The Cuban influencer Diliamne Jouve González, known as La Dura, posted a story on Instagram this Wednesday expressing her belief that Cuba is on the verge of breaking free from the dictatorship that has ruled it for decades.
"My country is on the verge of freeing itself from a dictatorship that for years has subjected its people to scarcity, hunger, and need, forcing many of us to emigrate and leave our roots behind," wrote the influencer on her verified account @diliamnejacob.
The message, published against a black background, concluded with a statement of hope: "But today, every Cuban is once again feeling something we haven’t felt in a long time, HOPE. Freedom is getting closer every day."
The publication coincides with the 124th anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Cuba on May 20, 1902, a date that the Cuban exile community claims as a symbol of sovereignty, which has gained particular significance in 2026 due to the increased pressure from the Trump administration on the regime.
On that same day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio published a video in Spanish directly addressed to the Cuban people, in which he held the military conglomerate GAESA responsible for the crisis on the island and presented an offer from President Trump: 100 million dollars in food and medicine, contingent upon their distribution being managed by the Catholic Church or other charitable organizations.
"Cuba is not controlled by any revolution. Cuba is controlled by GAESA: a state within the state that answers to no one and monopolizes the profits from its businesses to benefit a small elite," Rubio stated in the video.
The Secretary of State described GAESA as an entity with $18 billion in assets and control over 70% of the Cuban economy, founded thirty years ago by Raúl Castro and belonging to the Armed Forces, with revenues three times greater than the government budget.
The voice of La Dura joins a chorus of figures from the exile community who have intensified their calls for change in recent months. The exile community in Miami commemorated May 20th with a mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, held under the slogan "the imminent freedom of Cuba."
It is not the first time that La Dura has raised her voice for Cuba. In July 2021, during the 11J protests, she declared: "We will not stop until we achieve freedom for Cuba." In March 2024, she again supported the protests on the island and called for an end to the dictatorship on her social media.
The atmosphere of anticipation arises as Cuba experiences an unprecedented electrical emergency, with power outages of up to 22 hours daily and a deficit that reached 2,113 MW on May 13, against a demand of 3,250 MW.
The Trump administration signed Executive Order 14404 on May 1, which has served as the basis for successive sanctions against GAESA and officials of the repressive apparatus, and set June 5, 2026 as the deadline for foreign companies to cease operations with sanctioned Cuban entities, under threat of secondary sanctions.
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