The Cuban regime's propaganda program Razones de Cuba published an eight-second video on Saturday in which it labels the artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara a "mercenary," on the very day he arrived in Miami after being exiled from Cuba.
The regime's spokesperson program claims that the U.S. Embassy processed the artist's parole and "claims him personally," concluding: "It is not exile, it is relocation. He is not a victim, he is a mercenary. Cuba does not negotiate its sovereignty."
It is particularly cynical for the regime to now label Otero Alcántara as a "mercenary" when, two days before he was to complete his sentence, he was taken out of Guanajay prison and his whereabouts were kept hidden for 11 days, in what human rights organizations denounced as an enforced disappearance: a state kidnapping.
What makes the narrative of Razones de Cuba even more grotesque is that in the images circulated of Otero's departure, there is clearly a MININT officer escorting him, which fundamentally contradicts the story of a "voluntary relocation at the request of Washington."
The humanitarian parole was approved on Friday as the only available option for his release, and on Saturday, Otero arrived in Miami on an American Airlines flight from Havana, under diplomatic escort.
The regime conditioned his release on permanent and irrevocable exile, prohibiting him from returning to Cuba.
The publication triggered a wave of criticism that highlights the central hypocrisy of the message: the regime itself kept Otero in forced disappearance for 11 days before his departure from the country.
Iliana Hernández was straightforward: "Falsehoods at your request, because you didn't release him on July 9; you kept him imprisoned until today."
Amelia Calzadilla pointed out the most evident contradiction: "And was the personal security service with the lieutenant colonel they assigned to him also at the request of Washington?"
Leonela Toirac Duran pointed out another inconsistency: "And how did they find him? Because supposedly he was being isolated and no one knew where he was. So in which prison did they discover him...?"
Mariam Rodríguez summarized what many think about forced exile: "They have to exile him because, just by being there, he turns Havana upside down. They can't be more afraid of just one person."
Yoannis Perez summed it up bluntly in the comments: "With this, Razones de Cuba demonstrates that it is a tool of manipulation by the Castros."
Otero Alcántara was arrested on July 11, 2021, when he was attempting to join the historic protests of 11J and was sentenced in June 2022 to five years in prison for "offending the symbols of the homeland," "contempt," and "public disorder."
Filed under: