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Abel Prieto, president of the Casa de las Américas and advisor to the Cuban regime, took advantage of the earthquake tragedy in Venezuela to launch an anti-imperialist propaganda operation, posting an image of armed U.S. Marines on Facebook and questioning Washington's humanitarian intentions.
In his post this Saturday, Prieto shared a photograph of soldiers from the Marine Corps dressed in camouflage uniforms, tactical vests, assault rifles, and combat backpacks on the deck of a naval vessel, next to a CH-53E helicopter. The accompanying text left no doubt about his intention: "These images of 'Yankee rescuers' sent to Venezuela by the U.S. Southern Command are circulating on social media. Humanitarian 'Rambos'? Who knows? Our full solidarity with our brother people of Venezuela!!! Cuban doctors are there, saving lives, on the front lines!!!"
The publication seeks to cast doubts on the humanitarian response of the United States at a time when Venezuela is facing its worst recorded seismic disaster: the "seismic double" of June 24 left at least 920 dead, 3,360 injured, and more than 6.76 million affected, according to official Venezuelan figures.
What Prieto deliberately omits is that Venezuela officially accepted U.S. aid. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the dispatch of specialized search and rescue equipment from Virginia and California, in addition to 150 million dollars in humanitarian assistance. The Southern Command deployed C-17 Globemaster aircraft, Osprey and Chinook helicopters, and the USS Fort Lauderdale and USS Billings ships, while Major General Kevin J. Jarrard personally traveled to Caracas to oversee the mission.
Prieto also fails to mention that at least 30 Cubans remain missing or trapped under the rubble in Venezuela, according to the independent media outlet elToque, including two children. The Cuban regime has systematically omitted this reality from its official narrative, which focuses on presenting its doctors as the only true humanitarians in the region.
The maneuver by Prieto follows a well-established pattern. In May 2026, he referred to "rabid annexationists" those Cubans who support Trump and Rubio, and in January he described Cuba as being in "national emergency" following an executive order from the U.S. president. His rhetoric of "David against a lying and cowardly Goliath" is a constant feature of the discourse that the ideological apparatus of the regime has tasked him to maintain.
The image that Prieto uses as "evidence" of Washington's alleged military intentions shows a standard boarding operation, the direct connection to the rescue mission in Venezuela has not been verified. The presence of armed personnel in humanitarian missions is common practice in unstable areas, and in this case, it is part of a deployment that integrates more than 1,600 international rescuers from 16 countries, including Spain, France, Colombia, and Chile.
What the Cuban official presents as a denunciation of imperialism is, in fact, the instrumentalization of a tragedy that has left hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans homeless, to fuel the rhetoric of a regime that has spent decades using the medical mission in Venezuela as bargaining chips for subsidized oil, while its own citizens trapped under the rubble await news that Havana does not provide.
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