The activist, violinist, and Cuban exile Luis Alberto Mariño took part in a heated debate in Argentina where he refuted point by point the arguments of Leonardo Grosso, a leader of the Evita Movement, who refused to label Cuba as a dictatorship.
The debate took place on the channel Todo Noticias. A segment was published this Thursday by Venezuelan activist Elisa Trotta Gamus. The conversation between Grosso and Mariño can be seen, along with how the Argentine attributes the Cuban humanitarian crisis to the U.S. embargo and the measures of the Trump administration.
"I have a different perspective on the political and social process in Cuba. (...) If you say that the crisis has been ongoing for a long time, great, but it has been exacerbated by the blockade and the latest measures from Trump. Denying that is denying the reality of your country's situation. Do you agree that the Cuban people should suffer?" said Grosso.
Mariño, who has been living in Buenos Aires for eight years, rejected that characterization with concrete arguments.
"Tell me where in the world political parties are prohibited. It's a dictatorship. Where in the world are there no elections? In dictatorships," stated the exile during the exchange.
He added: "To talk about dictatorships in Latin America and not mention that there was already a dictatorship in Cuba as early as the 1960s is not to speak about history."
Mariño also used as an argument the recent announcement by Cuban Vice Prime Minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga that Cuba will allow Cubans abroad to invest in the island for the first time.
"If Cubans can finally invest in their own country now, it is the regime that has blocked them for 67 years," he pointed out, turning the argument of the embargo that is often presented by the Latin American left on its head.
Regarding the economy, Mariño was straightforward: "Since the 1990s, Cuba has experienced state capitalism, controlled by the Communist Party and by the Castro elite," where foreign companies like Meliá invest but pay salaries to the regime and not directly to the workers.
Regarding the medical brigades, she denounced that they represent slave labor: "Not only do they not receive their salary, but they are also blackmailed, both politically and economically."
This stance of the Cuban government is supported by international organizations. In 2021, the European Parliament issued a historic resolution condemning medical missions, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights described them as a modern form of slavery, and the Cuban Human Rights Observatory documented that they violate four fundamental conventions of the ILO.
In response to Grosso's argument that we should discuss how Trump "holds the Cuban civilian population hostage," the exile replied directly: "The civilian population has been held hostage by the Cuban dictatorship for 67 years."
Argentinian legislator Néstor Pitrola, from the Workers' Party, was also present at the debate and acknowledged the migration crisis in Cuba. "Since 2021, 20% of the population has gone into exile. The Cuban regime is not viable," he stated.
Elisa Trotta Gamus, a Venezuelan lawyer exiled in Argentina, publicly praised the Cuban's intervention on the television program.
"I applaud the strength of @ViolinistaTito in the face of deniers of the longest-lasting criminal dictatorship in the region, who only have words that trivialize and justify the crimes suffered by Cubans for so many decades."
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