The Cuban Vice Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga openly acknowledged that the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel cannot publicly explain all the details related to the current fuel crisis, resorting to a logic of secrecy that has characterized the Cuban regime since its inception.
According to the great-nephew of the dictators Fidel and Raúl Castro, the Cuban regime is "constantly monitored" and every shipment of oil that arrives on the island is closely observed by external actors.
During his speech at the Round Table, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment also stated that "there are things that cannot be explained publicly", because "every drop of fuel that arrives in Cuba, every ship, is on social media and in publications."
The statement, far from being a novelty, is part of a historical tradition of Cuban power based on opacity, information control, and the ongoing construction of an "external enemy" as a justification for not being accountable to the citizenry.
Pérez-Oliva Fraga explained that in the month of February, several factors have come together that have compelled the government to implement a series of decisions to address a "complex situation," with the stated goal of ensuring the "vitality of the country" and fundamental services, without giving up—he said—on economic development.
However, he avoided providing concrete details about the actual scope of the crisis, the timelines for the measures, their areas of application, the potential impact on the living standards of Cubans, or the prospects for recovery.
"We are not here to make excuses; we are here to fulfill our duty to inform our people," the official stated.
Nonetheless, the alleged information exercise of the television program Friday occurred within limits clearly defined by the regime itself, which decided what to say, what to omit, and what to present as secret for reasons of "security," resorting to the manual of opacity that has recurred over more than six decades of governance.
Once again, despite the "novelty" that the recent appointment of a descendant of the Castros represents, the official discourse relied on the idea of a besieged "revolution," where transparency is seen as a risk rather than a citizen's right.
Since the early years of the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, the regime has used external surveillance, the U.S. embargo, and the constant threat of the "enemy" as arguments to centralize decision-making, restrict information, and demand sacrifices from the population without providing full explanations or mechanisms for public oversight.
This Friday, Pérez-Oliva Fraga emphasized that the aim of the measures is to "minimize the impact of the crisis on the Cuban population," yet he continued to display a condescending and paternalistic attitude toward the citizens by maintaining secrecy about government actions, revealing the regime's disdain and lack of commitment to its people.
Cubans have seen their lives severely deteriorate due to prolonged power outages, transportation limitations, food shortages, and the collapse of basic services. However, this reality does not seem as important to the regime as the need to maintain secrecy about the government plans that they supposedly intend to use to spare them this suffering.
At the same time, the new star of the Castro family clan shifted some of the responsibility to the territories by calling for the enhancement of resources in provinces and municipalities, a common formula in the official discourse to diffuse responsibilities during times of crisis.
The collective call, however, occurs without real access to information or to decision-making. State paternalism reappears as the norm: the government decides, manages scarcity, and communicates only what is strictly necessary, while demanding understanding, discipline, and sacrifice from the citizenry.
Although Pérez-Oliva Fraga acknowledged that there are internal deficiencies and stated that they do not seek to justify themselves solely with the embargo, his speech maintained the narrative pillars of the regime: the external threat, permanent exceptionalism, and the legitimization of secrecy as a governing tool.
In a country where the State controls resources, data, and the narrative, the lack of transparency remains a deliberate choice, not an unavoidable circumstance.
The statements by Pérez-Oliva Fraga confirm that, in the midst of the most critical moment in recent years, the Cuban totalitarian regime once again resorts to secrecy, a defensive narrative, and the management of silence as a means of power.
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