The great international chess master Lázaro Bruzón stated in a live interview with CiberCuba that the regime in Havana turns every Cuban who leaves the island into an enemy, regardless of their loyalty history or accomplishments representing the country.
"The first thing I understood is that every Cuban, once they leave Cuba, potentially becomes an enemy to them. They use you for what they need, for your support, but as soon as you leave, you have no rights; you literally become an enemy," Bruzón declared to this platform.
The chess player from Holguín, regarded as one of the best in Latin America, recounted that his political awakening began in 2018 when he left Cuba with the intention of studying at an American university while maintaining his connection with the Cuban national team.
Instead, the sports authorities accused him of being "undisciplined" and publicly attacked him, despite having left a letter to the chess commissioner expressing his desire to continue representing the country.
It was that deal that made him reflect and study the system. "I have never been submissive, I've never been that person who can be easily moved and manipulated," he explained. "I then started to understand, to study, until I quickly realized, wait a minute, the problem here is fundamentally with the system."
Bruzón grew up in Las Tunas under conditions of extreme poverty during the Special Period and found in chess a way to achieve social mobility. He earned the title of Grandmaster at the age of 17, won the World Youth Championship in 2000, and reached a peak of 2,717 ELO points in 2012, becoming one of only two Cuban chess players to surpass that historic barrier.
As an elite athlete, he was honorarily integrated into the Assembly of the People's Power of Las Tunas, a responsibility that, as he acknowledged, he carried out without delving into ideology. He even went so far as to tattoo an image of Che Guevara at the age of 22—which he later removed—due to the figure he had been taught about in school, not out of personal conviction.
Since 2019, he began to express himself publicly on social media, receiving attacks from accounts he identifies as regime operatives. His mother urges him to stop writing on Facebook, but he continues doing something he believes in, without any pretensions of being an influencer.
In the interview with CiberCuba, the chess player referred to the regime's propaganda as the greatest marketing scam in history and described its leaders as "power-drunk" individuals who have sacrificed the people for their own interests.
"Any investment in Cuba is not yours," he warned. "You can open a restaurant, but it's not yours. You belong to a system where the owners of that country and the laws and everything is the PCC and, above all, one family."
Currently residing in San Luis, Missouri, where he will complete a Master's in Business Administration in May, he plans to move to Miami to open a chess academy. He has declared that he will not return to Cuba until the country is free and democratic.
"I am just another Cuban speaking my truth because it hurts me what is happening in Cuba, and I am sure we can do better," concluded Bruzón.
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