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On the fifth anniversary of July 11, 2021, Cuban writer and journalist Pablo J. Socorro published from the United States a damning assessment of what has changed —and what has not— since the largest popular protests in Cuba since 1959. His verdict is direct: "Five years later, the regime has not changed. It continues to repress, but now with more ferocity and fear".
Socorro, author of the book Cuba 11-J-21: We Were So Hungry That We Ate Our Fear (Editorial Lunetra), titled his reflection "11-J-21: From Eating Fear to Vomiting Fury." In it, he recalls that those protests "barely lasted 48 hours, but were enough to shake the foundations of the regime," before being crushed "with brutality and the spilling of innocent blood."
The writer highlights a fact that he believes is revealing of the regime's state of mind on this anniversary: the collapse of the National Electric System. "It is so afraid of a new outburst of citizen anger that it chose to collapse the National Electric System," he writes, arguing that without electricity, the antennas fail and the connection disappears, cutting off any possibility for citizen coordination.
The report is well-founded. On Friday, the National Electroenergetic System experienced its fourth total blackout of the year, with a historic deficit of 2,341 MW affecting 73% of the population. Power outages average 15 hours a day in Havana and reach 87 consecutive hours in provinces like Matanzas.
The outlook outlined by Socorro for the past five years is one of widespread deterioration. Cuba records a record of more than 1,281 political prisoners, 338 of whom are imprisoned specifically for the events of July 11, according to documentation from independent organizations. The pardon issued in April 2026, which freed 2,010 inmates, deliberately excluded those convicted of "crimes against authority," that is, those from July 11.
Among the cases mentioned by the writer are those of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo. Otero was taken from Guanajay prison on July 7 by State Security agents, without notifying his family, two days before his sentence was set to expire. Amnesty International declared his situation as enforced disappearance and the UN activated an Urgent Action demanding a report from Cuba before July 25. Osorbo, co-author of the emblematic song “Patria y Vida” and sentenced to nine years, was transferred from Kilo 8 prison (Pinar del Río) to the maximum security prison in Guanajay (Artemisa), also without any official notification regarding the matter.
Socorro does not shy away from naming those she holds responsible. She points out that Miguel Díaz-Canel "will have to answer for his murderous words" when he declared on camera that "the order to engage has been given," and she similarly implicates Raúl Castro, who has been accused in U.S. courts for the downing of the planes belonging to Brothers to the Rescue. Both, she emphasizes, continue to evade accountability.
The writer also recalls that Yoennis Pelegrín Hernández, the police officer identified as responsible for the death of the young Diubis Laurencio Tejeda —the only death officially acknowledged during the protests of July 12, 2021— remains free and without any legal proceedings. Some of those who participated in the repression, he adds, now live in exile.
The inequality depicted in Cuba in 2026 is as harsh as the repression: "There are more children going to bed hungry and more wealthy individuals driving imported cars through the broken streets of Havana. There is more thirst and less water. More repression and less fear."
This Saturday, Senator Marco Rubio called for the release of Cuban political prisoners, warning that the United States will use "all available tools" to pressure the regime. Socorro concludes her text with the words of the essayist José Hugo Fernández, foreword writer of her book: "The atmosphere of terror that allowed the regime to hold on with impunity for decades has finally been dismantled. And it is precisely from that moment that fear took hold of the intimidators, to the point that they could only resort to extreme violence as a last resort, not foreseeing that they would emerge from the conflict defeated by the excesses of their own cruelty."
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