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The Cuban regime has launched an intense diplomatic offensive to influence the official visit to the island by the UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Alena Douhan, a Belarusian official known for her favorable reports on authoritarian governments such as those in Venezuela.
Douhan, who arrived in Cuba on November 11 for a ten-day stay, has been tasked with assessing the impact of unilateral sanctions on human rights.
The Cuban regime, led by the Castro family and the military leadership of GAESA, and represented by the designated ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, aims to leverage this visit to reinforce its narrative that the so-called "U.S. blockade" is to blame for the economic and social crisis that is suffocating the population.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba (MINREX) has issued statements and images of Douhan's meetings with high-ranking officials, including Deputy Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío, emphasizing the supposed "humanitarian" nature of his visit.
However, opposition organizations and human rights activists have raised concerns about the political manipulation of this mission, aimed at producing a complacent report that conceals the regime's own responsibilities in repression, poverty, and the mass exodus of Cubans.
The Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) urged the rapporteur to also listen to representatives of independent civil society, emphasizing that human rights violations in Cuba "do not depend on external sanctions, but rather on the lack of political will of the State".
In that regard, Martí Noticias reported that its vice president, Manuel Cuesta Morúa, urged Douhan to ask Cubans directly who is truly responsible for the crisis.
Unlike other United Nations envoys, Douhan has faced criticism for her closeness to authoritarian governments. In 2021, she issued a report on Venezuela that downplayed the crimes of the Nicolás Maduro regime and almost exclusively blamed international sanctions for the humanitarian emergency.
In a diplomatic gesture of transparency, the rapporteur published a message this Sunday on the social network X (formerly Twitter) where she stated that she is open to receiving testimonies and documents from any interested party.
I reaffirm my willingness to receive all relevant contributions, he wrote, inviting the submission of information to the email [hrc-sr-ucm@un.org](mailto:hrc-sr-ucm@un.org).
Voices from civil society both inside and outside the island are urging the need to seize this opportunity to amplify the Cuban people's opinions, documenting the abuses of the regime, the lack of freedoms, and the true impact of internal repression that cannot be attributed to any embargo, but rather to more than six decades of dictatorship.
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