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The Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval posted a message this Friday on his Facebook account in which he confesses that, at the age of 77, he has lost all hope of returning to Cuba, stating with "painful certainty" that this will not happen "even for a visit."
"I was born in Cuba and stayed there until I managed to escape at the age of 40. Today, at 77, I live with the painful certainty that I have no hope of returning, not even for a visit. That is a wound that never heals," wrote the musician who has won several Grammy awards.
The tone of this statement marks a notable difference from previous declarations. In 2021, Sandoval admitted that his greatest wish was to be able to visit Cuba someday and that "there has not been a day when I haven't felt the pain" of the island's situation. Now, five years later, that wish has given way to the certainty that returning is impossible.
In his post, Sandoval issues a direct criticism to those outside who continue to support the regime. "The most heartbreaking thing is not just the impossibility of returning, but seeing how there are still people who, from the comfort of distance or from ignorance, dare to defend and justify a criminal tyranny that has destroyed the Cuban nation for more than 67 and a half years," stated the global jazz icon.
The musician also provides his own definition of freedom, a concept that he claims Cuba has never known. "Freedom means being able to speak without fear, think without censorship, dissent without being punished, travel without asking for permission, dream without the State controlling everything," he wrote, later adding that "the regime has robbed entire generations of Cubans of even the ability to dream."
Sandoval also posed a series of questions to the world: "How can an entire people continue to endure such abuse? How can one survive without a shred of freedom? What is the limit of human resilience?" He concluded with a strong statement: "No human being should live on their knees, enslaved in their own land. And it pains me deeply to see how the unacceptable is being normalized."
This message is not the first of its kind. In September 2025, Sandoval had already published an appeal for Cuba to awaken with a very similar tone, and in February 2024, he denounced the accumulation of garbage in Havana as a symbol of the country's decline, describing the island as "sunk in misery and despair". In December of that same year, upon receiving the Kennedy Center Honor, he lamented that Cubans on the island were unable to celebrate that recognition.
The exile of Sandoval began in 1990, when during a European tour he took the opportunity to request asylum at a U.S. embassy. The Cuban regime declared him a "traitor to the homeland," banned his music and image on the island, and his family faced immediate reprisals: denunciation rallies, eggs thrown at his parents' house, and the firing of his sister and brother-in-law. His parents managed to leave Cuba years later on a traumatic raft journey, already over seventy years old.
The message arrives at a time of acute humanitarian crisis in Cuba. The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights recorded 3,179 repressive actions during 2025, the European Parliament demands the release of 1,260 political prisoners, and in June 2026, the UN warned about the severe deterioration of living conditions on the island, with infant mortality doubled and essential medications available at only 30% of their usual levels.
"My greatest wish, my plea, is that one day Cuba awakens. That freedom, that forbidden and feared word on the island, finally becomes a reality. Because living without freedom is not living; it is simply surviving in chains," Sandoval concluded his post.
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