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The renowned Cuban baritone Ulises Aquino Guerra published a letter on Facebook addressed to his deceased parents and grandmother - who actively participated in the Revolution - to tell them that everything for which they sacrificed their lives has turned out to be a historical failure, while he writes without electricity, without water, and with the cooking gas that "comes and goes."
Under the title "Letter to My Parents and My Grandmother," Aquino recalls that his mother "risked her life" and that his father "was left disabled dedicating himself to the '70 Harvest" (the Ten Million Harvest), one of the greatest economic failures of the regime.
"Now it turns out that everything you believed and made us believe was wrong," he writes.
The artist notes that, 67 years later, the government "realized that the economy never worked" and that the only solution it proposes is 176 "New" measures that are "exactly the same as the Old ones for which you risked and gave your lives."
Aquino also denounces that the Communist Party "for which they lost a lot of hours being with us, is not the one that truly holds power," directly referring to the real power of Raúl Castro and the Cuban military leadership.
It points out that the government that promised to redeem the humble actually created more poverty than existed before 1959. "Almost all of us are very poor; many have become miserable and beggars," he stated.
“However, a monarchy of Marabú and coal was born, which built nothing but rather destroyed almost everything,” he wrote, contrasting the regime with the pre-revolutionary bourgeoisie, which, in his opinion, “constructed, built, and laid the foundations for a modern country.”
The lyrical singer also dismantles the argument that the United States embargo is the cause of the crisis: "It turns out that they have known for a while that the real Blockade wasn't that tough. The toughest one was the one that prevented them from freeing the economy."
Aquino closes his letter with a foreboding remark that encapsulates the mood of millions of Cubans: "It seems to me that this is not going to have a happy ending."
The text is written amid the worst energy collapse in the history of Cuba. On July 9, a historic record electric deficit of 2,341 MW was registered, and in provinces like Matanzas, outages have accumulated to as much as 87 consecutive hours.
This is not the first time the artist has publicly confronted the regime.
On June 19, following the Party's meeting, he harshly responded to Díaz-Canel regarding the regime's delay in making changes: "If it depended on us, why didn't they change it? Did they have to take us to this calvary to realize it?" and demanded the resignation of the government.
In October 2025, I had already reported on the state of destitution that Cuban society has reached, rejecting the official euphemism of "vulnerable": "They are not called vulnerable; they are called miserable, hungry, poor, indigent, beggars, and ragged."
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