The Cuban influencer Alexander Otaola issued a direct message to Miguel Díaz-Canel during his program Hola! Ota-Ola, broadcast on the channel Cubanos por el Mundo – Live, in which he said: “Now is the time for you to give the order to fight.”
The statement came amid a context of high political tension between the Cuban regime and the administration of Donald Trump, after the American president publicly warned Havana to "make a deal before it's too late", following the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and the alleged end of the oil and funding that Cuba had received for years from Venezuela.
In his program, Otaola reacted to the messages issued by the Cuban government in recent days, including military exercises for National Defense Day and publications by Díaz-Canel in which he stated that Cuba "does not threaten, it prepares" and that it is willing to defend itself "to the last drop of blood".
In that context, the presenter recalled that Díaz-Canel had already used the expression "combat order" in the past. On July 11, 2021, amid the massive protests that spread throughout the country, the Cuban leader appeared on national television and stated, "The combat order is given, the revolutionaries to the streets," a call that led to the repression of demonstrators in various cities across the island.
During his speech, Otaola pointed out that that order was issued against unarmed citizens who took to the streets to protest, and from that precedent, he directed his comment to the Cuban leader.
The verbal exchange takes place as the Cuban regime faces one of the moments of greatest international isolation in recent decades and responds to warnings from Washington with a discourse of confrontation and resistance.
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