is a disease characterized by inflammation of the liver. Among its most common symptoms are fatigue, yellowing of the skin and eyes, nausea, abdominal pain, and dark urine, although it may also occur without symptoms. In severe cases, however, extreme fatigue, fever between 37 and 38 degrees Celsius, headache, muscle aches, loss of appetite, and bleeding gums may occur.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Publishing releases related to Cuba moved between poetry, testimony, novels, and essays to narrate a nation marked by diaspora and uprootedness.
The books of May reflect a shared concern with preserving memory and understanding the human consequences of exile. / Collage
14ymedio, Havana, June 7, 2026 — Memory, the wounds of exile, and the mass exodus that has redefined the Cuban nation both inside and outside the Island dominated many of the literary publications and presentations linked to Cuba during May. From poetry to novels, as well as testimonial essays, art criticism, and anthropological research, the month’s new releases confirmed an increasingly visible trend in contemporary Cuban intellectual production: the need to tell the story of a national experience fragmented by emigration, distance, and the profound social transformations of recent decades.
Among the most notable releases is Efluvios (Effluvium), by Cuban poet Joaquín Gálvez. The work arrives with a foreword by writer and journalist José Hugo Fernández, who has noted that the volume, “dispensing irreverence and professional rigor in equal measure, transcends the philosophical, the literary, and the introspective to illustrate how poetry often rises above human frailties and reaches its zenith.”
Writer and filmmaker Carlos D. Lechuga presented in Madrid his most recent book, Perro cubano (Cuban Dog), a work preceded by winning the 2026 Franz Kafka Essay/Testimony Prize
Living in the United States for many years, Gálvez is a recognized figure within Cuban exile poetry. In addition to his creative work, he has carried out intense activity as a cultural promoter, editor, and organizer of literary projects that have helped maintain ties among Cuban writers scattered across different countries. Efluvios brings together reflection, personal experience, and a mature perspective on the existential dilemmas that run through much of contemporary Cuban literature.
Also in May, writer and filmmaker Carlos D. Lechuga presented in Madrid his latest book, Perro cubano [Cuban dog], a work that comes after receiving the 2026 Franz Kafka Essay/Testimony Prize. Defined by jury member Ernesto Menéndez Conde as a “non-book,” the volume moves between personal memory, social observation, and political reflection.
Lechuga, internationally known for films such as Melaza and Santa y Andrés, transfers many of the concerns that have marked his filmmaking into his writing. The result is a text charged with existential weight that explores the fractures of contemporary Cuban society from an intimate continue reading
and deeply subjective perspective. In a time of mass emigration and collective disillusionment, Perro cubano joins a current of works seeking to document, through individual experience, the emotional and social transformations taking place on the Island.
Morir de exilio: Lejos de Cuba (To Die in Exile: Far from Cuba), by Uva de Aragón, returns this year in an expanded edition published by Eriginal Books
The memory of exile also occupies center stage in Morir de exilio: Lejos de Cuba, by Uva de Aragón, which returns this year in an expanded edition published by Eriginal Books to mark the twentieth anniversary of its original publication. The work brings together nearly ninety articles and biographical sketches dedicated to Cuban figures who died outside their native country.
More than a collection of biographical profiles, the book functions as an extensive emotional map of the Cuban exile experience. Writers, artists, activists, academics, and public figures are portrayed in texts that reconstruct individual trajectories while documenting a collective history marked by separation, nostalgia, and the rebuilding of identities far from Cuba.
Another significant publication is the bilingual monograph devoted to Cuban-American painter Humberto Castro, written by art historian and critic Francine Birbragher. The volume examines in detail the three fundamental stages of the artist’s career: his formative years in 1980s Cuba, where he became one of the leading figures of the so-called Golden Generation of visual arts; his period in France during the 1990s; and his subsequent creative development in the United States.
Throughout May, Objetos perdidos (Lost Objects), the new novel by Karla Suárez published by Editorial Comba in Spain, continued its publishing journey
The study allows readers to explore a complex body of work that engages with mythology, memory, displacement, and the cultural tensions of contemporary life. Beyond its artistic value, the book offers a valuable perspective on the many ways in which the migratory experience has shaped Cuban visual production over the past decades.
Although officially released in April, Objetos perdidos, the new novel by Karla Suárez published by Editorial Comba in Spain, continued to gain attention throughout May. The story follows Giselle, a Cuban dancer who becomes stranded in Barcelona after losing her handbag and being forced to survive for several days in the area surrounding the Sagrada Familia.
The search for documents, memories, and objects laden with sentimental meaning becomes a much deeper exploration of identity, shattered dreams, emigration, and the need to rebuild oneself. With restrained and effective prose, Suárez once again addresses some of the themes that have defined her fiction: uprootedness, memory, and the fragility of personal projects. It is no coincidence that the novel has been enthusiastically received by critics, who have highlighted both the strength of its protagonist and the sensitivity with which it approaches the visible and invisible losses that accompany human displacement.
Through conversations held inside a taxi, Wig documents decisive events
Finally, May continued to consolidate the impact of Havana Taxi: Cuba y Los años de ilusión (Havana Taxi: Cuba and the Years of Illusion), by Norwegian anthropologist Ståle Wig. The result of several years of field research in Havana, the book reconstructs the everyday lives of three Cuban individuals during a decade marked by expectations of change and subsequent disappointment.
Through conversations he conducted inside a taxi, Wig documents decisive events such as the expansion of the internet, the diplomatic rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, the death of Fidel Castro, and the protests of July 11, 2021. The result is a work that combines anthropological rigor with a remarkable narrative ability to capture the tensions between hope and stagnation that have defined the recent Cuban experience.
Taken together, May’s publishing releases reflect a shared concern with preserving memory and understanding the human consequences of exile, migration, and social transformation. From poetry to academic research, and from novels to testimonial writing, the books published or presented during the month paint a portrait of a nation geographically dispersed, yet determined to tell its own story.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
The promotion of Dorisbel Martin Ojeda to brigadier general places a woman in the generalship of the Ministry of the Interior for the first time
Far from the crowds convened to celebrate him, Raul Castro’s reappearance takes place only under the protection of uniforms.
14ymedio, Havana, 7 June 2026 /The Cuban regime marked the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior on Saturday with a series of promotions and decorations for officials of the body, in ceremonies headed by Raul Castro and Miguel Diaz-Canel. The main ceremony, presented by the official press as a tribute to the “career trajectory” of the heads of the national security apparatus, also served to reaffirm the central role of that body in internal repression, political surveillance, and population control.
“Together with the Army General and on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the glorious Ministry of the Interior, we took part in promotion and decoration ceremonies for officers and officials of outstanding career,” Diaz-Canel wrote on X. The ruler congratulated the decorated officials on their “noble and self-sacrificing work” – the standard formula by which the regime presents as public service the functions of State Security, the political police, counterintelligence, the prisons, and the National Revolutionary Police.
The name that stands out most on the day is that of Dorisbel Martin Ojeda, head of the institution in Sancti Spiritus, who was promoted to brigadier general. The province’s official press confirmed the rank in an unusual note dedicated to the presentation of a gift basket to the first baby born on 6 June. It mentioned that the event coincided with the anniversary of the institution, the 95th birthday of Raul Castro, and “the promotion of the head of the Ministry of the Interior in Sancti Spiritus, Dorisbel Martin Ojeda, to the rank of brigadier general.”
Pro-regime profiles celebrated Martin Ojeda as the first female general of the Ministry of the Interior.
Although the state media have not highlighted it as the central fact of the day, pro-regime profiles celebrated Martin Ojeda as the first female general of the Interior. What is verifiable to date is that her promotion places her in the generalship of a body historically dominated by men and by continue reading
cadres schooled in political repression. The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba includes her in its database of repressors and identifies her as head or delegate of the body in Sancti Spiritus since 2016.
In Sancti Spiritus, Martin Ojeda has presided over ceremonies of State Security and Counterintelligence. In March 2024, the newspaper Escambray showed her conferring distinctions on “combatants” during a State Security ceremony. At that same event, three lieutenant colonels with “senior responsibilities in the Counterintelligence Body” were also decorated.
The province she heads is not outside the repressive map either. During 11 July 2021, protests took place in Sancti Spiritus and Trinidad. The official press at the time acknowledged five criminal proceedings against 11 people, while independent organisations documented convictions and subsequent harassment of demonstrators. Among the best-known cases are Luis Mario Niedas Hernandez, sentenced to three years in prison for taking part in the protests, and Alexander Fabregas Milanes, an opposition figure from Sancti Spiritus linked to 11J who was subsequently punished with new criminal charges.
Promotion ceremonies were replicated across several provinces, though without a complete national list of those promoted
Martin Ojeda’s reward therefore does not appear to reflect a province without discontent, but rather a leadership that has managed to keep it contained, dispersed, and with low media cost for the regime. Sancti Spiritus was not one of the national epicentres of 11J, but it did see protests, prisoners, and surveillance of opponents. In the logic of Cuban power, that combination – controlled conflict and territorial obedience – is rewarded.
After weeks away from the public scene and absent even from the open rallies organised in his honour for his 95th birthday, the Army General reappears on two consecutive days at closed, military-profile events: first at the Karl Marx Theatre, surrounded by the regime’s top leadership, and now at a promotion and decoration ceremony of the Ministry of the Interior. His return, far from the crowds convened to celebrate him, takes place only under the protection of uniforms, armed commanders, and security structures.
Promotion ceremonies were replicated across several provinces, though without a complete national list of those promoted. In Camaguey, the newspaper Adelante reported the promotion of Ismael Villalon Labanino to lieutenant colonel and of Yannier Rios Gomez to major. Villalon said the new rank reinforced his “honour” and his duty to remain faithful to the teachings of Fidel and Raul Castro, while Rios Gomez stated that the promotion was an incentive to take on new missions “always in keeping with revolutionary principles.”
The regime does not reward ordinary police work, but the political loyalty of a body that functions as the Communist Party’s first line of defence. / X / Miguel Diaz-Canel
In Las Tunas, those mentioned were Rolan Hernandez Perez, head of the Interior in the provincial capital municipality, promoted to lieutenant colonel, and Yanisleydis Alvarez Bello, coordination officer at the criminal investigation body, promoted to captain. Both told the local press that the recognition committed them to continue defending the homeland “under any circumstances” – a phrase which, in official vocabulary, typically encompasses the persecution of opponents, activists, and critical citizens.
In Granma, the official press gave figures but not a complete list: 27 officers promoted to lieutenant colonel and 43 to major. Speaking on behalf of those promoted and decorated was Lieutenant Colonel Mailen Martinez Olivera, though the report did not clarify whether she herself was among those promoted. In other provinces – including Santiago de Cuba, Holguin, Villa Clara, Ciego de Avila, Artemisa, and Isla de la Juventud – reports were limited to references to “officers,” “combatants,” and “outstanding cadres,” without disclosing their specific responsibilities.
The regime does not reward ordinary police work, but the political loyalty of a body that functions as the Communist Party’s first line of defence. Official notes repeat words such as “loyalty,” “missions,” “State Security,” “internal order,” and “revolutionary principles.” These are the keywords of a system that conflates public safety with ideological control.
Translated by GH.
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The United States modernized an island devastated by war, but also placed conditions on its sovereignty: reading the Cuban present through the lens of 1899 demands more history and less rescue epic
Perseverancia Street, in Centro Habana, reflects the urban decay affecting large areas of the Cuban capital. / 14ymedio
14ymedio, José A. Adrián Torres, Málaga, Spain, June 6, 2026 /
Rolando Gallardo published on 30 May, in 14ymedio, a thought-provoking article on North American intervention in Cuba and the possibility that history might repeat itself. His argument has a defensible core: the US occupation of 1899-1902 effectively addressed the sanitary, administrative, educational and logistical problems the island was suffering acutely in the aftermath of war. To deny this would be absurd. The Cuba that the United States encountered was wounded, impoverished, exhausted and disorganized. The war of independence, the reconcentration policy, the destruction of fields, roads and sugar mills, and the final collapse of Spanish power had left a critical situation.
But acknowledging that reality is one thing, and quite another to present the Cuba of 1899 as though it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch. That is where the comparison becomes too convenient. And convenient comparisons tend to have a problem: they explain a great deal all at once, but they understand very little. Complex matters are not explained by simple reasons – those only make them more digestible for the public or the voter. Turning 1899 into a template for the present distorts history and oversimplifies the future.
Late nineteenth-century Cuba was not a blank page. It was a society devastated by war, yes, but also an urban, port-based, sugar-producing, commercial and culturally rich society. Havana, Matanzas, Santiago, Cienfuegos, Trinidad, Camagüey and Holguín were not villages lost among palm trees, mosquitoes and tropical resignation. They were centers with history, architecture, printing presses, theatres, cultural societies, international trade, ports, economic activity and a complex social life. One must not confuse an island ravaged by war with an island that had no existence before the arrival of the North American administrator with his ledger, his sanitation brigade and his wholesome faith in efficiency.
Avenida Zulueta in Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress
It bears saying plainly, because otherwise one falls into a new version of the old Black Legend, now pressed into the service of a North American White Legend. Spain arrived at 1898 breathless, politically defeated and with a manifest inability to offer Cuba any acceptable way forward.
Spanish administration had been tardy, uneven, rigid and often incapable of grasping the depth of Cuban demands, trapped as it was in the tensions of the peninsular political system and in an alternation between conservatives and liberals that failed to deliver a real solution to the Cuban problem in time. Slavery was abolished late, autonomy came late, reforms came late, and war eventually blew everything apart. But from that to suggesting that under Spanish sovereignty Cuba – let alone its great cities – had known no material, cultural or economic development is a distance that history does not permit. continue reading
One thing is to acknowledge that reality and another to present the Cuba of 1899 as if it had been a wasteland of poverty, ignorance and general neglect upon which Washington had to build everything from scratch
Havana was not invented by Leonard Wood. Matanzas did not wait for the US occupation to become an economic and cultural center of the first order. Cienfuegos was not born from a North American sanitary decree. The Cuban railway did not appear by spontaneous generation between 1899 and 1902. The Albear Aqueduct did not spring up like a mushroom after an imperial shower. The Cuban sugar industry, with all its shadows – including the slavery that sustained it for far too long – was already one of the great economic realities of the Atlantic. The North American intervention rebuilt, reorganized, sanitized and modernized; but to modernize is not to create from nothing.
That nuance is not a scholarly footnote. It is the crux of the problem. Because if one starts from the idea that the United States found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation: the Seventh Cavalry of the Western movies arriving, once again, to the rescue. The image may work in a film, but it should not suffice for
interpreting Cuban history.
Paseo del Prado, Havana, in 1900. / Library of Congress
The US occupation had genuine merits. In the sanitary field, the campaign against yellow fever was decisive, though one should not forget that the fundamental theory regarding the transmitting mosquito had been formulated by the Cuban physician Carlos J. Finlay. The United States contributed resources, organization, administrative discipline and executive capacity. In education, it promoted an ambitious reform, expanded the school network and fostered teacher training. In infrastructure, it repaired roads, bridges, railway lines and urban services damaged by war.
In the years that followed, the new republican era also left a vanguard, eclectic and often dazzling architecture, marked by North American and European influences, which gave Havana – and other Cuban urban centers – an essential part of its cosmopolitan splendor. In administration, it introduced more effective procedures and helped to organize a country emerging from a devastating conflict.
All of this must be acknowledged. But the reverse must also be remembered. That modernization was not an act of international charity nor an angelic mission of tropical sanitation. The United States acted with a mixture of pragmatism, economic interest, strategic vision and a will to regional influence. The Platt Amendment was the political price of that reconstruction: a formally independent republic, but one held under tutelage.
If one starts from the idea that the US found a Cuba without structure, without institutions, without urban culture and without economic capital, then the intervention appears as an almost providential operation
Cuba entered the twentieth century with its own flag, yes, but also with a sovereignty conditioned by Washington. The modernization brought sewers, schools and sanitary campaigns; it also brought naval bases and the right of intervention. That tutelary shadow fed for decades an anti-interventionist nationalism that would later be exploited, with varying intensity and no small degree of manipulation, by several generations of Cuban politicians, including the revolutionary one.
This is why the parallel with present-day Cuba must be handled with care. There are visible similarities: health crisis, infrastructure deterioration, shortages, power cuts, transport collapse, productive ruin, mass emigration and an exhausted population. But the historical causes are not the same. The Cuba of 1899 emerged from a war of independence against a retreating European metropolis. The Cuba of today emerges – if it manages to emerge at all – from more than six decades of communist rule, political monopoly, managed economy, repression, exodus, external dependence and institutional decay. One emerged from war; the other emerges from a long administration of failure and bearded messianism.
Cubans in front of Havana Bay, in 1899. / Library of Congress
The difference is no small matter. In 1899, the United States occupied a country that had just broken violently with Spain and needed to organize its transition to a republic. Today, Cuba does not need to replace Spanish tutelage with North American tutelage, because it is not under Spain or any European colonial power. It is under a national regime that turned sovereignty into a slogan while emptying the real freedom of Cubans of all content. That regime cannot be explained as a simple legacy of 1898 or as the inevitable consequence of the colonial past. The historical alibi has its limits, even in the Caribbean, where certain alibis tend to age in admirable health with a curiously gallego pedigree – in the old Cuban sense of the word.
The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality
It is true that republican Cuba inherited deep-seated conditioning. It is true that the United States intervened too much in the political, economic and strategic life of the island. It is true that the Platt Amendment left a mark of dependence. But it is also true that Castroism has spent more than sixty years administering the country, controlling its institutions, monopolizing patriotic discourse, expelling talent, impoverishing the economy and turning the supposed revolutionary exceptionalism – the eternal special period – into a routine of power cuts, queues, surveillance and flight. The Cuban present cannot be explained indefinitely with a finger pointing at 1898, at Washington, or at historical fatality. At this point, the Revolution is no longer a betrayed promise: it is a result.
Hence any eventual external assistance to Cuba, necessary in many respects, must not be conceived as a repetition of 1899. Cuba will need investment, technical assistance, energy reconstruction, institutional rehabilitation, productive recovery, sanitary modernization, educational opening and economic reintegration. But that is not equivalent to calling for a new foreign administration, nor to imagining that a North American intervention would resolve, on its own, what Cubans must rebuild with their own institutions, political pluralism and genuine sovereignty.
The underlying problem is not whether the United States can help. Of course it can. The problem is whether that help is conceived as cooperation with a free nation and a future ally, or as a temporary replacement for its political capacity. The first option may be necessary. The second reopens an old temptation: the belief that Cuba only functions when someone administers it from outside.
After more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture
That idea, however well-intentioned in its formulation, sidesteps an uncomfortable question: after more than six decades of authoritarianism, many Cubans on the island have not been able to practice or develop a genuine democratic culture. Not from any natural incapacity, but because the regime has denied them for generations the everyday practice of deliberation, responsibility for public affairs – replaced too often by the national verbresolver [to resolve, to manage, to get by] – alternation in power, institutional trust, a culture of effort and free decision-making.
A society subjected to obedience, to double standards, to surveillance and to the liturgy of collective sacrifice will also need to rebuild civic habits, a culture of work, a sense of individual responsibility and ethical values damaged by decades of real socialism. But that political maturation cannot be imported packaged from Washington or decreed by a foreign administration: it can only be learned by exercising freedom.
The history of 1899, therefore, serves as a double warning. It warns against the delusional self-sufficiency of the Cuban regime, incapable of guaranteeing basic services while boasting of sovereignty. But it also warns against the fantasy of the external savior — that hope that a power will arrive, impose order, clean up, invest, discipline and then hand over a republic ready to be unwrapped. The American experience demonstrated efficiency, but it also left dependence. The Castroite experience proclaimed independence, but has left ruin. Between these two lessons, a third way should open up: national reconstruction with external support, but without ultimate political tutelage.
Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision
Cuba must not start over as though its history could be erased and rewritten under foreign supervision. The island needs to free itself from an exhausted regime, yes; it needs to rebuild infrastructure, healthcare, education, currency, agriculture, industry and public trust. But it needs to do so without comfortable, false mythologies: not that of a Spain that left only backwardness, nor that of a United States that brought only modernity, nor that of a revolution that continues to blame the past and the external enemy for a ruin that is, for the most part, its own work.
History does not repeat itself exactly, but neither does it absolve — nor will it ever absolve — those who destroyed Cuba. Sometimes it merely disguises itself to confuse us. And in Cuba, where the political disguises in olive green have lasted far too long, it is worth looking carefully before applauding the entrance of the next savior.
Translated by GH.
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Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat suspend flights and vacation packages as Washington’s deadline for severing business ties with the Cuban Government expires
A Boeing 737 MAX 8 belonging to Air Canada, one of the models used by the airline on its routes to Cuba. / Colin Brown Photography
14ymedio, Madrid, 6 June 2026 / Canadian airlines Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet Airlines have indefinitely suspended their operations to Cuba, along with the vacation activities of Sunwing Vacations – currently integrated into WestJet Group -, citing ongoing political and economic uncertainty and a deepening supply crisis on the Island.
Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick explained that the decision was a response to “ongoing conditions of political and economic uncertainty,” and added that affected customers will be able to opt for refunds, among other alternatives. Air Canada had already temporarily suspended its flights in February due to warnings about fuel supplies at Cuban airports, and had subsequently postponed its return to 1 November 2026.
For its part, Air Transat announced that the decision was taken owing to “the current geopolitical situation in Cuba,” obliging it to suspend operations “for an indefinite period.” The announcement adds that affected customers will be notified of other available flight options.
In the case of WestJet, the company described it as a “difficult decision” driven by the “current operating environment,” in reference to the suspension of its vacation programs to Cuba. “We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents,” the company stated, emphasising the impact of the measure on local communities and the Cuban tourism continue reading
sector.
“We understand that this news may be disappointing for customers and travel agents”
The Sunwing Vacations travel group – integrated into WestJet Group – also announced the indefinite suspension of its operations in Cuba, affecting the Sunwing Vacations, WestJet Vacations and WestJet Vacations Québec brands. The company explained that the decision was taken following a review of its programme on the Island and current operating conditions, and confirmed that the suspension will remain in place “until further notice.” Travellers with existing bookings will be contacted regarding rebooking or full refunds.
The announcements coincide with the expiry of the deadline set by Washington for foreign companies with ties to sectors controlled by the Cuban Government to sever those ties, under threat of sanctions.
Canada has historically been the primary source of tourists to Cuba. However, the current crisis has accelerated the withdrawal of key operators. In February, Canadian airlines had scheduled more than 600 flights bound for Cuba, according to data from analytics firm Cirium cited by The Globe and Mail.
This June, approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years
According to information released by the Cuban Airports and Airport Services Company (Ecasa), this June approximately 20 international airlines continue to operate in Cuba, a figure significantly lower than in previous years.
Among the routes with the greatest presence, American Airlines holds the largest market share, with several daily flights from Miami to Havana, as well as connections to Santa Clara, Camagüey, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. Delta Air Lines and, on a more limited basis, Southwest Airlines also operate in the US market.
From Panama, Copa Airlines maintains daily flights to Havana, Santa Clara and Holguín. From Spain, Air Europa is the only Spanish airline with direct flights to the Island, while Air China operates the Beijing-Madrid-Havana route, which also allows boarding in Madrid as an intermediate point.
Other international airlines maintaining operations in Cuba include Aeromexico, Conviasa, Wingo, Caribbean Airlines, InterCaribbean Airways, Cayman Airways, TAAG Angola Airlines, Bahamasair, Rutaca, Aruba Airlines, Fly All Ways, Sky High and Neos, as well as various charter operations from the United States and the Caribbean – though with a significant reduction in flight frequencies.
So far in 2026, at least eleven airlines have suspended their operations in Cuba, among them Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing, Air Transat, Iberia, LATAM Peru and Turkish Airlines, caused primarily by the fuel crisis, the collapse of tourism and pressure stemming from US sanctions.
Translated by GH.
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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.
The company suspended trading of its shares after the inclusion of its Cuban partner in Minera La Victoria on the U.S. blacklist
The company had estimated that its two Cuban projects, Nueva Sabana and La Demajagua, could generate more than $1.763 billion over ten years. / Invasor
14ymedio, Havana, June 5, 2026 — Australian mining company Antilles Gold requested the Sydney Stock Exchange on Friday to suspend trading of its shares while it prepares an announcement regarding the impact of the sanctions recently imposed by the United States on Minera La Victoria, the joint venture it created in Cuba with the state-owned GeoMinera to develop the Nueva Sabana deposits in Ciego de Ávila and La Demajagua in the Isle of Youth.
The mining company has not yet detailed the extent of the blow. It merely requested a temporary suspension of its shares while preparing a statement for shareholders regarding the consequences of the sanctions. The trading halt will remain in effect until the report is released or, at the latest, until the opening of trading on June 10.
For William Pitt Wasmer, a Cuban-American businessman and heir to a family that owned mines confiscated by the Cuban government after 1959, the episode confirms the deterioration of a sector that Havana had hoped to present as a future source of foreign currency. “Now, in addition to the problems facing nickel and cobalt mining, gold mining has been added to the list,” he told 14ymedio.
Antilles Gold holds a stake in Minera La Victoria, a 50-50 joint venture with GeoMinera, the state mining company
Pitt believes the Antilles Gold case cannot be viewed in isolation and must be analyzed within the broader context that forced the departure of the Canadian company Sherritt International, which operated continue reading
nickel mines in Moa. “The other mining companies working in Cuba are facing very similar problems,” he said.
The sanction came at a particularly delicate moment for Antilles Gold. Just one day before the trading halt, the company reported that construction at Nueva Sabana was moving forward and that the Chinese company Xinhai Mining Technology & Equipment was advancing the manufacture of the mine’s concentrator. Antilles Gold itself described Nueva Sabana as “the first stage of its partnership with GeoMinera,” while La Demajagua remained scheduled as a second project for 2027–2028.
The structure of the venture illustrates the extent to which the project was designed to mitigate Cuban risk. Antilles Gold participates in Minera La Victoria, a 50-50 joint venture with GeoMinera, Cuba’s state mining company. The engineering, procurement, and construction contract for Nueva Sabana, awarded to Xinhai, was valued at $29.5 million and covered about 85% of the remaining development costs. Xinhai also offered a $17.1 million credit line, deferring part of its payments.
The Nueva Sabana project was intended to produce gold and copper. Antilles Gold presented it as a relatively small open-pit mine capable of entering production quickly. According to the company’s own estimates, adjusted for recent metal prices, the two Cuban projects, Nueva Sabana and La Demajagua, could generate more than 2.5 billion Australian dollars (US$1.763 billion) in cash surplus attributable to Antilles Gold between 2027 and 2037.
In addition to Gaesa’s extensive control over mining, the shutdown is also linked to “Cuba’s economic situation, with its complete lack of electrical resources and the fuel necessary to operate mining activities”
La Demajagua, located on the Isle of Youth, added another attraction: besides gold and silver, it contains antimony, a mineral considered strategic because of its industrial and military applications. Under Antilles Gold’s plans, the second project was expected to produce gold and arsenic concentrates as well as antimony concentrates or cathodes.
For a small company dependent on external financing, Chinese contractors, and international concentrate buyers, being associated with a Cuban entity placed on Washington’s blacklist may be enough to freeze access to banks, insurers, suppliers, and potential investors.
Pitt himself links the episode to Cuba’s structural crisis. In addition to Gaesa’s overwhelming control over mining, the setback is also due to “Cuba’s economic situation, with its complete lack of electrical resources and the fuel necessary to operate mining,” the expert said.
Pitt also connects the case to Sherritt, which, besides producing nickel and cobalt, participates in Energas, a key company for natural gas processing and electricity generation. “Apparently, only oil extraction continues, and even then we are already seeing Energas and Sherritt beginning to have problems delivering natural gas to the city,” he warned.
“It remains to be seen whether Antilles Gold will follow a path similar to Sherritt’s or whether, given that it does not have a major investment at stake, it will simply let events run their course without doing anything further,” Pitt concluded.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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At the Karl Marx auditorium, packed with uniformed military personnel, Miguel Díaz-Canel celebrated the general’s 95th birthday and the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior with a totalitarian slogan: “Raúl is Cuba, and Cuba is untouchable!”
Miguel Díaz-Canel—dressed in olive green—presented the nonagenarian general not only as a historic leader, but also as the spiritual founder of Cuba’s security apparatus. / Cubadebate
14ymedio, Havana, June 6, 2026 — Raúl Castro reappeared this Friday in Havana wearing a military uniform and surrounded by the Cuban power elite and its repressive forces, at an event the Government presented as a tribute to his 95th birthday and the 65th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior. The ceremony, held at the Karl Marx Theater, marked the Army general’s first public appearance since U.S. authorities criminally charged him in May over the deaths of the four crew members of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft shot down in international waters in 1996.
The former ruler did not speak. Seated in the front row, he sent a message that was read by Minister and Army Corps General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas. In the text, Castro congratulated the institution’s “officers, combatants, civilian workers, and students,” describing it as “an indispensable bastion in the defense of the sovereignty and tranquility of the Cuban nation.” He also praised their “unwavering loyalty” and urged them, in the “current historic moment,” to continue working with “order, control, and responsibility.” The message concluded with a call to “continue defending with honor and commitment the work of the Revolution and the future of the country.”
Miguel Díaz-Canel—dressed in olive green—presented the nonagenarian general not only as a historic leader but as the spiritual founder of Cuba’s security apparatus at the age of 27. Díaz-Canel recalled that the State General Staff Secret Service Corps of the Frank País Second Eastern Front had been created to confront “anything that could affect, compromise, or endanger the security of our rebel forces.”
Díaz-Canel asserted that the United States is targeting Gaesa “because it knows of its effectiveness in the face of the permanent economic siege” and because “the contributions of its companies to the country’s socioeconomic development are significant.”
The scene appeared designed less to respond to Washington than to urgently appeal to the loyalty of internal forces. Díaz-Canel called Castro the “leader of the Cuban Revolution,” the “teacher, guide, and inspiration” of both the Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, elevating the slogan of recent days into an all-encompassing formula: “Raúl is Cuba, and Cuba is untouchable!” The message sought not only to shield the aging general from external pressure but also to remind the military and security apparatus that, according to the official narrative, loyalty to Raúl is equivalent to defending the nation itself. continue reading
The reappearance came two days after the United States imposed new sanctions on Díaz-Canel, his wife Lis Cuesta, several members of the Castro family circle, and regime entities, including the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. Washington had already intensified its offensive in May against Cuba’s economic and military apparatus, particularly against Gaesa, the military-controlled conglomerate.
In that context, Díaz-Canel devoted a substantial portion of his speech to defending Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. “The attack on Gaesa is no coincidence; it is not just another media campaign,” he said. According to the ruler, the United States is targeting the business system “because it knows of its effectiveness in the face of the permanent economic siege” and because “the contributions of its companies to the country’s socioeconomic development are significant.” He also denied the existence of corruption or enrichment within the military elite, dismissing such accusations as “another great lie,” despite numerous indications regarding Gaesa’s opaque management of billions of dollars in funds.
What he did not mention, however, is that those “infiltrators” were Cubans residing in the United States and that the episode remains shrouded in considerable opacity
“The reaction of several companies leaving Cuba these days is the result of coercive measures by the U.S. government,” Díaz-Canel said. He did not name any hotel chain or company specifically, but framed those departures as part of a broader offensive that, according to him, seeks to cut off fuel, investment, credit, trade, food, medicine, and basic supplies.
The speech also revived a military tone. Before Raúl, Interior Ministry commanders, and Armed Forces chiefs, Díaz-Canel recalled the 32 Cubans “who fell in Venezuela on January 3.” According to his account, those men “went into combat” despite the “element of surprise” and the enemy’s “superiority in weapons and forces.” Their deaths, he said, left “a clear message of how millions of Cubans would act in defense of the homeland if it were attacked.”
He then referred to another episode presented by the Government as evidence of armed infiltration. Five Border Guard Troops members, he said, neutralized a group of ten men who intended to establish themselves in Cuban territory with “a considerable cache of military weapons.” “Five defeated ten!” he exclaimed, before highlighting that the commander of the vessel, though seriously wounded, “never abandoned his mission.” What he failed to mention, however, is that those “infiltrators” were Cubans living in the United States and that the incident remains surrounded by significant unanswered questions.
Díaz-Canel recalled the counteroperation known as Candela, which allegedly made it possible to “preserve Raúl’s life and publicly expose” Washington. / Cubadebate
The closing remarks took the ceremony to Guantánamo. Díaz-Canel invoked Operation Patty, an alleged 1961 CIA plot to assassinate Raúl Castro in Santiago de Cuba and stage an attack against the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo in order to justify military intervention. According to Díaz-Canel, the newly created Ministry of the Interior dismantled the operation through a counterplan called Candela, which “preserved Raúl’s life and publicly exposed” Washington.
The reference is directly linked to a recent event. On May 29, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, General Francis Donovan, met at the perimeter of the Guantánamo Naval Base with General Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, chief of the General Staff and first deputy minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. According to reports, both sides discussed operational security matters and agreed to maintain communication channels.
Díaz-Canel thus linked past and present in a tense speech marked by nervous gestures. Operation Candela, the Guantánamo enclave, the 32 deaths in Venezuela, the intercepted boat, the sanctions, the departure of companies, and fuel shortages were all woven into a single narrative of a besieged nation.
“If the homeland is attacked, we will respond in legitimate self-defense,” he warned. “And if they attempt to enter, let there be no doubt: there will be determined and resolute combat!”
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The NGO states that the mechanism it proposes “could compensate victims with the resources embezzled and plundered from the Cuban people by the Havana regime”
“”Assets stolen from Cubans should be used to compensate Cubans,” says the OCDH. / 14ymedio
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, June 5, 2026 – The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) formally urged the authorities of the European Union (EU) to participate in the creation of an “International Compensation Fund for the Victims of Crimes Against Humanity of the Cuban Communist Regime,” according to a statement issued this Thursday.
The OCDH delivered its petition to the Madrid office of the representations of the European Commission and the European Parliament in Spain, according to the statement.
The NGO states that the mechanism it proposes “could compensate victims with the resources embezzled and plundered from the Cuban people by the Havana regime,” because “assets stolen from Cubans should be used to compensate Cubans.”
The petition is addressed to the principal European authorities, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“The Havana regime confiscated the people’s property and concentrated the assets in what is now known as Gaesa”
“It is wealth extracted from the sweat of Cubans,” denounced OCDH Executive Director Alejandro González Raga, explaining that “the Havana regime confiscated the people’s property and concentrated the assets in continue reading
what is now known as Gaesa [Business Administration Group S.A.], an opaque military structure.”
According to the statement, the United States Department of State “estimates the illicit assets of that conglomerate deposited in foreign accounts at up to 20 billion dollars.”
The petition comes after the U.S. Executive Order of May 1, which provides for sanctions against individuals and companies that maintain business relations with the Cuban state, and the sanctioning, one week later, of Gaesa.
“Every dollar frozen from Gaesa is a dollar available to compensate victims,” the OCDH states.
The Observatory emphasizes the need for action by the EU, since, in its view, it has the necessary legal mechanisms to carry out the requested action, and urges its participation as a founding organization in the Compensation Fund with an initial contribution and technical assistance.
“Europe was conceived as a community of values, not only of interests; the time has come to prove it,” González Raga concluded.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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The former president respects and adheres to the decision of the Supreme Court but reaffirms his argument that Santiago Uribe is innocent
The Court believes that rancher Santiago Uribe created and financed the paramilitary group The Twelve Apostles. / Justice for Colombia
14ymedio/ EFE, Bogota, June 5, 2026 – The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed this Thursday the sentence of 28 years and three months in prison against rancher Santiago Uribe, the brother of former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010). for creating and financing the paramilitary group The Twelve Apostles.
“Dr. Jaime Granados (the Uribe family’s attorney) informs me that the newspaper information tells him that the Supreme Court confirms the conviction against my brother Santiago, a devastating issue for my family,” expressed the former president in a message published on X.
The Court confirmed that Santiago Uribe committed the crimes of conspiracy and homicide, both aggravated, by participating in the formation of The Twelve Apostles, a paramilitary group that was born in the municipality of Yarumal, department of Antioquia (northwest), and was also involved in the 1994 murder of Camilo Barrientos.
The Full Chamber confirmed “the judgment delivered on November 25, 2025 by the Superior Court of Antioquia, whereby it convicted Santiago Uribe Vélez as a co-perpetrator criminally responsible for aggravated felony conspiracy and aggravated homicide, as a combination of crimes against humanity,” a decision against which “no appeal is possible.” continue reading
Uribe’s defense was led by attorney Jaime Granados, who is also the lawyer for the former president in his judicial cases. He said on several occasions that there were false witnesses and even media manipulation in the trial.
“Judicial decisions must be respected and complied with. However, through the legal mechanisms enshrined in the legal system, we will continue to defend the innocence of Santiago, because the 16 years of knowledge of this case allow us to warn that he is being unjustly condemned,” Granados stated.
Allí added that he and his team will study “the full content of the decision and the votes,” after which they will announce “more details.”
Former President Uribe, meanwhile, has been denounced for his alleged links with the paramilitaries in his years as governor of Antioquia
Former President Uribe, meanwhile, has been denounced for his alleged ties with the paramilitaries in his years as governor of Antioquia (1995-1997), including one that indirectly links him to the massacre at El Aro, in which 17 farmers were killed in October 1997.
Commenting on the events, Colombian president Gustavo Petro assured that Colombia must “free itself from the paramilitary governance left in the northern region of Antioquia” by the group of The Twelve Apostles.
“I want to turn that page and ensure the creation of a national agreement so that this era does not repeat itself. Differences between Colombians are not resolved by weeding out the other, but by building a safe and permanent path of coexistence. The methods of Santiago Uribe Vélez must not be repeated again in Colombia,” added Petro.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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Bruno Rodriguez describes the inclusion of Diaz-Canel among those affected by US financial restrictions as “vile”
Manuel Anido Cuesta alongside his mother, Lis Cuesta, and Diaz-Canel – all now sanctioned by the US – during a visit to the Vatican in 2023. / . / EFE
14ymedio, 5 June 2026 / It is less than a month since Miguel Diaz-Canel once again declared that the sanctions imposed by the US do not affect him because he holds no accounts or assets in the United States, so his reaction to Washington’s latest salvo came as no surprise. The president avoided personalising the issue and considered that the “illegitimate addition” of new names to the lists of those affected is “designed to reinforce the blockade measures and the scenario of conflict between Cuba and the United States.”
“The US president is making new threatening statements against Cuba and the Treasury Department has added new names of Cuban leaders, organisations and companies to an illegitimate sanctions list,” Diaz-Canel denounced on X. In his view, this attitude stems from a “political blindness” that “adds to the coercive measures applied in recent weeks (…), designed to harm the Cuban people” — a reference to the executive order signed by Donald Trump on 1 May that opens the door to sanctioning foreign companies that cooperate with Cuban state entities.
“The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will collide with our determination to face the worst scenarios and resist the imperial onslaught,” Diaz-Canel added.
“The aggressiveness and perversity of the Yankee government will collide with our determination to face the worst scenarios and resist the imperial onslaught”
His brief message followed a statement by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who did allow himself to personalise the matter. “The vile inclusion of President Miguel Diaz-Canel, part of his family, as well as Cuban institutions, civil society organisations and companies on an illegitimate and unilateral list by the US government is the latest continue reading
demonstration of the American interventionist plan to present Cuba as a threat to United States national security,” he wrote on his X account.
In the same vein as the president, he devoted the second part of his post to a message of resistance. “Every US action aimed at constructing a scenario of conflict between the two countries is destined to fail. Every threat against Cuba’s independence and sovereignty will be met with greater unity and determination from our people,” he argued.
In addition to Diaz-Canel, the United States Treasury Department imposedfinancial sanctions this Thursday on the Ministry of the Armed Forces, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, the mining company La Victoria and the travel agency Amistur.
The measures extend to the president’s wife, Lis Cuesta, his stepson Manuel Anido Cuesta, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espin, son of former president Raul Castro, and the latter’s son, Raul Alejandro Castro Calis. Spared — and this is no minor detail — was Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo, grandson of the elderly general and informal interlocutor with Marco Rubio himself in negotiations with the US that continue in spite of everything.
Diaz-Canel addressed this matter in an interview published today by elDiario.es, which sent its US correspondent to spend a few days in Havana and to whom the most newsworthy material in the piece is owed. The journalist, who explains in the introduction that the meeting with the president took place on Wednesday afternoon, asked him: “You were talking about the last round of sanctions, the one on 1 May. This very morning it happened to me at the hotel – I went to pay for something at the cafeteria and my credit card was declined.”
The Central Bank of Cuba had announced that day that Visa and Mastercard cards would not be usable from 6 June onwards, although hours later Fincimex warned that it had halted operations at 2 p.m. that same day and this newspaper confirmed on Thursday that shops were already refusing them. The journalist’s words make clear that the effect was immediate.
“You were talking about the last round of sanctions, the one on 1 May. This very morning it happened to me at the hotel – I went to pay for something at the cafeteria and my credit card was declined.”
Little that is new emerges from the rest of the lengthy conversation in which Diaz-Canel insists on how the sanctions imposed during Donald Trump’s first administration – maintained under Joe Biden and intensified in this second Republican term – have contributed to the worsening of the Cuban economy and, by extension, of its industry and services.
While acknowledging mistakes, the president insists that Cuba has held out under extreme conditions by drawing on science and innovation, claims that steps towards economic openness have been taken, and calls for the regime’s incompetence to be demonstrated by lifting sanctions. “If we are so incompetent, why blockade me? Why not let me collapse on my own? Because they have no interest in Cuba improving. That is a lie. They want to take possession of Cuba,” he added.
The two most noteworthy remarks come when Diaz-Canel is asked what will happen if there is a social uprising like that of 11 July 2021: “We have our programmes for each of those scenarios, to navigate them,” he says enigmatically, though he goes on to speak of little more than neighbourhood and recreational programmes to keep young people occupied. He also responds on the subject of talks with the US, which the journalist raises precisely when Diaz-Canel is insisting on his rhetoric of whole-people war and resistance.
“We could have a civilised dialogue of the kind the United States has with other countries it also regards as adversaries, regardless of ideological differences. Moreover, we could have trade relations, cultural, academic, sporting and scientific exchanges… There could be tourism on both sides without restriction,” he notes – but the condition remains the same: the system is not up for negotiation.
On the other side of the strait, Donald Trump – who had been absent from public life for a week – was again asked about Cuba. “The country is starving, it has no energy, no oil, no money, nothing,” he said, before declaring: “We are going to treat Cuba well and we have very good plans.” The president also maintained that his popularity among Cuban Americans is extremely high – 95% of them voted for him, he said – and that his expectations include their return to the island. “They are incredible people, energetic, entrepreneurial. Some of the wealthiest people in Miami are Cuban. I am going to take good care of them and I am going to allow them to return to their homeland,” he said.
Either way, the president again made any concrete steps conditional on what happens in the Middle East. “I like to do one thing at a time, and first we will deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that is done, on the way back we will make a brief stop…” he said, before alluding to those good plans.
Translated by GH
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Banco Sabadell will maintain its Havana office, as it only provides services to Spanish companies
Diaz-Canel invites Cubans abroad to take over management of the hotels
Banco Sabadell in Havana carries out only support activities for Spanish companies and does not consider itself affected.
14ymedio, Madrid, 5 June 2026 / With the break between the Spanish hotel companies and Gaviota now complete, experts are now considering whether legal problems will come from Havana. The possibility is plausible enough that the newspaper El Pais ran a headline this Friday reading Melia and Iberostar Face Lawsuits in Cuba for Abandoning Hotel Management, in a piece in which a lawyer sets out this angle – one that had already been raised previously.
Ignacio Aparicio, executive partner at Andersen and director of Cuban Desk, warns that Cuba has two options. “The first is the partners’ agreement. Hotels in Cuba are generally managed through joint ventures in which the Cuban state – through various entities – and the operator both participate. Faced with the unilateral withdrawal of the latter, Cuba could argue that it finds no legal or contractual basis for rescinding the contract, and will seek to resolve the dispute before third parties. A common mechanism for this is arbitration before the Cuba Chamber of Commerce, or before arbitration institutions abroad, a route Cuba rarely opts for,” he explains.
The expert believes the Cuban regime will argue that the threat of sanctions does not compel the breaking of contracts, since such sanctions have existed for decades, and he maintains that it is standard for contracts to contain a clause stating that regulatory changes in third countries do not constitute “force majeure enabling their rescission.”
“They will have to argue that they are leaving their contract for a strictly economic reason and not solely because of US sanctions”
Aparicio advises Spanish companies to focus their defence on demonstrating that, faced with “extraordinary and unforeseeable supervening circumstances,” there has been such a serious disruption to the balance of obligations under the contract as to make performance impossible. “They will have to argue that they are leaving their contract for a strictly economic reason and not solely because of US sanctions, since the absence of electricity supply, food, and air connectivity have been supervening circumstances that have left them without a business, frustrating the purpose continue reading
of the partnership,” he explains.
The newspaper notes that this was precisely the approach taken by Blue Diamond, which in its statement on leaving the island cited a “combination of causes” – such as the suspension of flights – rather than “actions taken by the United States Government.” However, both Melia and Iberostar still retain a considerable number of hotels each – 19 in the case of the former and 6 in the case of the latter – which makes invoking that argument somewhat more complex in their case.
The possibility of Cuban authorities suing what have been and continue to be their partners is, in any event, debatable. In an interview given by Miguel Diaz-Canel to the Spanish online outlet elDiario.es, the president strikes an almost affectionate tone towards the companies. “They have been investing in Cuba for a long time, they have worked hand in hand with our tourism entities, they are business people for whom we have great respect, and they are leaving against their will,” he remarked.
Diaz-Canel alludes to a mutual exchange and learning process that has lasted years and trained thousands of professionals, though he now opens the door to a change of hands in favour of Cuban entrepreneurs abroad. “I am certain that many will return to Cuba to continue the business, but it will not be easy given the stubbornness with which the US Administration has sought to hold back the development of Cuban tourism, knowing that it is a source of income,” he says – making no mention of the fact that many exiles have expressed their intention to invest if there is a political, economic, and above all legal change on the island.
The institution, quite relaxed, told the Catalan press that its activities have no connection whatsoever with Cuban state entities and that there is no intention of leaving
Meanwhile, in Spain companies continue to sort out their positions. One of the most closely watched was also Banco Sabadell, given that the executive order of 1 May explicitly targeted the financial sector. The institution, quite relaxed, told the Catalan press that its activities have no connection whatsoever with Cuban state entities and that there is no intention of leaving.
“Banco Sabadell has always complied with applicable legislation and international sanctions requirements, and will continue to do so,” it stated to ON Economia. Its Havana office has the sole function of supporting Spanish companies present on the island; it carries out no retail banking activity and takes no deposits from individual customers.
The institution has operated in Cuba through Financiera Iberoamericana, a company 50% owned jointly with the state-owned Banco Internacional de Comercio, which does not appear on the sanctions list. Even so, the bank says it will remain alert, as it must, to adapting should circumstances change. The group’s financial exposure in Cuba is minimal, as its 2025 accounts show. Its business on the island contributed barely 4.2 million euros.
The new situation has made no dent in the performance of the major Spanish corporations present on the island. On Thursday, Melia Hotels International closed the trading session up, having already gained 41.51% in the last quarter alone. Moreover, although its Cuba revenues were negligible in 2025 – at 12.7 million euros – that figure represents barely 0.6% of what the Balearic giant brings in overall.
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.
14ymedio, Madrid, June 9, 2026 — Foreigners will be allowed to buy a home in Cuba, but not own land. That is one of the conclusions drawn from the publication this Monday of the draft Agricultural and Forestry Land Law, a measure that consolidates as many as 25 previous laws and is expected to be approved by the National Assembly during its next session in July. The legislation safeguards socialist ownership, except for land belonging to private individuals or agricultural cooperatives (13% and 7%, respectively, while the State owns 80%).
