The image that thousands of Cubans had been waiting to see arrived this Saturday: Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara sitting on an airplane, passport in hand, flying to Miami on American Airlines flight AA2706.
This was confirmed by his social media profile with a phrase that sums up five years of waiting: "At this very moment, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is flying to Miami International Airport. At last, Luis Manuel is free!"
But the joy is wrapped in a bitter reality: their departure is not a full liberation, but a forced exile.
The Cuban regime only allowed him to leave on the condition of permanently leaving the island, a practice it has systematically used to rid itself of dissenters so they cannot continue to operate from within.
The last days before his departure were marked by an additional anguish. On July 7, two days before the official end of his sentence, state agents took him out of Guanajay without notifying his family or lawyers.
His whereabouts remained unknown for days, a situation that Amnesty International and Cubalex condemned as forced disappearance.
The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances activated Urgent Action AU No. 2357/2026, demanding that the regime report on their whereabouts before July 25.
The only possible exit was the humanitarian parole, approved on Friday by U.S. authorities after weeks of negotiations.
The activist Anamely Ramos had warned him clearly: "Luis Manuel will not be free until he sets foot on the plane."
Now that foot is on the plane. And the first stop in Miami will have immense symbolic weight: this Saturday afternoon, at 6:30 pm, Otero Alcántara will carry out a thank-you action at the Ermita de la Caridad, located at 3609 South Miami Avenue.
His release comes a week after the fifth anniversary of 11J, when many political prisoners still remain in Cuban jails. Among them is his friend and fellow member of the San Isidro Movement, the rapper Maykel Osorbo, sentenced to nine years.
«Behind are hundreds of political prisoners, and an entire people going through perhaps the worst moment in their history. He does not forget it, and neither do we,» stated Otero Alcántara's inner circle in a first statement this Saturday.
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