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TV Azteca responded this Friday to the Cuban ambassador in Mexico, Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, following his accusations of "lies" and "misinformation" directed at the investigative report aired by the channel on Thursday, which documented the sale of humanitarian donations from Mexico in Cuban state stores operating in dollars.
Through its official account @AztecaNoticias on X, the Mexican channel published a direct message to the ambassador: "You do politics; we do journalism. No one told us, no one informed us: we were there, documenting with cameras what people experience."
While you defend a regime, we show the reality: support sold in dollars and a suffering people. That is the difference; we inform, you deny and defend the indefensible." The post accumulated over 3,200 likes and 906 retweets in just a few hours.
The report, presented by journalist Rodrigo Lema, documented with images the presence of humanitarian aid products sent by Mexico in TRD Caribe stores, the commercial network in foreign currency linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).
The most documented product was the so-called "wellness bean," which is sold for $2.97 for half a kilogram, or $43 for a 30-kilogram sack. The sale of Mexican toilet paper was also documented in those same stores.
Cuban residents in Havana and Matanzas interviewed by the channel confirmed that the aid has not reached the ration books. "They haven't given anything here. It's an open secret that everything is being sold in the FAR and State Council TRD stores, and it's all in dollars," stated one of the respondents.
Another resident pointed out, "What worries me is that the foreign currency stores, which are military-owned, were empty before this incident, and now they are completely full."
A Mexican citizen living in Cuba also spoke with the channel: "Many people in Cuba, when they hear that I'm Mexican, say that Mexico supports Cuba a lot, but it all just ends up being for business."
Martínez Enríquez rejected the accusations and argued that the images of Mexican products in stores correspond to legal commercial imports, not donations. The Cuban Ministry of Domestic Trade (MINCIN) issued a statement along the same lines, stating that "the news is false" and that food is distributed for free through the network of bodegas.
The controversy arises weeks after Mexico sent two large shipments of humanitarian aid to Cuba: the first, weighing 814 tons, arrived on February 8; the second, weighing 1,193 tons aboard the ships Papaloapan and Huasteco, arrived on February 28, including 92 tons of beans.
The aid, ordered by President Claudia Sheinbaum, was primarily intended for children, pregnant women, the elderly, and vulnerable families.
The Cuban-American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar supports the report and warned: "I have been denouncing this for years: for decades, any humanitarian aid sent to the regime, supposedly for the Cuban people, ends up in the hands of the Castro elite or is resold at abusive prices. They will fall. And they will be held accountable. Very soon."
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