The political analyst Juan Antonio Blanco, president of the think tank Cuba Siglo XXI, warned that the Cuban nation is facing a silent physical extinction caused by the regime's negligence and repression, in an interview with CiberCuba journalist Tania Costa published this Friday.
Blanco distinguishes between the nation as a historical trajectory and the nation as a living people, and it is on this second concept that he issues his most serious warning.
"When I say that the Cuban nation must save itself, I am stating that tens of thousands of people are dying whose deaths are not counted as deaths by the Cuban state," the analyst asserted.
According to Blanco, these deaths are not the result of direct police violence, but rather the complete absence of minimal living conditions.
"They are deaths caused because there was no dipyrone at home to reduce the fever of a five-year-old, deaths because someone cut themselves on a piece of metal and there was no injection to prevent the infection from worsening and they died from it, deaths because the elderly are malnourished because they do not receive the basic proteins, minerals, or even calories needed to survive until the next day," he detailed.
As evidence of this trend, the analyst pointed out that death records and cemeteries show an acceleration in deaths. "If you go to the cemeteries and look at the death certificates, they are multiplying rapidly lately," he noted.
This scenario has documentary support. An independent report from December 2025 raised the number of deaths from arboviruses in Cuba, in the context of the dengue and Oropouche outbreaks that spread to all provinces of the country in 2024, exacerbated by blackouts, uncollected waste, and shortages of basic medications.
Blanco frames all of this within what he calls "the state's war against the population."
"It is a war in which, on one hand, they are being physically eliminated due to neglect, due to not taking care of what they need to, and on the other hand, if you rebel, they will crack your skull, imprison you, sentence you to 15 years, or in other cases, you die, they kill you," he explained.
The analyst cited the lack of garbage collection as a concrete example of this negligence, which last year triggered multiple epidemics in the country.
In response to those who suggest that Cubans can liberate themselves through non-violent methods, Blanco was emphatic: "It is bordering on the irresponsible to ask a people who are unarmed, disconnected from the internet, and suffering from hunger to confront a machinery that has shown, for 67 years, no scruples about trampling anyone who stands in its way in order to maintain power."
The humanitarian crisis described by Blanco aligns with the warnings from international organizations. The UN raised concerns in February about a potential humanitarian collapse if fuel needs are not addressed, while the Organization of American States (WOLA) estimated that more than a million Cubans have left the island since 2021.
In the same interview, Blanco also predicted that change in Cuba would come before September of this year, and concluded with a statement that summarizes his central argument.
"If people are dying now, if the physical people, the only real people that exist, are dying now, then it seems to me that we need to explore with an open mind what other possible solutions exist to this dilemma," he concluded.
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