A former lieutenant colonel of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) recounted how he stood up before the high command of the Army at a military meeting and publicly demanded the resignation of Fidel and Raúl Castro, an act of courage 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, amidst the Special Period. On the platform, the military leadership presented the so-called "food plan" that Fidel Castro intended to implement. It was then that Ruiz Matoses took the floor.
"The problems of Cuba are not resolved with food plans. The problems of Cuba are resolved with the resignation of the commander," he stated before his fellow comrades, according to the interview.
The head of the political department asked him if he was referring to the brother as well. The response was straightforward: "Both of them. And the little brother too. Back to their homes, let no one touch them, to establish a technocratic government to run the country. People who truly know what they're doing. Because so far, it's been a disaster."
The meeting was immediately dissolved. However, what stands out most in Ruiz Matoses' 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 got yourself into trouble. Some looked at me, gave me a couple of pats on the shoulder, but none said: Matoses, I know you're 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 within the ranks of the nomenklatura.
The former lieutenant colonel also links his story to that of his close friend, Major General Arnaldo Ochoa Sánchez, who was executed on July 13, 1989, after 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 the Minint.
Ruiz Matoses recalls that until the very last moment he was convinced that Ochoa would not be executed. He was at the barber shop when the barber asked him if he thought they would shoot him. "In my mind, it was impossible that they would execute the general, the greatest warrior of the Armed Forces," he said. He harshly criticizes the prosecutor of the trial: "He ordered him to be killed, and Escalona, like a lapdog, did everything he was told."
Due to his intervention in the meeting, Ruiz Matoses was sentenced to 29 years of imprisonment, a sentence that was reduced to 20 years in total— the maximum jail time at that time. It was a relief for him to hear that sentence as 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 spent nearly two decades in isolation, some of which were in the Guanajay prison, where José Abrantes, the former Minister of the Interior convicted in Cause 2 of 1989, was also detained.
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 abroad, urge active-duty 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 days after journalist Tania Costa interviewed Ileana de la Guardia, daughter of Colonel Tony de la Guardia, executed alongside Ochoa on that July 13, 1989.
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