Just a few months away from turning 100 years old, Diego Suárez —co-founder of the Cuban American National Foundation alongside Jorge Mas Canosa— revealed in an interview with journalist Tania Costa, in CiberCuba, that although he at times had private doubts about whether he would see a free Cuba, he never expressed them publicly nor shared them with those around him.
Suárez, who will celebrate a century of life on November 11 and received the Herencia 2026 award in Miami last Saturday, was straightforward in his response when asked if he ever lost hope: "I must confess that internally I had my suspicions at times. But I never spoke them aloud and never expressed them publicly. As a human being, I did not allow myself to convey sadness and hopelessness to the new generations of the Cuban people."
The confession, filled with emotion, summarizes more than 60 years of exile and ongoing struggle since Fidel Castro abolished the 1940 Constitution and took control of the island in 1959.
Far from showing fatigue, Suárez stated that his conviction remains intact. "I am still absolutely certain that God will grant me health to witness the foundation of the new republic under the aegis of the 1940 Constitution and the Helms-Burton Law."
In his speech upon receiving the Herencia 2026 award, he had already delivered a message that resonated with those in attendance: "We are very close. The winds are blowing in our favor."
For Suárez, the path toward that new republic does not require improvisation or alternative plans. His message to the younger generations was emphatic. "I tell these young people not to invent anything. Not to start making transition plans. That's already been written, as the Cuban peasants say, approved and sanctified."
The veteran leader points to the Helms-Burton Act as the document that contains everything needed for the transition and the refoundation of the republic, equating it to the very promises that Castro failed to uphold upon coming to power.
"The transition program, refer to the Helms-Burton Act. It is nothing less and nothing more than what Fidel Castro promised when he took power in 1958: free elections, political party organization, freedom, no political prisoners, freedom of expression. All freedoms. And all Cubans were equal before the law."
Suárez also emphasized that unity is an essential condition for that moment to arrive. "Those of us who are fighting and continue to fight, the old and the young, men and women, those who are in Cuba and those who are in exile, all must have one voice to support. There is no need for them to come up with any inventions."
The 1940 Constitution, which Suárez defends as the legitimate framework for the new republic, was created with the participation of over five million Cubans and representatives from all political parties of the time, and it governed the island until Castro definitively abolished it after seizing power.
In May of this year, Suárez had already expressed in a previous interview with Tania Costa his strongest certainty: “I don’t believe it, I am absolutely sure that this year we will achieve the freedom of Cuba”.
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