Cuban journalist and writer Luis Felipe Rojas issued a warning on Tuesday that he himself described as uncomfortable: the hunger and extreme poverty that afflict Cuba could become the catalyst that brings about the end of the regime, even if that outcome occurs in a chaotic manner.
Rojas stated in an interview with Tania Costa for CiberCuba, reflecting on the ongoing deterioration of living conditions on the island and the exhaustion of the mechanisms that previously mitigated the crisis.
"It is unpleasant to think about it, to say it, but hunger, extreme misery, and as the circle tightens, it will become a trigger and a more direct path for it all to end, even if it ends badly, rather than waiting for it from the outside," stated the author of "El ruido de los libros."
To illustrate this deterioration, Rojas referred to the transformation of remittances as a gauge of the crisis. Previously, he explained, a Cuban family with relatives abroad received at least 100 dollars a year, which was sufficient relief. Now, although the transfers arrive monthly, the money is no longer enough on a consistent basis.
"They can send him money, and one day he can buy things. One month he can buy things, but the next month what he had is no longer there," he noted.
The scenario described by Rojas aligns with data revealing critical levels of food insecurity across the island. The Food Monitor Program found that 96.91% of Cubans lost adequate access to food in April 2026, and that 33.9% of households reported recent hunger.
That accumulated discomfort has translated into mobilization. The Cuban Conflict Observatory recorded 1,311 protests in May 2026, the highest monthly figure of the year, after a protest erupted in front of the government on May 13 in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana, with the slogan «Food and power!» as a cry from a population at its limit.
Remittances, which could alleviate some of that pressure, are facing increasing obstacles. Western Union indefinitely suspended transfers from the United States to Cuba in February 2025 following sanctions against Orbit S.A., and since January 2026, a 1% tax has been applied to cash remittances from U.S. territory.
In the first half of 2026, there were recorded almost two thousand repressive actions in Cuba, most of which were linked to peaceful protests, demonstrating that the regime responds to discontent with more repression instead of solutions.
At the end of the interview, Rojas revealed that he is working on a novel set precisely at the intersection of the history of the regime and exile. The plot begins in the Cuban military service during the First Cause of 1989 —the judicial process that culminated in the execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa and three officers from the Ministry of the Interior— and follows a group of recruits who guard a high-ranking official being transferred from a special prison to the east.
"One of these soldiers comes to the United States and encounters someone who resembles the person they guarded, but it's never truly them. The stories intertwine between the United States and Cuba," explained Rojas, who goes to a public library in Miami two or three times a week to work on the manuscript.
The Causa número uno is considered one of the darkest episodes in the history of the Cuban regime, with ongoing debates about whether the drug trafficking accusations were a pretext to eliminate figures with too much power or popularity within the system itself.
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