Iliana Lavastida, executive director of Diario Las Américas, warned this Tuesday, in an interview with Tania Costa, in CiberCuba, that the recovery of Cuba after the end of the Castro regime will be possible, but slow and complex.
"The recovery of Cuba is possible. Of course it is possible, but the recovery will require a lot of work," stated Lavastida, who has been in exile for 22 years and leads one of the most influential Spanish-language newspapers in the United States.
Lavastida believes that once the transition begins, Cubans will have to confront the future of a materially devastated country. "Cuba is destroyed, unfortunately. There is no infrastructure for anything," he said.
According to the director of Diario Las Américas, the collapse encompasses all essential sectors as the aqueduct system is "destroyed" and the population spends days without access to drinking water; the thermoelectric plants break down due to their age and lack of maintenance, and the housing stock is "a disaster," with architecturally significant buildings left to deteriorate, except for the part of Old Havana that was rescued during the time of historian Eusebio Leal.
But Lavastida emphasized that the greatest challenge will not be the material reconstruction, but rather the reconstruction of society. "The Cuban social fabric will require more effort. It's not that it doesn't have a solution, but it will need more time and an effort that will require a lot of people willing to contribute in that aspect, which is subjective, not tangible, not visible, but is just as important as economic reconstruction in order to have a prosperous country again."
The director of Diario Las Américas explained that decades of repression and misery have caused in the Cuban population—especially in the generations born after the fall of the Berlin Wall—habits and behaviors that are a direct consequence of the dictatorship.
"They are attitudes that cannot be justified, but one must understand the context in which people have acquired bad habits, wrong customs, and many things that are the result of that monstrosity and the experiment that that diabolical regime carried out with the Cuban people."
He gave a concrete example: "If you are raising a child in Cuba and you have to get up and you have nothing to offer your child to eat, you have to be a person of very high spirit to dedicate yourself to instilling in your child a love for the homeland in the midst of that misery and hunger."
Lavastida also warned about the demographic crisis facing Cuba, citing a study by the Cuban based in the United States, Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, which documented that the resident population on the island has decreased from 11 million to 8 million in the last four years due to a massive exodus. “This is a demographic tragedy for a country,” noted the director of Diario Las Américas.
In addition, he attributed that decline to two factors: the massive exodus and the fact that young women do not want to have children under the current conditions.
In contrast, he emphasized that Cubans abroad have shown the ability to thrive anywhere in the world, and that many would be willing to return to aid in the economic and structural reconstruction of the country.
Regarding the political scene, Lavastida responded to the question of what would change with the removal of Raúl Castro from power, noting that control does not solely rest with him because there is a grandson who is the head of his security detail, a son, and a great-nephew with the last name Pérez Oliva Fraga, who has recently gained prominence. Furthermore, it is also necessary to consider individuals without the Castro surname who respond unconditionally to the interests of that family.
For this reason, Lavastida considered that the prosecution of Raúl Castro "could be a warning," but it does not guarantee a structural change in the system.
The debate about the transition and reconstruction of Cuba has gained momentum in 2026, with plans devised from Washington and proposals from civil society. However, Lavastida's warning brings a more cautious perspective: "The only place we haven't been able to achieve this is in Cuba. The first thing that happened to prevent it was that all our freedoms were curtailed."
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