The Cuban artist and activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara declared this Saturday that he would support a "surgical intervention" in Cuba, with one condition: that its aim be to remove from power those he identifies as responsible for the dictatorship.
In an interview with Tania Costa broadcasted by CiberCuba, Otero Alcántara —who arrived in Miami on July 19 after being expelled from the Island in what he himself termed a "forced exile"— was direct in stating his position: "They could talk about surgical intervention, they could discuss any situation of that kind, and if a surgical intervention is what it takes to remove the Castros who are in power, the Castros and Canel."
The founder of the San Isidro Movement admitted to not being certain about who exactly should be removed, but pointed out several names: "We also have the cliché of the Castros and Canel, and maybe there's a third or a surname. That, Marrero Cruz, I don't know, Pérez García."
His criteria for defining who should leave was clear: "We need to take someone out, someone, someone who is there and has no empathy for the Cuban people and is entrenched. That's the one we need to remove from that community."
Otero Alcántara dismissed the idea that Cuba could follow a path of "Venezuelan transition," arguing that the realities of both countries are incomparable: "Venezuela has a different economic and political history than ours. We have nearly 70 years of dictatorship."
Instead, he advocated for a gradual transition with international support—from the United States and Europe—that would allow Cubans to build from scratch: "We should call on the Europeans to facilitate a transition so that we can take steps, step by step, learning what democracy is, and of course, establishing institutions that outlast individuals."
His greatest fear is not the dictatorship itself, but what might come next: that a new charismatic leader will fill the power vacuum and repeat the cycle. "One of the things that is most feared is that we will momentarily follow a leader and it will turn into another fat dictator, another Fidel Castro," he warned.
The activist was emphatic in describing that scenario: "What I don’t want is for there to be another Fidel Castro, for people to fall in love, because people will come out of the dictatorship. They'll be given a little chicken, oil, electricity, I don’t know what. And they will thank that person as if they were a god. That person might start believing in themselves, establish themselves in power, and put us back in another 70 years. No, no, no, no."
These statements come in a context where the debate over a possible intervention in Cuba has gained traction among the opposition and the diaspora. A survey from May 2026 revealed that 60.9% of over 42,000 responses supported a direct military intervention by the United States on the Island.
Otero Alcántara was released from the Guanajay prison on July 7, 2026, just days before his five-year sentence officially ended, without notification to his family or his lawyers. Amnesty International denounced his forced disappearance on July 10, demanding his immediate release.
His companion from the San Isidro Movement, Maykel Osorbo, remains imprisoned in Cuba with a nine-year sentence that extends until 2030. In July 2026, he was transferred to the same prison in Guanajay where Otero Alcántara was held, and the United States approved a humanitarian parole in his favor while the Cuban regime continues to keep him incarcerated.
Filed under: