There is concern about the use of the Canary Islands government subsidy, which claims to have received supporting documents.
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, June 21, 2025 — The descendants of Canary Islanders (Canarians) in Cuba have been crossing the desert for more than three years. The accusations of corruption within the Leonor Pérez Cabrera Canary Island Association and the closure of its main headquarters in Havana adds to the despair of many elderly people, who now have more difficulty in receiving the direct aid offered by the government of that Spanish autonomous community.
“The closure of the Casa Canaria has dispersed a lot of people, and the elderly are the most vulnerable,” says José, a descendant of migrants from Tenerife. He believes that with the 2023 closure of the Association’s house at 258 Monserrate street in Old Havana, part of the glue that held the Canarians together in Cuba has been lost.
In 2022, the Cuban government intervened in the Association after numerous complaints of malpractice, and they created a management commission chaired by the then deputy minister of culture, Fernando Rojas, whose grandmother is from Arucas (Las Palmas). The group, which presented itself as a transitional entity, has ended up monopolizing internal decisions, appointed like-minded people to head several local associations and manages, without transparency, the renovation of the emblematic building on Monserrate Street.
José Luis Perestelo Rodríguez, deputy councilor of Foreign Affairs for the Canary Islands, tells 14ymedio that the government of the Canary Islands “provided a grant of 90,000 euros for the restoration of the building that housed the Casa Canaria, a grant that, as of today, is currently executed and justified.” However, traces of that money are barely perceived in the interior of the building, according to statements collected by this newspaper.
“No progress has been made in the electrical system, nor have hydraulic reforms been made. So far, the only thing that has been achieved is to demolish some structures, built arbitrarily, and throw away garbage and rubble,” says a source close to the restoration process. “Restoration students linked to the Office of the City Historian helped to clear the rubble but were not paid even one peso,” he adds.
Walls corroded by moisture, damaged framework and wooden doors, roof leaks and deteriorating pipes, especially in bathroom areas, are still present. “From the outside you do not notice any change but inside is where you can see how little has been done. Three years and 90,000 euros later the place is a ruin, and the schedule of repair and reopening is a mystery. They tell us nothing,” he complains.
Even a musician has joined the complaint and, with the refrain of “return the Canary House,” has recorded and broadcast a theme about the current situation of the property. ” They tricked us with false meetings, empty promises, false choice,” he exclaims in his song. “They occupy our place as if it were their own,” says the young man who identifies himself as a “guanche* and mambí rapper.”
Even a musician has joined the complaint with the refrain of “return the Casa Canaria”
Perestelo Rodríguez, in reply to this newspaper, says that “the government of the Canary Islands at this moment is not interested in the recovery of the building. The priority is to meet the needs of the Canarians and their descendants in Cuba, for which we provide individualized assistance to people directly.” He claims to be “in dialogue with the current management of the Casa Canaria to proceed with the renovation by the governing bodies, in a process that must be open to all members”.
The delay in the renovation of the premises causes problems that go beyond not being able to count on the large rooms where meetings, dances and concerts were organized, and in which a restaurant also functioned.
“Not having a place to meet up has greatly weakened the bonds among the Canarians,” reflects José in reference to the 50,000 migrants or descendants of Canarians who in 2023 were estimated to live in Cuba, a figure that may be lower today due to the mass exodus experienced by the Island. For his part, “Fernando Rojas continues to pressure the government of the Canary Islands to convince them that he is the only one who can handle Canarian matters in Cuba”.
“Rojas is an official and responds to the Cuban government, not to us”
“We cannot meet, because without the Havana headquarters we have to depend on the management commission to provide a place, but they have done very little in all these years,” adds José. “Rojas has exterminated the Canarian community in Cuba, has disarticulated the little autonomy we had left and has turned it into his private estate because he is an official and responds to the Cuban government, not to us”.
In a WhatsApp group, to which this newspaper had access, Dayamí Blanco Jorrín, the right hand of Rojas, announced the celebration on May 30 of the Day of the Canary Islands. In her message she said that “the event will take place during a very difficult time for Cuba, marked by economic difficulties and a constant and escalating aggression that does not know justice”.
As a finale, Blanco wrote that the Canary Islands government had not delivered the funds in 2025 intended for the Leonor Pérez Cabrera Association Canaria, but on the official site of the entity appears an allocated grant of 20,000 euros for that period. José explains that it has not been possible to obtain this money, and the Association remains without a leader after postponing the electoral process in order to elect a government that Rojas has tried unsuccessfully to form with people sympathetic to his policy.
To elect a president, member meetings must first be held, followed by convening an extraordinary general meeting and forming the electoral board. Only that entity can update the membership register. However, the sequence has not been followed, and the association remains without a leader since May 2022, when Lázaro Rivero was removed from the presidency by the management committee due to financial irregularities.
Those who have taken the brunt of the paralysis of the Association, the closure of the Casa and the loss of social activities have been the elderly. Not only do they not now have some of the cultural and recreational events that added some diversion to their lives, but they also don’t receive advice from the institution and other younger Canarians who helped them on important issues, like knowing about announcements and filling out forms for receiving financial aid distributed by the Canary Islands government.
“Most of those who need the aid couldn’t even fill out the application”
The Vice Councilor of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Canary Islands awarded this year “a grant to 149 Canarians resident in Cuba, for a total of 29,800 euros, 200 euros per person, in order to alleviate the precarious health and socio-economic situation in which they are living,” explains the entity. But the number of beneficiaries seems like a drop in an ocean. “Most of those who need the aid couldn’t even fill out the application,” says José. “When the Casa was functioning, the younger people helped the elderly, but now the only ones who can get help are those who have a son or grandson to help them with the paperwork,” says the descendant of Canarians.
“There is very little information on aid, and, with the problems of connecting to the internet, an elderly person who lives here has a lot of difficulty in completing the paperwork for receiving aid,” says a daughter of 72-year-old Canarians living in the town of Cabaiguán, Sancti Spíritus. “Here, in addition, there are many who managed to get Spanish citizenship and left. There are only a few of us who stayed.”
The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, obtained a Spanish passport through the Democratic Memory Act but has not left the Island because she takes care of an older sister, who is bed-ridden and in need of constant care. “Most old people cannot fill out the forms and send them in on time, and they don’t want to be kept hanging wondering if they’ll get the money or not.”
The problem, however, does not end when the person is approved for financial aid. “The bank gives us the money in national currency, at an exchange rate of 1 euro for 120 pesos, but on the street the euro is worth three times more”, she says, referring to this Tuesday’s informal exchange rate, which is 1 euro for 410 pesos.”You’re supposed to be able to withdraw that money in foreign currency, but in my branch they always tell me that they don’t have it”.
The Canarian descendant lists the process of being attentive to new calls, filling out the forms, printing them for signature, re-digitizing the documents and finally sending them by e-mail. ” Before, the grassroots organizations provided the forms already printed and helped the elderly to fill them in, but now everything is in chaos: the management commission is not fulfilling any role; it does not inform us, does not manage and does not keep the community organized and united”.
“Only four of the basic organizations are functioning, and badly; the rest are deactivated,” says the woman. “Many of those who ran them have gone to the Canary Islands and from there do nothing for us here”, she says. ” The Association has become the private business of some, no longer fulfilling the function of representing all of us”.
* Genre of music in the Canary Islands.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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