The Cuban regime staged this Friday, at the May Day event held in front of the United States Embassy in Havana, the symbolic handing over of two books containing more than 6.2 million signatures from the campaign “My Signature for the Homeland” to Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The official account of the Presidency of Cuba announced that "6,230,973 Cubans expressed their will" in the campaign, presented as a spontaneous initiative of civil society but organized and centrally directed by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), according to analysts and opponents who described the event as a propaganda operation in response to the maximum pressure from Washington.
The figure, however, does not withstand scrutiny: with a population of no more than 11 million inhabitants—including children and the elderly—6.23 million signatures would represent over 56% of all Cubans, a proportion that critics deem impossible without documented mass coercion in workplaces, schools, and CDR.
Testimonials gathered in Matanzas confirm without ambiguity: "Signing is mandatory at workplaces; if you don't sign, you know what happens—you’re out."
Executives of state-owned enterprises were compelled to ensure at least 80% of signatures among their workers under the threat of dismissal, and pressures extended to warehouses, hospitals, universities, and through the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Despite this, there was resistance: the viral poem "I Don't Sign" by José Martínez, the call from opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer García (UNPACU) not to participate, and documented cases of Cubans who stood up against their CDRs and refused to sign with a straightforward argument: "My dignity is not for sale."
The event coincided exactly with the signing by Donald Trump of a new executive order that drastically expands sanctions against the regime, including secondary sanctions on foreign financial entities that trade with Havana, as part of a pressure campaign that has intensified since January 2026. During this period, the U.S. has intercepted at least seven tankers carrying oil for Cuba, reducing energy imports by 80-90%.
The result is an island experiencing blackouts of up to 25 hours a day in over 55% of its territory, with a projected GDP contraction of 7.2% for 2026.
In that context of crisis, the appearance of Raúl Castro, aged 94, was the first in five months: Díaz-Canel himself had described him in April as "alive but retired due to health reasons" and "fragile due to age," and the general was even absent from the 9th Congress of the PCC held in March.
The images from the event show a visibly deteriorated Raúl Castro holding one of the guest books; in the document, the first visible signature is Castro's own, followed by those of Díaz-Canel, Roberto Morales Ojeda, and Salvador Valdés Mesa, revealing that the regime's leaders topped the list of a campaign they presented as a citizen initiative.
The image manipulation did not end there: this Saturday, Díaz-Canel's digital communications advisor, Leticia Martínez Hernández, published a Facebook album titled "Raúl with our signatures" featuring Photoshopped images to disguise the general's physical decay, which was reported by journalist Mario J. Pentón who compared the original images with the edited ones.
The campaign "My Signature for the Homeland" was launched on April 19, coinciding with the 65th anniversary of the Battle of Playa Girón, as support for the declaration "Girón is today and always," in which the regime stated that "Cuba will not be a star" — referring to a possible annexation to the United States.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, went so far as to claim that 81% of the population had signed the letter rejecting the embargo, the "energy siege," and the "threats of war," a figure that, if true, would imply that nearly every adult Cuban in the country signed under pressure or without a real alternative.
On March 30, Trump summarized his prediction about the regime with a straightforward statement: "Cuba will fail in a short time," and the United States "will be there to help it."
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