The Cuban presenter Carlos Otero confessed that for decades he genuinely believed in the Castro system and that it was an illegal satellite dish that opened his eyes to the reality of the regime. "Fidel Castro deceived us. I grew up believing in the Cuban revolution. I thought I was living in paradise. In paradise," he stated in a no-holds-barred interview granted to youtuber Darwin Santana on the channel "El Mundo de Darwin".
Otero was born on June 16, 1958, in Havana, into a family involved in the revolutionary apparatus: his father was a founder of INDER in 1961 and a sports leader for many years. "I grew up in that environment," he recalled, describing a childhood and youth that he considered "healthy." "We had free education, free healthcare. There was no alcohol consumption or drug use," he added, although he noted that even access to cultural content was limited: "We listened to American music in secret."
This total immersion in the system explains, according to him, why it took him so long to question what he was experiencing. "I thought I was living in paradise. In paradise," he insisted.
"What truly opened my eyes was the antenna," he recounted about the moment he began to compare that perception with the reality outside of Cuba.
One of the most chilling episodes he describes took place in 2002, when he was forced to attend a reception at the Central Committee. "I had to go, it wasn't a matter of wanting to go or not," he explained. In front of a table filled with delicacies inaccessible to the Cuban people, Fidel Castro proudly recounted the execution of the "first traitor of the revolution" in the Sierra Maestra, describing the lightning that illuminated the scene as if it were a painting he wanted to commission. "I literally freaked out and said, with this guy there’s no fooling around. This guy is... he’s done it to anyone," confessed Otero, who described Castro as a "sarcastic narcissist" with "a mental issue."
That night he arrived home at one in the morning, hugged his son, and told his wife, "We're leaving."
Otero also revealed that during the success of Sabadazo in the 90s, the cast was summoned with no option to decline performing for Raúl Castro at the San Antonio de los Baños airbase. "It was a definite requirement. No, it wasn't a choice. I’m informing you that you must do this. They would make you disappear; you wouldn’t appear on television again," he recalled. They were not paid anything. The photos from that meeting, sent by the army weeks later, he burned before leaving Cuba.
The State Security monitored him systematically for years. They made him sign a paper committing to report if he heard plans against the life of Fidel Castro, summoned him to the DTI for frequenting the disco at the Hotel Comodoro with foreign friends, and in 2002 intercepted him on the Malecón to interrogate him for having greeted the dissident poet Raúl Rivero, who had just been released from prison. "They had a copied little book; they even knew the color of my underwear," he stated. Rivero would be arrested months later during the Black Spring of 2003 and passed away in Miami on November 6, 2021.
Otero left Cuba on December 8, 2007 via Canada, crossing the bridge into the United States. He worked for 15 years at América TeVé until in May 2022 he left the channel due to differences with the executive producer and salary issues. That same day, he launched his YouTube channel "La Hora de Carlos."
Recently, a controversy with comedian Carlucho reopened the debate about the past of Cuban artists who worked for the regime's state television, a context in which this interview holds special significance. “The first thing to do in Cuba is to change the mindset of the people,” Otero concluded, whose story reflects that of millions of Cubans who grew up within the system and took years to recognize what had always been in front of them.
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