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Lis Cuesta, wife of the ruling Miguel Díaz-Canel, posted this Saturday on her X account images from a day of "food production" alongside colleagues and students from the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), accompanied by the slogan "Homeland or Death. We Shall Overcome!"
In the images, Cuesta is smiling, wearing a camo cap, dark sunglasses, a watch on his left wrist, and an olive green shirt over a turquoise t-shirt, holding plants in a garden with well-defined rows where lettuces and herbs are grown, alongside a group of approximately 12 to 15 people.
The publication immediately sparked a flood of mockery and outrage among Cubans, who pointed out the details that expose the staged propaganda.
What caught the users' attention the most was precisely what was not visible—neither a speck of dirt on the shoes nor hands soiled from actual work.
"It's not easy, not a single gram of dirt on the shoes," wrote a user identified as CubanoLibre. "Food production with clean and shiny little shoes," another user under the name Tazmania quipped.
Critics also highlighted the contrast between Cuesta's "revolutionary outfit" and the reality faced by millions of Cubans. "What Cuban woman today can afford caps, watches, nice shoes, and a shirt jacket?" asked the user Never.
"Those white hands in the dirty ground where the poor are the ones who must work," added Freedom. Carlos León was more direct: "You're going to ruin your nails! Who are you trying to fool?"
Several comments directly addressed the heart of the matter. "You produce nothing. The Cuban people continue to starve. Just a photo for your communist propaganda," wrote the user Libertad.
Claire summed up the general sentiment: "What a clown you are, you don't even believe it yourself. Nobody believes them anymore, it's just posing for photos and that's the end of voluntary work."
The scene is not an isolated incident. In November 2025, Díaz-Canel participated in a similar day of volunteer work in Artemisa, posing with a hoe and wearing Adidas clothing, with Lis Cuesta also present, eliciting the same massive mockery.
In December, Cuesta declared herself a "cultural worker" while congratulating colleagues from ISA with the message "Culture is the Homeland and to work for its defense" is to make a Revolution.
In March 2026, described the Cuban health crisis as very sad and very outrageous, with 96,387 patients waiting for surgical operations, including 11,193 children, without providing any solutions.
Her public image has also been questioned due to her luxurious appearance at official events, while the Cuban population faces shortages of food, medicine, and electricity.
The backdrop of this staging is an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Cuba has been without enough fuel for over three months, experiencing blackouts of more than 20 hours a day.
36% of the population suffers from food insecurity, the country imports between 70 and 80% of its food, and 80% of Cubans believe the current situation is worse than the Special Period of the 1990s.
The UN launched a plan to assist two million people in 63 municipalities across eight provinces, although 170 containers of humanitarian aid worth 6.3 million dollars remain stranded due to a lack of fuel.
While Lis Cuesta posed among rows of lettuce with her shining shoes, the UN resident coordinator in Cuba, Francisco Pichón, warned a few days ago about the "systemic and increasingly severe" impact of the crisis on health, water, food, and transportation.
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