Ángel de Fana, a historic Cuban political prisoner and member of the association Plantados hasta la Libertad y la Democracia en Cuba, stated this Friday, with complete conviction, that change in Cuba will come soon and that he wants to be on the island just before it happens.
The statement emerged during an interview with journalist Tania Costa, one day after De Fana took part in the public presentation of a declaration signed by more than 145 Cuban political prisoners at the Museum of Brigade 2506 in Little Havana, Miami.
"I want to arrive the day before the change. I want to be there. I will be there. It will be soon," said De Fana with a mix of excitement and determination that set the tone of the excerpt.
The veteran dissident, who served 20 years in Cuban prisons from 1963 to 1983, was adamant in rejecting the idea that the solution should come solely from Washington.
"Why are Trump and Marco Rubio going to send Americans to die on Cuban beaches? I can't even hold a rifle in my hand," he noted, acknowledging his physical limitations at 87 years old, but making it clear that the responsibility for change also lies with the Cubans themselves.
De Fana assured that he knows individuals within the island who are ready to act and just wait for a signal. "There are people who are truly waiting for someone to say, 'You go first, and we will follow,'” he stated, referring to exiled Cubans who, according to him, are also prepared to join in.
To illustrate his belief that what seems impossible can happen suddenly, De Fana referred to the parallel with the fall of the Soviet bloc.
"I don't know what a Pole, a Russian, or a German would think when they were under the control of the Soviet Union. They probably thought: this will never end. And then suddenly, first there was Perestroika, and after that, everything else that happened. It's as if it were being directed from up above, by some mysterious and glorious force," he reflected.
The context in which this interview takes place is significant. The statement presented on Wednesday in Miami, dated October 10, 2026, and titled "To the People of Cuba and the United States," demands the unconditional release of all Cuban political prisoners and the decriminalization of dissent as a prerequisite for any negotiations with the regime.
Among the 145 signatories is Guillermo Fariñas, Sakharov Prize recipient, who according to De Fana "is there suffering under the dictatorship in Santa Clara," as well as Humberto de Real, who has nearly 30 years of prison time behind him.
The document was sent to the State Department and to members of the U.S. Congress, although no response had been received at the time of submission.
Among the most ambitious points of the manifesto is the call for the military to join the people; the acceptance of a temporary transitional government composed of technocrats linked to the regime, and the demand that the opposition must be part of it. In any case, they claim the legitimacy of the Helms-Burton Law as a roadmap and a guarantee that there will be no Castro in power.
De Fana has a personal history that gives weight to his words: in 1976, while serving a sentence at Combinado del Este, he had already signed, along with 137 other inmates, a letter demanding the unconditional release of all political prisoners, a direct precursor to the declaration presented this week fifty years later.
In April 2026, De Fana had already asserted that Cuba could free itself without U.S. military intervention, pointing to the energy crisis and the accumulated pressure on the island as the factors that could trigger a massive mobilization.
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