The Federation of Cuban Women said it was celebrating, not Women’s Day, but the right that the Revolution gave them to be “dignified.”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Havana, 10 March 2025 — This past March 8th, the Cuban regime’s institution responsible for monitoring and controlling women put out a weak, shaky, and contradictory statement. The FMC (Federation of Cuban Women) announced in their pamphlet that they were celebrating not International Women’s Day, but rather the right the Revolution gave them to be “dignified.” They claimed to uphold the principles — not of their own female leaders (if they even have any) — but of a macho man who presided over all their congresses and always insisted on having the final say. It’s pretty clear the statement was a throwback to recent events in Río Cauto.
The population of this Granma municipality sank into darkness and misery each year, like the rest of the country, but the local press only spoke of fictitious achievements and a supposed revolutionary euphoria. Río Cauto had been proclaimed “Vanguard Municipality” in the celebration of July 26th in 2023. That same year, it had earned the distinction of hosting the provincial event commemorating the 65th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution.
But the most striking event occurred in February 2024, when the town experienced a collective ’bristling’ following the visit of the appointed dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Its three key officials — Sadia Pérez Nápoles (first secretary of the municipal PCC), Dailín Cox Pajaró (president of the Municipal Assembly), and Yaniel Yero Nápoles (mayor) — had already amassed a significant collection of diplomas and were sharpening their claws to be promoted, without a doubt, to provincial positions.
The population of this Granma municipality sank into darkness and misery each year, like the rest of the country, but the local press only spoke of fictitious achievements and a supposed revolutionary euphoria.
But just a year later, an unexpected turn of events once again put Río Cauto in the spotlight, and not for its usual submissiveness. All Cubans saw on social media a humble woman protesting against hunger and misery. We also witnessed two mastodontic goons violently dragging her away in front of her children. We read the statement from Río Cauto’s authorities branding her ungrateful and throwing in her face the four planks and zinc roof that the Government, in its boundless generosity, had provided her. At the climax of this chronicle, we all closely followed how her neighbors took to the streets in the most resounding protest of the year so far across the country, demanding her release and voicing their collective exasperation.
At this point, it was obvious that the regime would launch a top-down operation, bypassing the municipality’s three leading figures. “This has gotten out of your hands,” a gruff voice on the other end of the phone surely said, “We’ll take it from here.” The first step would be to send reinforcements (in uniform and plainclothes) to secure the site. The second step would be to execute Operation Johnson, following the manual previously practiced by Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, First Secretary of the PCC in Santiago de Cuba.
We’ve all probably heard her counterpart in Granma say how much Río Cauto owed to the Revolution, as if it were Dubai, as if 66 years of perpetual misery hadn’t passed, as if its inhabitants were blind to a reality that grows more unbearable every day. To top it all off, we’ve had to watch the official smilingly pose for a photo with the abused woman, while issuing a threat in the purest drug-trafficking style: “She knows that the consequences of her actions affect her loved ones the most, especially her children.” Give me a break!
Yudelkis Ortiz’s speech has been widely rejected by Cubans both inside and outside the country on social media.
Yudelkis Ortiz’s speech has been slammed by Cubans on social media, both at home and abroad. Río Cauto’s mayor, Yaniel Yero, posted a shameless and crude comment on Facebook this Saturday: “This communist lady’s got more guts than the entire Cuban exile community put together.” It barely got three likes and didn’t stir up any noise. Dailin Cox, the municipal president, stayed silent — no one’s buying her claim that she’s starving like everyone else. The truth is way too obvious. Sadia Pérez, the local first secretary, has also decided to lay low, probably to avoid stealing the spotlight from her boss and ruining her moment of fame. That kind of unloyalty doesn’t come cheap in the party mafia
The country is back to “normal” — blackouts, long lines, hunger, waiting, disappointment, and the unbearable urge to escape anywhere, anyhow. Meanwhile, Fidel Castro’s influencer grandson celebrated March 8th by having three girls dressed as vampires bite and suck on his neck while he spewed nonsense. A sad, hopeless country. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for an island where dignity and obedience are so easily confused.
Translated by Gustavo Loredo
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