“This was already happening before Trump”

The national blackout the previous Monday lasted 30 hours. As soon as the service was restored, Yadira, 47, took her daughter Odalys to the Dr. Ernesto Guevara Hospital from Las Tunas, his hometown. She didn’t want another service outage to complicate the birth of her fourth granddaughter.

The girl was born in the early hours of Thursday, March 19. Although it arrived prematurely, It was not necessary to put her in the incubator. “Thank goodness! I don’t trust the electricity to work. “They blame Trump. But this was already happening before the blockade,” he adds.

Like the girl, Grandma is a fighter“One day I was going to my town and I ran into some guys who were scolding a poor man,” he says. It turned out that they were members of State Security who were threatening that guy for selling something illegal on the street.

“The police officer had taken his documentation and threatened him with a fine of $8,000. In Cuba, that is condemning you forever,” he says. Yadira He confronted the official. They turned to insults and the matter was settled with a sentence of five years in prison in the prison of Camagüey.

“They put me in prison ‘of conscience’,” he says. “I accomplished something more than four years and I left in 2022. They released me because I had a gallbladder problem and they didn’t want to operate on me in prison.

“The conditions of the hospitals on the island are a shame,” he says. To show it send images and videos that confirm the state of the country’s public infrastructures. “Living here is a miracle from God,” he says.

Talking about escaping the island is only for the privileged: “It takes a lot of money,” he explains. The Government restricts the issuance of passports. Not everyone can get the document that allows them to fly out of the country: Yadira had to sell her house to be able to take her eldest daughter out.

According to the mother, the young woman was involved in an episode of harassment by a police officer. State Security and he had to “manage” to get her away from there. “Now I think she is in Brazil. I haven’t heard from her in five months,” he says.

Everyday life is a miracle that does not cease: “Half of the inhabitants live on a poverty wage and the other half on charity,” he explains. The average salary is below 120 euros. 70% of retail trade is in the hands of GAESA, a conglomerate of state companies that depends on the Armed forces.

Living in Cuba today

In official stores can only be purchased in dollarsbut the banks do not provide the currency. Relatives who live abroad supply local families with foreign currency so they can eat. That money goes directly into the hands of the State.

The exile is overwhelming: it is estimated that Nearly three million Cubans live outside their country. About 90% emigrated to the United States, especially to Florida, where the largest community is located. Spain is the second destination, with a population of almost 300,000 residents.

Having dollars can become a matter of life or death. After giving birth, Yadira’s daughter had to undergo an operation. Although he had the authorization of the doctor on duty, the surgeon refused to perform it. “He said he didn’t have time,” explains the grandmother. “With dollars, I’m sure I would have made a space,” he adds.

Democracy promoter

Liberto is an engineer. He was born in the province of Saint Clare 65 years ago. Like most of his neighbors, he was active in the Cuban Communist Party. He defines himself as a curious person and says that he devoured the information that came to him through the magazines that the USSR sent to the island in the 70s.

With some irony, he says that his interest in the ‘free world’ was awakened thanks to those same soviet publications. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev promoted the Loudness (transparency). Since then, the contents have moved away from the iron model of the communist dictatorship.

In 1991 came the Perestroika (renewal) that concluded with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of communist rule in Russia. “But the magazines kept coming. Our people had not realized that the world was changing,” he says, somewhere between surprised and amused.

The opening to the free world pushed him to become a soldier in a kind of citizen movement that promoted culture and democracy. The result: he was fired from the party and from work.

Shortly after, he created an institution to encourage debate on political freedom. The ‘cover’ was a fishing club whose members met every Saturday on the banks of the river to talk about politics. Someone betrayed them and Liberto ended up receiving a beating in the dungeon.

His group continued underground and joined the Cuban Councilthe platform that united the opposition to the Castro regime in the 90s. Its most prominent leader, Oswaldo Payadied in 2012 in a traffic accident.

In 1999, the Ibero-American Summit. He King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia attended on behalf of Spain, accompanied by the president José María Aznar. Liberto led a ‘parallel summit’ to draw the attention of the leaders who attended the official summit to the situation of loss of freedom in Cuba.

As a consequence of those actions, he was arrested, tried and sentenced to 20 years prison for subversive activities. He now resides in his native province and continues to promote his love for Jose MartiCuban poetry and freedom.

winds of change

From their perspective, Trump’s blockade, although it causes harm to the people, has a good intention: to provoke internal revolt that justifies an intervention to overthrow the regime. Those who think like him consider that the president Miguel Diaz-Canel It is written off and should be expelled.

Liberto believes that a transition like that of Venezuela is not possible in Cuba. Inside the island there is no structured opposition as such and Castroism is a rock. Despite his 94 years, Raúl Castro maintains power under his control through the next generation.

The figures who could lead the transition are Alejandro Castro Espínson of Raúl and head of the National Defense and Security Council, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez CastroRaúl’s grandson and his personal bodyguard, and Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fragaengineer and great-nephew of Fidel. By far the most prepared of the three.

In mid-March, news leaked that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio He entered into secret conversations with Raúl Rodríguez Castro, “El Cangrejo”, who would be in a good position to ensure a controlled transfer of power to the next generation within Castroism.

Meanwhile, life in Cuba continues to pass on the edge of survival. Javier Larrondoa 55-year-old Spanish businessman, founded the platform Prisoners Defendersto which he has dedicated the last seven years of his life.

His organization denounces cases of imprisonment for dissent and supports political prisoners with legal and humanitarian assistance. Among his achievements, he counts the letter that the UN directed the Cuban Government in 2019 denouncing the “cases of slavery” associated with the expatriation of doctors around the world.

The platform chaired by Larrondo has documented 1,214 cases of political prisoners. When asked for his opinion on the possible transition process he is clear: “Those who are installed are not going to give up easily,” he says.

“They have been leading the country for almost 70 years. Their way of life is power. It will be very difficult to get them out of there if there is no internal reaction.” Maybe the blackoutsthe lack of aguaof food y medicines lift up the Cubans, but this is a people that has become accustomed to enduring everything.