A Cuban identified as Leonel Delgado was the center of a tense exchange on the Chilean debate program Sin Filtros, proudly reclaiming the insult "gusano" thrown at him by journalist Víctor Hugo Robles, known as "El Che de los gays," during a discussion about the political situation in Cuba.
The moment was captured in a video released this Tuesday in which Delgado, rather than rejecting the term, embraced it with conviction: "I prefer to be a worm than a communist. I am proud."
He then provided a historical explanation of the origin of the insult: "The first one to refer to people as worms was Adolf Hitler, addressing those in the concentration camps, calling them worms. Fidel Castro read all the books written by Adolf Hitler and Mussolini. He was a fanatic of Adolf Hitler. That's why Fidel Castro began to call anyone who opposed his dictatorship a worm."
Delgado concluded his speech with a statement that encapsulated his viewpoint: "I proudly consider myself a gusano, but I would never be a communist."
The debate escalated when panelist Javier Pineda Olcay, known as "Milhouse Pineda," asserted that "there is democracy in Cuba," which prompted an immediate reaction from Delgado, who called him a "delinquent" for "praising a dictatorship that has killed my country for 67 years."
Pineda responded by threatening legal action: "You deserve the complaint. You have the right to be a traitor, but you cannot defame."
When a Chilean panelist warned him that he could be deported, Delgado challenged the threat: "Where are you going to send me? Back to Cuba? So they can imprison me, so they can kill me?"
Former Chilean presidential candidate Johannes Kaiser, also present on the program, joked about the threat of a lawsuit by saying that "the lawyer is going to pay for it in Cuba."
The Che of the gays, in response to the reclaiming of the term, warned Delgado that Donald Trump "is using it" and that both Trump and the elected president José Antonio Kast would expel him "when they no longer need him."
In the same program, former Argentine Vice President Carlos Federico Ruckauf suggested that the United States would look for a figure for a Cuban transition "similar to Delcy Rodríguez," and stated that Raúl Castro "wants a transition that will save his life, his son's, his daughter's, and his granddaughter's."
The tense exchange on the Chilean program occurs against a charged political backdrop. In January 2026, former President Gabriel Boric described the Cuban system as a “dictatorship,” fracturing the Chilean ruling party and creating a crisis with the Communist Party.
In February, Boric approved the sending of one million dollars in humanitarian aid to Cuba through UNICEF, a decision that the then-elected president Kast openly criticized, conditioning any support on democratic demands.
The term "gusano" was popularized by Fidel Castro as a political insult against opponents and exiles starting on January 2, 1961, when he repeated it 23 times in a speech, and by May 1 of that year, it was already circulating as an official designation in the Cuban press for those attempting to flee the country.
Sin Filtros is a political debate and entertainment program hosted by Gonzalo Feito, aired from Monday to Friday in Chile and on YouTube. In 2026, it is entering its sixth season and is known for its ongoing live ideological clashes.
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