The Cuban chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla responded with a brief and emphatic "He lies, he lies again".
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, the head of diplomacy for the Cuban regime rejected the statement by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that there are leaders in the Cuban regime with whom Washington will never be able to negotiate because they have "blood on their hands."
Rubio stated on Wednesday at a press conference that “obviously, there are individuals in that regime with whom we can never work because their hands are stained with blood, but there are also people I believe we could work with, if they are willing to lead the country towards political and economic freedom.”
The statement from the Secretary of State came a day after President Trump described Cuba as an "absolutely failed state" before the General Assembly and predicted that the regime would "fall," remarks that prompted the Cuban delegation to leave the room in protest.
Rodríguez Parrilla's response, however, avoids a context that is hard to ignore: several of the potential interlocutors of the regime in the talks with Washington have accumulated serious allegations.
Raúl Castro was formally charged in May 2026 by the U.S. Department of Justice with four counts of murder and conspiracy related to the shootdown of the Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996, in which Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales lost their lives.
The Minister of the Interior, Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, has been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2021 for serious human rights violations. The agency he heads —MININT— was the operational core of the repression on July 11, which resulted in at least one confirmed death (Diubis Laurencio Tejeda), over 1,400 detainees, and sentences of up to 30 years in prison.
Despite this, Álvarez Casas met with the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, in Havana in May 2026, in a unusual meeting whose photos were released by the CIA itself, and some media outlets have pointed to him as a potential transitional figure.
The third name on the board is Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as "El Cangrejo," a colonel in MININT and grandson of Raúl Castro.
According to a study by the New York Times published in August 2026, he is linked to a criminal network in Quintana Roo, Mexico, where at least 25 people died during maritime journeys organized by the group. He has not been formally charged in the U.S., but he was also mentioned as a possible interlocutor in negotiations and may have participated in the meeting with Ratcliffe.
In the interview with NBC, Rodríguez Parrilla confirmed that "representatives appointed by the Cuban government have had discussions with their U.S. counterparts," although he declined to reveal who is involved or under what terms. When directly asked if "El Cangrejo" is involved, he responded that he would not go into details.
The chancellor also rejected the idea that Rubio could condition bilateral relations on internal Cuban criteria, arguing that "relations between the United States and Cuba do not hinge on the interests of southern Florida" and that Cuba "is not a domestic issue" or "an electoral topic" in the United States.
Rubio, for his part, opened the door to working with regime figures willing to engage in a real transition, although he warned that "sixty-odd years of mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence cannot be reversed in six months" and did not rule out the use of force if Cuba poses a threat to U.S. national security.
Related videos:
Filed under: