“Right now, it’s full of police officers, and there are 40 informants watching everything.”
14ymedio, Mercedes García, Sancti Spíritus, 20 June 2025 — This Friday morning, new posters against the Cuban regime appeared on the boulevard of Sancti Spíritus. Near the shopping plaza, one of those spaces beautified with a brushstroke by the authorities to mask urban decay, two phrases appeared that were impossible to ignore: “Down with Fidel” and “Down with the Revolution.”
The scene, amid the morning shopping rush, sparked a wave of murmurs among the neighbors. And, as expected, it also provoked an immediate response: a spectacular surveillance operation.
“I went to the plaza, as I do almost every day,” a witness who preferred not to give her name told 14ymedio. “I saw they were painting a wall and thought it was maintenance. But as I was leaving, I heard a woman say they had put up signs. I thought it was a joke, until I saw what they said: ‘Down with Fidel and Down with the Revolution’.”
The plaza where the slogans appeared sells agricultural products during the day and is padlocked at night, indicating that the author or authors acted early, when the gates are already open to the public. “If it had been nighttime, they wouldn’t have let the people see them,” the woman reflects. On the yellow-painted wall, the marks of the letters scraped with some tool can still be seen. If the original graffiti was precarious, the action of concealing it was more improvised.
Despite attempts to quickly delete the messages, several witnesses managed to read them and, most feared by those in power, comment on them. What followed was almost a caricature of policing: dozens of police officers, plainclothes officers who make no bones about it, and a swarm of cadres and community officials patrolling the area. “Right now, it’s packed with police, and there are 40 informers watching everything,” the source added. “I had to pretend, because they stared at me as if I were the culprit.”
“The funny thing is that they resurrected Fidel Castro… at least to insult him.”
What was scandalous wasn’t just the content of the graffiti—already a deadly taboo in official discourse—but its symbolic audacity. In a country where even mentioning Fidel Castro critically can still be considered heresy, reading his name after “down with” is a mortal sin. “The curious thing is that they’ve resurrected Fidel Castro… at least to insult him,” the witness notes sarcastically.
The appearance of these signs reflects growing popular discontent. It comes amid marathon blackouts, an acute economic crisis, and a clear rise in popular discontent. “A neighbor told me that it seemed incredibly strange to have electricity from six in the morning until ten. Until recently, they were barely given an hour and a half of electricity a day,” she adds.
Sancti Spíritus, traditionally seen as one of the country’s most peaceful provinces—at least on the surface—is no longer immune to the contagion of weariness. And this isn’t an isolated graffiti: just a few weeks ago, another subversive slogan appeared at the intersection of Carretera Central and Avenida de los Mártires. There, on a Jaimanita paving slab, someone wrote “Down with the dictatorship” near the inscription: “Sancti Spíritus continues the march.” It didn’t take long for the people to find the irony: “The stain continues.”
The problem is not a “situation”, as the official script repeats, but a chronically failed system.
Holguín was not far behind. Similar messages appeared in the Lenin neighborhood and on the wall of the Mayabe cemetery. In Guanabacoa, one was written on the wall of a medical post near a military neighborhood. And defiant signs have also been reported at several universities across the country—where protests against the Etecsa rate hike — the so-called ‘tarifazo’ — have been most intense.
But this Friday, the people of Sancti Spiritus didn’t target Díaz-Canel, who for many is merely a figurehead within Cuba’s power structures. They went straight to the ideological heart: to Fidel and the Revolution, as if they were crystal clear that the problem isn’t a “situation,” as the official script repeats, but rather a chronically failed system. A tired model that can’t even cover up the growing crack in the walls with a single stroke.
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