A former lieutenant colonel of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) recounted how he stood up to the top brass of the Army during a military meeting and publicly demanded the resignation of Fidel and Raúl Castro, an act of bravery that cost him nearly two decades in prison. Máximo Omar Ruiz Matoses, an engineer in radar and telecommunications, described the episode in an interview with Tania Costa on CiberCuba.
It was the year 1990. The meeting had been called to review the agreements from the IV Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, convened by Raúl Castro in March of that year, during the height of the Special Period. On the podium, the military leadership was presenting the so-called "food plan" that Fidel Castro intended to implement. It was at that moment that Ruiz Matoses took the floor.
“The problems of Cuba cannot be solved with food plans. The problems of Cuba are resolved with the resignation of the commander,” he stated before his fellow comrades, as recounted in the interview.
The head of the political direction asked him if he was also referring to the brother. The response was straightforward: "Both of them. And the little brother too. They should go home, let nobody touch them, to establish a technocratic government to run the country. People who truly know what they're doing. Because until now it has been a fiasco."
The meeting was immediately dissolved. However, what stands out most in Ruiz Matoses's account is the reaction of his colleagues: none of them reported him. "The meeting ended like the guatao party. But no one in that meeting stood up to incriminate me," he stated.
Reactions ranged from concern to silent complicity. "The only thing they told me was: Matoses, you’re crazy. Others said: Matoses, you’ve gotten yourself into trouble. Some looked at me, patted me on the shoulder, but no one said: Matoses, I know you are a traitor," the former official recalled.
That collective silence, according to Ruiz Matoses, reflected the widespread discontent among the Cuban military leadership at that time, although no one dared to express it openly. Many of those who were already dissatisfied in the 90s have continued to rise through the ranks within the nomenklatura.
The former lieutenant colonel also links his story to that of his personal friend, Major General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, who was executed on July 13, 1989, following the Causa 1 of 1989, a process that analysts and testimonies like his describe as a political purge orchestrated by the regime to eliminate uncomfortable figures within the FAR and Minint.
Ruiz Matoses recalls that until the very last moment he was convinced that Ochoa would not be executed. He was in the barbershop when the barber asked him if he thought they would shoot him. "In my mind, there was no way they would execute the general, the greatest warrior of the Armed Forces," he said. He harshly criticizes the prosecutor of the trial: "He ordered his execution, and Escalona, like a lapdog, did everything he was told."
Due to his involvement in the meeting, Ruiz Matoses was sentenced to 29 years of imprisonment, a sentence that, when accumulated, was reduced to 20 years—the maximum at that time. It was a relief for him to hear that sentence because he had come to fear that he would be executed like Ochoa. The charges included desertion, illegal exit from the country, and espionage, all of which he denied. He served nearly two decades under isolation conditions, part of which was in the Guanajay prison, where José Abrantes, the former Minister of the Interior sentenced in Cause 2 of 1989, was also held.
After serving his sentence, Ruiz Matoses went into exile in Spain and joined the Cuban Movement of Military Conscientious Objectors, a group of former officers who, from exile, urge active military personnel not to repress the Cuban population. In January 2024, he signed a collective letter addressed to his former active-duty colleagues.
Her testimony comes just days after journalist Tania Costa interviewed Ileana de la Guardia, daughter of Colonel Tony de la Guardia, executed alongside Ochoa on July 13, 1989.
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