The Cuban scientist and activist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola questioned one of the most sensitive points of the recent report from the Harvard Working Group on the Future of Cuba: the possibility that the very authorities currently upholding the political system could act as facilitators of a democratic transition.
In an extensive reflection published on Facebook under the title "A New Zanjón: Power, Victims, and the Limits of a Transition Negotiated with 'Cuba'", Ruiz Urquiola argued that any democratization project must start by addressing an essential question: "Who truly holds the power, and what reasons would they have to relinquish it?".
His criticism targets directly one of the premises of the document prepared by the group of scholars and experts convened by the Cuba Studies Program and the Afro-Latino Research Institute at Harvard.
The report states that Cuba needs immediate political changes that lead to a legitimate transitional government and asserts: “The Cuban authorities must take the lead in this process and become facilitators.”
Its authors acknowledge that this premise is not shared by all actors both inside and outside the island, but they believe that a peaceful solution will require the participation of the current authorities along with the opposition, civil society, the diaspora, the United States, and the international community.
What would compel the regime to relinquish power?
For Ruiz Urquiola, the main issue is not negotiation. He acknowledged that some historical transitions have included negotiations, but he cautioned that these do not automatically result in democratization unless the balance of power changes beforehand.
The activist cited the Polish transition of 1989 as an example and recalled that the negotiation came after years of resistance from Solidarity, a deep internal crisis, and a geopolitical shift that weakened Soviet support for the communist governments of Eastern Europe.
Building also on the ideas of nonviolent action by Gene Sharp, Ruiz Urquiola argued that a dictatorship retains its capacity to impose itself as long as it controls its main sources of power: the institutions, the administration, economic resources, coercive forces, and obedience.
A table can be round and yet the power dynamics around it can be profoundly vertical, he summarized.
The objection is particularly significant because the Harvard report itself describes a system in which the Communist Party constitutionally maintains a dominant position, denounces the subordination of fundamental rights to authoritarian structures, and presents GAESA as a kind of "State within the State", with a significant influence over strategic sectors of the Cuban economy.
Political prisoners cannot be "political capital."
Another point of friction is the proposal to start the process with a general amnesty and the unconditional release of political prisoners.
Harvard presents this measure as a demand from the Cuban citizens rather than as an imposition from Washington. It suggests that the United States respond positively to this step, starting by lifting the sanctions that impact fuel supply and subsequently providing resources to stabilize the economy and support the reforms.
Ruiz Urquiola warned, however, against any dynamics that could turn the release from prison into a bargaining chip.
Political prisoners do not represent political capital for the state that imprisoned them, he asserts. In his view, releasing a person who has been arbitrarily incarcerated for exercising fundamental rights is not a concession from power, but rather simply the end of an injustice.
From prisoner of conscience to critic of the proposed transition
Ruiz Urquiola's stance is also shaped by his own experience with the Cuban repressive apparatus.
The biologist was expelled from the Marine Research Center of the University of Havana and in 2018, sentenced to one year in prison for contempt following a conflict with officials in Viñales.
During his imprisonment, he staged a hunger and thirst strike and Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience and demanded his release.
Her sister, the art historian and activist Omara Ruiz Urquiola, has also reported arrests, harassment, and political reprisals. After traveling to the United States to continue cancer treatment, Cuban authorities prevented her from returning to the island.
The Harvard report specifically mentions the cases of Omara and Anamely Ramos as examples of the arbitrary restrictions on the right of Cubans to enter their own country, a practice it recommends abolishing.
Reconciliation without impunity
Ruiz Urquiola also identified a problem that he considers insufficiently addressed in any transition: what role the victims will have and how responsibilities will be determined for human rights violations.
The activist rejected the notion that justice means revenge and argued that even those who have served the regime should have procedural guarantees. He maintained that criminal responsibility must be individual and proven according to the law, not merely derived from political affiliation.
But he warned that avoiding retaliation cannot translate into impunity: «Reconciliation and transitional justice can coexist; reconciliation and the imposition of forgetfulness are fundamentally different concepts».
The warning of Zanjón and Baraguá
Ruiz Urquiola finally used two episodes from Cuban history to explain his rejection of a negotiation that does not first alter the fundamental structures of power: the Pact of Zanjón of 1878 and the subsequent Protest of Baraguá led by Antonio Maceo.
He clarified that a contemporary negotiation and the Zanjón are not equivalent events, but he finds a similarity: ending a conflict through an agreement does not guarantee that the underlying causes for it will disappear.
For the activist, a future transition can negotiate timelines, electoral procedures, administrative mechanisms, and institutional guarantees. What should not be used as bargaining chips are popular sovereignty, pluralism, freedoms of expression and association, judicial independence, or the subordination of armed forces to civilian power.
The Harvard report proposes, as the final destination of the process, precisely a new Constituent Assembly, a democratic and plural system, the rule of law, and a social market economy with various forms of ownership, including private ownership.
The discrepancy of Ruiz Urquiola fundamentally lies in how to get there: what would prevent those currently in control of the weapons, institutions, and a significant portion of the economic resources from taking advantage of a negotiated transition to retain a substantial portion of their power under a new structure.
"A transition is not synonymous with democratization. A regime can also transform itself to survive", he warned.
His critique ultimately condenses the dilemma into one sentence: «Cuba needs dialogue, but not the fiction of equality between the oppressor and the oppressed; reconciliation, but not amnesia; guarantees, but not impunity».
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