The singer-songwriter and officialist deputy Raúl Torres published an extensive text on his Facebook (Raulito Torres Candil), blaming those he accuses of requesting invasions, betting against Cuba, and promoting disdain towards the Cubans on the island for contributing to the country's crisis, without mentioning the Communist Party or the government as factors in that situation.
Torres, author of "Riding with Fidel" and of "Homeland or Death for Life" —the official response song to "Homeland and Life" that accumulated over 48,000 dislikes compared to about 4,500 likes on YouTube in 2021— directs his diatribe against those who "have scorned the land where they were born, who have called for invasions against their homeland, who have in place of a heart a cold monolith in their chest."
The troubadour's verdict is conclusive: "Here is your prize: an aged, weak, impoverished Cuba, suffering greatly."
Torres' thesis shifts the responsibility for the country's decline onto those "haters," while omitting any reference to the responsibility of the Cuban government or the Communist Party. According to him, that ailing Cuba "is pained by its sick children due to the lack of medication and resources, due to the lack of food, due to the lack of empathy from a significant part of the world, whom you, the haters, have helped to cultivate contempt for."
Torres mentions the blockade, lies, and disdain, as well as the lack of resources, medications, and food, but does not assign any responsibility to the Cuban regime. The Communist Party, the ministers, the generals: not a single mention.
To round off the epic, Torres draws a philosophical distinction between the one who "denounces injustices so that the people may heal" — that one loves — and the one who "demands chains so that the people remain silent" — that one hates — concluding with one of his authorial maxims: "You cannot kiss the fruit and curse the root; you cannot call the fire that consumes the house freedom." Beautiful. It's a pity that the house has been burning from within for decades, with or without external arsonists.
The reality that Torres omits with such poetic elegance is the following: in 2026, hundreds of essential medications are out of stock in Cuba; around 1.3 million retirees who received less than 4,000 pesos monthly were included in the pension adjustment announced by the regime, amounts that remain insufficient in the face of the high cost of living.
Internet users were not swayed by the sweet-talking of the troubadour. One person bluntly remarked, "The only thing you've done in your submissive life is write songs to please the leaders; you've never sung for your people [...] Just work and stop the nonsense because you're no longer fooling anyone." Another posed a question that no poem can evade: "The elderly collecting a miserable pension and waiting in line at the banks without breakfast, fainting from hunger and exhaustion... Tell me... whose fault is it?"
A third comment, more terse and urgent than all of Torres' post, simply requested: "Freedom for Ana Sofía and her mother Caridad Silvente," referring to the young influencer Christian Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente, who were sentenced last Thursday by the Municipal People's Court of East Havana to two years of restricted freedom.
It is not the first time that Torres has wavered between defending the regime and half-heartedly acknowledging the crisis. In August 2026, he proposed jicoteas as a solution to hunger and admitted that “the people are there giving it their last push”, although he never pointed to the government as responsible.
Now, with his post about the "haters," the songwriter-deputy has taken a further step: he not only exonerates the regime but also portrays its critics as the true executioners of Cuba. The homeland, according to Torres, "is the house that still smells of bread even when it lacks flour." What he doesn't say is who emptied the pantry.
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