The Deputy Director General of the United States Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Johana Tablada, joined the official chorus on Tuesday rejecting the controversial statements made by the Minister of Labor, Marta Elena Feitó, regarding the alleged existence of “disguised beggars” in the nation.
Through an extensive message posted on her Facebook profile, Tablada stated that she is “outraged since yesterday, like the vast majority of Cubans,” in response to what she described as “insensitive, unacceptable, and condemned statements” made by a “high official” of the country, clearly referring to Feitó.
"I have no doubt that at some point she did a good job, but her mistake is very serious and hurts us all,” wrote the diplomat.
In addition, he expressed his desire for someone else to take on the leadership of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, considering it a “sensitive” responsibility that “deserves the best.”
The official from MINREX also praised the reaction of the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel, who days earlier distanced himself from the scandal and stated that “poverty cannot be criminalized.”
For Tablada, that response was "swift and appropriate" and reaffirmed that the leader "places himself, as he has so many times, on the side of his people, on the side of the Revolution."
However, in her post, the diplomat combined her condemnation of Feitó with a direct attack on the Cuban opposition, on the exile community, and on U.S. policy, asserting that she does not accept criticism from those who— in her opinion—support the "blockade" or remain silent about abuses occurring in other parts of the world.
"How adorable are those who post every 10 minutes pretending to care about poverty in Cuba, but don’t speak out or criticize the atrocities there out of hypocrisy, fear, or complicity," she wrote sarcastically.
Tablada defended the regime against those who "create difficulties in Cuba only to criticize it" and lashed out at exile figures such as Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, and Ted Cruz, whom he referred to as "the same artificial and foul characters."
Tablada's reaction adds to the wave of public backlash generated by Minister Feitó's statement, in which she suggested during a parliamentary intervention that some individuals who beg or rummage through the trash might be "disguised" to avoid working.
The turmoil has not only reached social media, where journalists, artists, and citizens have shared photos and testimonies of the growing impoverishment in Cuba, but it has also caused damage to the state's image itself, to the point that high-ranking officials, such as Díaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, have been compelled to respond in a corrective tone.
Instead of acknowledging the increase in poverty and indigence as a consequence of the profound economic crisis the country is experiencing, several regime spokespersons have chosen to politically instrumentalize the scandal, directing their rhetoric against those who criticize from exile or from the opposition, without seriously addressing the root of the problem.
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