The couple also met with two people who enjoy maximum confidence from the regime, Lourdes and Rodolfo Dávalos
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 20 November 2024 — Manuel Anido Cuesta is the only young man in the stuffy photo of the Cuban delegation that met with Pope Francis in 2023. His stepfather, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, introduced him to the pontiff as “the opposition in the family.” Lis Cuesta’s son managed to stay out of the spotlight until Wednesday, when ¡Hola!, the Spanish gossip magazine, photographed him in Madrid kissing Cuban actress Ana de Armas.
In the images released by ¡Hola!, Anido walks through Madrid with Ana de Armas, walking her dog, Salsa. They were also captured on their return from the Numa Pompilio restaurant, located in the exclusive Salamanca neighborhood. In addition, one of the photographs shows that they met with Lourdes Dávalos, the lawyer who defended the regime in the case for its debt with the CRF investment fund in London, and with her father, Rodolfo Dávalos, Fidel Castro’s trusted lawyer in international litigation.
Very little is known about Anido. “He is a law graduate, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” said Díaz-Canel.
Very little is known about Anido. “He graduated in law, he works with me, he is the one who criticizes me the most,” Díaz-Canel told the Pope, under the tender gaze of Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez and his mother. Although he is credited with a position as an advisor to the president, his role in the government is not clear. He appears in photos of the president’s trips to Moscow, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.
The magazine had reported on the actress’s breakup with tycoon Paul Boukadakis, vice president of Tinder, the online dating app, and had speculated about the existence of a new relationship. It had also reported on De Armas’ trips to Cuba, a growing and controversial rapprochement, given the critical situation on the island.
What for the world of showbiz and the paparazzi is a banal incursion into the life of the actress – “she has found a new dream” is the recurring headline – for Cubans is the confirmation of what the Spanish media have rightly called the couple’s “undeniable complicity.”
Like Marilyn Monroe, the legendary actress whom De Armas plays in Blonde, the Cuban – who emigrated to Spain at the age of 18 – has a fondness for the presidential environment. Last August, De Armas traveled to Cuba on a “private visit” about which her friends on the island – especially Claudia Alvariño, actress of La Colmenita and a staunch supporter of the regime – published photos. She was also in Havana last May, accompanied by Boukadakis, to celebrate her 35th birthday. In 2020, the “novio invitado” was Ben Affleck.
Although the island’s official press did not cover her achievements abroad until very recently, it has not been immune to her trips to Cuba. “’Ana, good morning, I’m Thalía Fuentes, a journalist from Cubadebate . Do you think you can answer a couple of questions? ’Excuse me, journalist, I’m on vacation. It’s a pleasure to greet you.’” This is how Fuentes described her meeting with the actress in 2023, a cold shower.
She then consoled herself for the fiasco: “I’m standing in the middle of the street. It’s understandable, she’s on vacation, she wants to be away from the cameras. We have to respect her decision. Being a public figure can’t deprive you of peace. Keep walking, enjoying Havana, that city that is hers, and that always welcomes her with open arms. Ana de Armas from Blonde is an actress and she’s Cuban.” Cubadebate was quick to delete the article.
The media then claimed that De Armas had declared she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because he didn’t live in Havana.”
In April of that year, however, Cubadebate reported in great detail on her meeting with the children’s theater company La Colmenita (The Little Beehive). The media outlet then stated that De Armas had declared that she wanted to be part of the company, “but she couldn’t because she didn’t live in Havana.” Indeed, although she was born in the capital, her family moved to Santa Cruz del Norte during the Special Period.
De Armas has spoken kindly of that time in interviews – “the power went out, we ate fried eggs, rice and sometimes chicken” – and praised the fact that education in Cuba is “free” and “very rigorous.” Regarding her father, she admitted that he once held positions in a municipal government – although she did not clarify whether it was in Santa Cruz del Norte – and that he ran a bank.
Her brother, the photographer Javier Caso, who lives in the US, is known for his opposition to the regime and has repeatedly denounced the “dictatorship” that is “killing” Cubans. Caso was summoned by State Security in 2020 and managed to record the interrogation. One of the agents’ questions was about his sister. A year later, Caso reported that the artist Luis Manuel Otero was the victim of police harassment. For this reason, he went on a hunger strike.
Although De Armas is used to photographers – she confessed that her love life was in a sort of “controlled intensity” – the experience is totally new for the “royalty” of the regime. It has not gone well, for example, for Lis Cuesta, whose romantic effusions about Díaz-Canel – such as the memorable “dictator of my heart” or the soul “in dishcloth mode” – have been mocked by hundreds of Cubans.
Neither Anido nor his entourage are ready for the harassment of the tabloids in an environment like Cuba, so far from any romantic idyll. ¡Hola! has walked with the couple through the avenues of Madrid. Very far from the dull streets filled with rubbish in Cuba, where Ana de Armas and her “new dream” were born.
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