The United States Ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, denounced the privileges of the elite of the Cuban regime this Monday during the event "Cuba Libre: The oppression that Havana hides", organized by the American Permanent Mission at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The meeting, chaired by Waltz, brought together former political prisoners, activists, researchers, and legislators for nearly two hours to highlight political repression, corruption, and abuses of the Cuban regime before the international community, just days before the annual vote by the General Assembly on the resolution calling for an end to the U.S. embargo, scheduled for October 27 and 28.
In his speech, Waltz drew a devastating contrast between the situation of the Cuban people and the privileges of the ruling class. "What I find truly outrageous is that the regime cannot supply enough energy for its hospitals, schools, or people's homes, but it does have enough for its prisons," the ambassador stated, according to the transcript of his remarks.
Waltz listed privileges of the ruling elite: guaranteed energy for the Castro family's residential complex, a private plane that transports regime relatives between Latin America and Spain, and even a private island with 20 houses and its own dolphin lagoon.
"While the Cuban people live in miserable conditions, surrounded by prisons and blackouts, the regime officials literally live surrounded by luxury in Spain, in Europe, and in countries across Latin America and South America. And enough is enough," he concluded.
The panel included influential voices: José Daniel Ferrer, founder of UNPACU and a political prisoner with over 12 years in prison —more than nine of which were spent in solitary confinement—; and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, artist and activist released after five years in prison, who was forced into exile last July.
Additionally, researcher Emilio Morales, a specialist in the finances of the military conglomerate GAESA; María Werlau from Cuba Archive, who exposed the surveillance and exploitation of workers in medical missions; and Republican congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, who criticized Cuba's election to the UN Human Rights Council for six consecutive terms.
The regime's response was immediate. Cuban diplomats staged a repudiation act right in the hallways of the UN headquarters, shouting "terrorists" and "out of the UN" at the panelists. Ferrer reported it on his Facebook account: "We just experienced a repudiation act at the UN by Cuban communists."
Days earlier, Cuba's permanent representative, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, had attempted to prevent the event, describing it as a "political motivation maneuver" that violated internal UN regulations. Waltz responded directly to Soberón.
"If it bothers you that we give a voice to Cubans to talk about all this, how about you stop doing those things? Then we will stop talking about them," he said.
The event is part of a sustained diplomatic escalation. International support for the Cuban resolution against the embargo has dropped from 187 votes in 2024 to 165 in October 2025, and to just 136 during the extraordinary session in July 2026, marking the lowest level in over a decade, according to data from the historic decline in support for Cuba at the UN.
The upcoming vote, scheduled for October 28, also comes with over 1,000 signatures on a letter from Cuban activists and organizations urging democratic governments to vote against or abstain.
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