The young Cuban Alfredito Fominaya published a video on Facebook in which he delivers a strong message against the official narrative of the regime: signature campaigns do not alleviate the daily suffering of the Cuban people.
"Signatures don’t fill the bucket of water for bathing, nor do they silence the cries of the child who, at three in the morning, cannot sleep because the heat is suffocating and the mosquitoes are devouring him," says Fominaya.
Their diagnosis of the current situation is devastating: "While they sign, our homeland disintegrates at home. Without water, without sleep, without food, and in fear."
Alfredito refers to the campaign "My Signature for the Homeland", introduced by the Communist Party as a "spontaneous" movement of civil society to support the government.
The reel points directly to the argument that the regime repeats as a shield: the U.S. embargo as the cause of all evils.
"The blockade is the well-told story by malicious narrators that only those who refuse to open their eyes believe," he asserts.
For Fominaya, the solution does not lie in propaganda or bravado towards the United States, but in real changes: "The problem of our nation is resolved when a child can sleep without crying, when a young person can express themselves without fear, and when a grandparent can enjoy their grandchildren who are present and not emigrated, without worrying about what they will eat at night."
The young man is not a new face in the Cuban digital dissent.
In March, he starred in a viral response to Silvio Rodríguez after it became known that the troubadour had received a real AKM rifle at an official event presided over by Miguel Díaz-Canel: "You chose to carry the wrong instrument. You preferred to carry an AKM to perpetuate the oppressor instead of taking the guitar, which is what you know how to use to inspire the people," he told him.
That visibility came at a high cost. On April 8, Fominaya reported that State Security is threatening him by planning to fabricate a criminal case against him: "A friend was approached and told that State Security has me in their sights, that they are going to invent a case against me, they will do something, they will link me to something, they will make up something; they are creative in that regard."
The pattern you describe is not new. The members of the project El4tico, Ernesto Ricardo Medina and Kamil Zayas Pérez, have been imprisoned for more than two months after being detained on February 6 in Holguín. On April 20, they reached 72 days in provisional prison with no trial date, charged with "propaganda against the constitutional order."
Fominaya closes his video with a message that summarizes the stance of thousands of Cubans observing from within the country and from the diaspora: "Freedom for those who have chosen to express themselves. Even though that has cost them their freedom. May God bless this land."
Filed under: