On January 8 of this year, the Cuban Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, dropped the bomb by euphemistically announcing "an update" to fuel prices, when in reality it was referring to the biggest increase that the Island's gas stations and the drivers' pockets were going to experience in the recent history of the country. In principle, the 500% increase in the price of gasoline would begin to be applied from February 1st, but an alleged cyber attack from abroad in the Cimex corporation, according to state television, prevented the measure from being implemented, as planned. Almost fifteen days later it is still on 'stand by'.
As a side effect of the 'cyber attack', on February 2, Miguel Díaz-Canel euphemistically announced that released the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, from his responsibilities, strong man of his Executive, who had remained at the top since 2018, a year before Raúl Castro raised Díaz-Canel's arm to announce to the world that he was the chosen one.
Both changes have been interpreted as a full stop. The regime stopped cold because no one, not even the establishment itself, dares, at this time, to rule out a new social outbreak like that of July 11, 2021. Hunger, shortages, blackouts and the failure of public services essentials, such as healthcare, on an Island with an aging population, automatically turns those who have no one abroad into big losers, the elderly who worked all their lives and today see how half of his pension goes to 10 bananas and a bomb fruit. Nobody rules out that they take to the streets again.
In July of last year, the Elcano Institute, a Spanish think tank that receives subsidies from the Government, defined Cuba as "a failed and collapsed regime, with a fragile State and anomic institutions" in which "only institutions with repressive functions function: the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR)", in addition, it noted that "the country is administered by a government controlled by an oligarchy through the super holding Grupo de Gestión Empresarial S.A (GAESA) and this "has increased poverty and triggered mass emigration to the United States (USA), creating the scenario of greatest vulnerability of the Cuban regime for more than 63 years."
For Ariel Ruiz Urquiola, former Cuban political prisoner, "Cuba is more than a failed state, because it is not only a dying and corrupt political body of a nation. The Cuban nation, synonymous with the family, has been destroyed, because to begin with and despite a common ethnic origin , millions of Cubans have been displaced and although we have the same "language", its use has become unintelligible among the vulgarities, the double standards ingrained in those who lived and still do under Castro-communism, fear and lack of civility. A social outbreak is as likely within the prison archipelago as in the diaspora against diplomatic and political institutions, which is atrocious in Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland, not to mention its terrible expansion in the US and Canada, and its reflection opaque in its corrupt populist and literal ignorant analogues of Latin America. With this I want to highlight that the responsibility for the freedom of Cuba belongs to us all equally. A good part of those 65 years has been due to the deep-seated errors of our independence feats like the one. caudillism, regionalism but above all the lack of integrity as a nation and even further, as a democratic project where the true sovereign is its people."
His sister, Omara Ruiz Urquiola, defines the current situation of the country. "Cuba has reached the point of systemic crisis, all productive sectors, including the service economy, are compromised. Not even half of what is necessary for domestic consumption and the export of professional services, such as educational, medical, among others, it implies instability due to desertions and is increasingly subject to the scrutiny of international bodies that at some point will act due to the scheme of human rights violations on which they are based. Generational change only applies to the bureaucracy, not. for the productive forces that, without incentive or perspectives, emigrate or lie in inaction. The symbolic capital of the Cuban Revolution was exhausted, and in an ugly way the Revolution did not know how to age.
When asked if he believes that his confinement in San Isidro and the fight he put against the regime along with Maykel Osorbo and Luis Manuel Otero served any purpose, he denies any type of victory to celebrate. "Some of what this horrible time, forced to be outside my country, has given me a lot, has been access to the other's vision of what we did. I'm talking to you about sensitive and thinking people, the fuss doesn't count in my records. There were more people watching than I imagined, without thinking or knowing, we developed expressions of dissent, always provoked by the repressive onslaught, and because they are useful they continue to be used.
"However, it would be ridiculous to say that we won. Maykel and Luisma are in jail, there are more than a thousand Denis Solís serving political prison and millions of Cubans going hungry. They never closed the stores in MLC, we will never know how many the COVID-19 and right now there are thousands of Cubans in Tapachula or crossing the jungle while the Meliá Hotel International hotels flourish and Josep Borrell, Antonio Guterres and the Vatican support the criminal who launched the uniformed men against the barefoot and hungry people Every week. We are witnessing a new chapter in the burlesque saga of the United States Embassy that can no longer hide the contempt for the cause of Cuban freedom and between drums and MSMEs imposes the 'people to people', which the Office of Foreign Affairs prioritizes. Cubans from the State Department. Daring has scattered us around the world at the expense of everything, uprooted and in suspense for our mothers, in my case surviving thanks to faith in the return. Time will tell if it worked or not. "We couldn't do the math."
The clear decline
Along the same lines, lawyer Yaxys Cires, director of Strategies of the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), considers that "at this time we are experiencing the clear decline of a system that does not work due to a host of issues, especially because does not believe in human freedom, due to the structural and accumulated crises, and due to the regime's lack of political will to do what is necessary. Today 88% of the population lives in extreme poverty, hit by the growing deterioration of all needs. public services, lack of food and medicine.
Furthermore, he regrets that "the regime's response to this very serious situation has not been bold measures, but rather making the sacrifice fall on the poorest. They have not been changes in favor of economic freedom and human rights, nor effective public policies, but the increase in prices of essential services".
Elena Larrinaga, from the Cuban Women's Network, also believes that at any moment there could be a social outbreak in Cuba. "The government is delegitimized and has demonstrated its manifest inability to have power or want to reverse the situation," he says.
Furthermore, he explains that the deterioration that the country is experiencing "affects public infrastructure - from schools and hospitals to roads, the electrical system and transportation -, something that has a direct or indirect impact on access to these rights. included in the 2019 Constitution" and points out an issue that the regime can no longer hide: mass emigration.
"In two years, Cuba has recorded the largest migratory exodus since the 1959 revolution, with the loss of more than 500,000 people. The task of ordering and the measures of recent times have drastically worsened the situation."
In this regard, lawyer Willy Allen, an immigration expert, highlights that the immigration crisis that now exists in Cuba was not experienced even during the special period. "From March 2017 to May 2023, more than 800,000 Cubans entered through the border. Not only is it a significant percentage of the Cuban population, but it is also the most productive population, professionals, people who had started businesses, doctors, lawyers and engineers. "If you add the number of people who have entered through family visas, we are talking about almost a million Cubans in a relatively short period of time."
It also remembers that in the 2022-2023 fiscal year 150,000 Cubans entered the United States illegally through the Mexican border and another 140,000 entered legally. When you add those two, that's 300,000 people in a fiscal year. "It's more than any other nationality in the entire world."
At the same time, he highlights that in those years the arrival of remittances to the Island has fallen and in his opinion, "the United States is not going to allow another Mariel" and "that could lead to an internal explosion like the one that happened on September 11. July, but even more massive and with more repercussions on Cuban society."
"The poorest people, with fewer families outside of Cuba; the most needy, who knows what they are going to do when they see themselves with fewer opportunities available," Allen added.
Javier Larrondo, from Prisoners Defenders, also believes that "a social outbreak is close in Cuba. Why? Without a doubt the conditions are sufficient for there to be a social outbreak: indiscriminate repression of rights, misery due to the restrictions carried out by the regime internal production, and despair among the people to change any of them.
He is convinced that the withdrawal of the fuel increase and the dismissal of Minister Alejandro Gil is due to "the regime's fear of a social outbreak and an internal image-washing in the face of critics of said measures at high levels of the civil service."
Larrondo considers that the protests and the San Isidro strike have been important. "In the democratic process in Cuba, not only have the Varela Project, the years of mobilization of UNPACU, the criminal trial of José Daniel Ferrer in 2019, the Artistic Movement led by Movimiento San Isidro not only served, but have been key for two decades. and continued with the song Patria y Vida and 11J".
To the question of what can be done from outside Cuba, he answers that "help people in need so that their entry to Cuba is legal and as protected and correct as possible and, on the opposite side, actively protect those in the United States." The repressors cannot enter the United States, for several reasons: a) they can penetrate the exile or distort it; b) they cause security problems in the United States and c) they can provoke the rejection of legal and necessary immigration that does require the support of developed countries. ".
And what comes next? He is clear. "We must continue working for democracy in Cuba, with tolerance, with broad vision and respecting all those who carry out that work, regardless of their ideology, so that the strength of unity in the pro-democratic values of social dissidence is the asset that causes the change."
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