A Cuban identified as Ricardo Dagoberto Vilahomat offered a heartbreaking testimony about life in Cuba during the forum "Voices for Cuba and Venezuela," held in Uruguay, where he vividly described extreme poverty, blackouts, legal repression, and the regime's plunder through its military apparatus.
"We cry out of poverty. We cry out of poverty. You have no idea what it means to cry out of poverty," said Vilahomat in a speech that combined concrete data with personal experiences endured under the dictatorship.
The Cuban began his speech with a statement that, according to him, is often overlooked: Cuba is the only country in Latin America that still has the death penalty in its legislation.
He pointed out that the Penal Code approved in 2022 expanded the number of offenses punishable by death to 24, eight of which are against the State, with definitions as ambiguous as espionage, treason, rebellion, or sedition.
"A neighbor comes out upset after having 60 hours of blackout, his son has a fever, and he doesn't have an aspirin to bring down his temperature. This is how it is in Cuba," he described, to illustrate how any expression of desperation can become a capital offense.
Vilahomat was equally forceful in denouncing the economic monopoly of the Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), the military conglomerate of the Revolutionary Armed Forces that controls between 40% and 70% of the Cuban economy without public auditing or accountability.
To illustrate the hypocrisy of the embargo argument, he compared Uruguay's dollar reserves —19.4 billion— with the assets of between 14.5 and 18 billion dollars held by GAESA, according to leaked documents from 2024.
"The world is collapsing, and they are building a luxury hotel in the middle of a Havana that is falling apart, where children have no water," he stated.
Regarding the regime's propaganda, he was direct: "Cuba has been the most efficient propaganda workshop in the world. Even today, everyone talks about it; when the Cuban cause comes up, the first argument is the blockade. Well, it’s undeniable."
The speaker also specifically criticized the Uruguayan left, which returned to power in November 2024 with the Frente Amplio: "The left in Uruguay is on the side of the dictatorship and not on the side of the people."
Vilahomat also described the work and education system in Cuba as a permanent debt trap: students work four hours a day in the fields to "pay off" their studies, graduate, and are sent to fulfill mandatory social service up to 800 kilometers away from home, earning less than the minimum wage.
"In Cuba, they don't give you anything; they sell it to you and charge you for it. And that supposed gratuity puts you into a debt that you never pay off," she stated.
He concluded his speech with a personal complaint that encapsulates the experience of thousands of Cubans in exile: "I worked for 20 years, and all of us here, those of us who worked and left, do not have the right to a single peso for 20 years of contributions."
His testimony aligns with data from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, indicating that in April 2026 89% of Cuban families live in extreme poverty and 97% have lost access to basic food.
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