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Miguel Díaz-Canel promised last Friday, before delegates from 36 countries gathered in Havana, that Cuba will continue to support "the just causes of the world" while the Cuban people face daily blackouts, food shortages, and a lack of freedoms. The response on social media was immediate and devastating.
The speech was delivered at the closing of the International Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba and Anti-imperialism "100 Years with Fidel," held on May 2 at the Palace of Conventions in Havana, with 766 delegates from 152 organizations across 36 countries under the slogan "Cuba is not alone."
In his speech, Díaz-Canel listed a long array of causes that the regime commits to defend: "We will continue to support the Palestinian cause, the cause of the Lebanese people, the Bolivarian Revolution, the liberation of President Maduro and his wife Cilia, the cause of the Sahrawi people, the cause of Puerto Rico, the cause of the Iranian people."
He also announced that he will fight for the release of Thiago Ávila and "any other fellow activist or fighter who is unjustly imprisoned."
The contradiction did not go unnoticed by thousands of Cubans: the leader who calls for freedom for foreign activists keeps hundreds of politicians imprisoned on the Island, including teenagers and mothers separated from their young children.
The video amassed hundreds of comments that debunked Díaz-Canel's speech point by point. The most frequently asked question was a variation of "So when for the Cuban people?".
One of the most quoted comments summarized the general sentiment: “Before extending solidarity to the world, why not clean up the streets, pay dignified pensions, provide ATMs with cash, give food to children in schools, and supply medicines in hospitals? Solidarity should start at home.”
Another user was more specific: "We are not asking you to continue supporting so many causes around the world; we are simply asking you to fulfill at least one of the 63 measures you enacted five years ago to increase food production in Cuba. Cubans do not feed on foreign political causes."
The contradiction pointed out by many was straightforward: "Are you really asking for Thiago's release in the Middle East when you have your prisons in Cuba filled with political prisoners? You are a hypocrite."
The speech comes at the peak of the highest escalation of tension between Havana and Washington in decades. On May 1, Trump signed an executive order with new sanctions against Cuba in the energy, defense, mining, and finance sectors, with extraterritorial reach. The following day, Trump declared that the United States "will take Cuba almost immediately" after completing operations in Iran.
In that same context, the day before the speech on "just causes," Díaz-Canel warned about the "imminence of a military aggression" from the United States and stated that "every Cuban woman and every Cuban man has a rifle," a statement that also sparked a wave of criticism.
Díaz-Canel himself acknowledged during the meeting that Cuba went four months without receiving fuel and that the recently arrived Russian oil "is already running low these days, and we do not know when more fuel will arrive in Cuba," while the energy crisis affects over 55% of the national territory.
The pattern repeats itself: every speech by Díaz-Canel directed outward triggers a massive response from Cubans demanding that the regime look inward. As one comment succinctly put it: "67 years of the same old story."
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