The Cuban actor Armando Tomey issued a strong criticism against Miguel Díaz-Canel, whom he described as a “toothy donkey,” and rejected the notion that the leader intends to portray the Cuban people as willing to take up arms to defend the regime amidst hunger, misery, and the deep crisis facing the island.
"They stole the homeland and dignity from the people, and now 'the donkey with tusks' wants the people to defend their hunger, their misery, and their pain," Tomey wrote while sharing the video on his social media, where he again confronted the Cuban ruler directly.
Tomey began his remarks by recalling a historical expression attributed to Rubén Martínez Villena against the dictator Gerardo Machado: "An ass with claws is what Villena called the dictator Machado. What would he call this appointed president, the utopian president of Cuba? A donkey with fangs," he stated.
The actor later dedicated a significant part of his speech to questioning the historical balance of the Cuban revolution.
He asserted that the presidents the country had from 1902 to 1959 collectively caused fewer deaths and disappearances than the regime established by Fidel Castro, and among his arguments, he mentioned the executions following 1959, Cubans who died attempting to escape by sea, the victims of the tugboat 13 de Marzo, and those who died during the Cuban military intervention in Angola.
Tomey also mentioned the death of the opposition leader Oswaldo Payá, which he described as a murder disguised as an accident.
It is an accusation upheld for years by family members and opponents of the regime, while the Cuban authorities have defended the version that Payá died in a car accident.
The most striking moment of the video came when Tomey rejected Díaz-Canel's repeated rhetoric about the willingness of Cubans to fight for and defend the revolution.
"Now this foolish president with fangs says that the people are ready to take up arms and defend the homeland. Let him defend it along with Silvio Rodríguez, what a tremendous mess!" he stated.
The words refer to the doctrine of the so-called "Total People's War," which, although publicly defended by Díaz-Canel, was originally conceived by Fidel Castro and later developed during Raúl Castro's tenure, as acknowledged by the Cuban leader himself.
The leader assured in May that "every Cuban man and woman has a rifle", a position and mission to fulfill in defense of "the homeland, the revolution, and socialism."
Tomey's reference to Silvio Rodríguez was also not coincidental. The singer-songwriter received an AKM rifle during an official event in March, after having publicly requested a weapon in the face of a possible U.S. intervention.
The Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces presented the award as a recognition of their willingness to take up arms to defend the country.
Tomey contrasted that military rhetoric with the material situation of most Cubans: “Let those who own Cuba, those who own the properties, those who own the wealth, take up the rifle. The people should not have to take up any rifle to defend them,” he stated.
The actor went even further, stating: «The people, if they take up arms, is to fight against them», before ending his speech with an insult directed at the ruling elite.
The new onslaught is part of a series of critical statements by Tomey during 2026.
On August 1, he called on Cubans to promote forms of peaceful resistance and emphasized that they could not continue waiting for Donald Trump or other external actors to resolve the future of the island.
One day prior, he had defined the pain that, according to him, haunts many Cuban emigrants when thinking about the situation in their country as "irreversible neurocastrism".
In that intervention, he also addressed Díaz-Canel directly and demanded that he allow Cuba to "make its own destiny."
The confrontation with the ruler had been even more explicit just a few days earlier. On July 24, Tomey dismantled the so-called "Cuban utopia" invoked by Díaz-Canel and referred to him as a "puppet, clown, and abuser."
Tomey, one of the well-known faces of Cuban television and especially remembered for his participation in productions like Sol de Batey, emigrated to the United States in 2013.
In recent months, she has turned her social media into a platform for increasingly direct criticisms against the regime, and particularly against Díaz-Canel.
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