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The Cuban deputy Rolando González Patricio, president of the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino), took advantage of his presence at the EuroLat summit held in Mexico City to promote the regime’s agenda at a multilateral forum and caution all of Latin America that it faces the same "external enemy" that, according to him, has been exploiting the region's internal differences for centuries.
In an interview with La Jornada published this Saturday, González Patricio described Cuba as the country experiencing "the most challenging moment of its revolutionary history" since Playa Girón, and issued his call for regional unity: "Either we save ourselves together, or we all perish".
The speech reproduces one of the most worn-out ideological pillars of Castroism: the figure of "American imperialism" as the cause of all evils, an argument that the regime has repeated since 1959 to shift the blame for its economic and social failures, justify internal repression, and seek international solidarity in times of crisis.
González Patricio listed what he referred to as concrete threats: "There is a buildup of forces in the Caribbean, an increase in spy flights around the island in recent times, and media that is fueling the normalization of aggression. There is a Secretary of State with a distinctly anti-Cuban agenda and a government that has shown no respect for international law or the United Nations Charter."
Regarding the military response, the official defended the doctrine of "total people's war" and assured that Cuba "is ready to take the conflict to the last consequences if it is attacked", while insisting that the island "does not desire a war" and "does not jeopardize the national security of the United States in any way".
To describe the internal situation, González Patricio resorted to a language that mixes heroism with catastrophism: “The everyday life of my compatriots is titanic and heroic,” he said, before admitting that the medications Cuba historically produced more than 60% of can no longer be manufactured. He labeled the measures of the Trump administration as “definitely genocidal” and warned that the country is “
What the official omits is that this crisis is the direct result of 67 years of communist dictatorship: a planned economy that destroyed national production, a structural energy dependency that was never resolved, and a political system that criminalized dissent and expelled millions of Cubans. In this regard, the Intelligence Unit of The Economist projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP of 7.2% in 2026, following an accumulated decline of 23% since 2019.
La elección del foro no es casual. La cumbre EuroLat reunió a parlamentarios europeos y latinoamericanos para tratar temas como inversión sostenible e inteligencia artificial, una agenda ajena a la crisis cubana. González Patricio met in Mexico with lawmakers from various parties y aseguró que «casi todos reconocen la injusticia del bloqueo, aunque no todos lo aceptan públicamente por el costo político».
This strategy of infiltrating multilateral forums with the official Cuban narrative responds to an unfavorable regional context for the regime: the political shift of several Latin American countries towards the center-right has weakened the ideological integration frameworks of chavismo and castrismo, such as ALBA and CELAC, forcing Havana to seek support in broader and less homogeneous spaces.
On the same day that the interview was published, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit assumed a mission in the Caribbean with over 1,300 personnel under Operation Southern Spear, and a former director of the National Security Council warned about the seriousness of the situation on the island.
González Patricio closed his message with a warning that summarizes the regime's rhetoric to its Latin American audience: «The same external enemy that today suffocates Cuba has been exploiting the differences among the peoples of Latin America for centuries. We have spent 500 years too preoccupied with the differences among equals, and it is the conqueror who has won.»
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