The historian Alina Bárbara López Hernández described the conduct of Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and the Cuban delegation on Tuesday as "a shame," during the debate at the UN General Assembly regarding the U.S. embargo on Cuba, where regime diplomats interrupted the speech of U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz with shouting and banging on the tables.
López, who has been under house arrest in Matanzas since June 2024 as part of the so-called "case 40," posted his criticism on Facebook just hours after the incident, which included several members of the Cuban delegation advancing towards the podium where Waltz was speaking, leading to a temporary suspension of the session by the President of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman.
"Beyond the right to reply that every diplomat at the UN has, the attitude of Chancellor Bruno Rodríguez and the Cuban delegation is a disgrace. They have internationalized acts of repudiation, resorting to insults instead of reasoning and arguments," wrote the intellectual from Matanzas.
For López, the episode has a revealing value before the international community: «This way, the world can get a rough idea of how people who dare to question power and express their opinions are treated on the island».
The activist also recalled an incident from 2018, when the Cuban delegation caused a similar scandal at the UN: "It's good that this is happening (although it's not the first time, I remember that on one occasion, in 2018, they took off their shoes and pounded the tables, very civilized all around)." This episode occurred on October 16 of that year during the launch of the U.S. campaign "Jailed for What?", and then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called it "outrageous and disturbing."
López's post sparked a wide range of reactions. "They demand international pluralism while prohibiting internal pluralism." Others summarized the episode with phrases like "the diplomacy of impunity" or "the mess at the UN."
A voice disagreed with the framing of shame, though not with the judgment of the regime: "For me, it's not shameful because those guys represent neither the Cubans nor decency nor anything at all. I would feel ashamed if I were a chancellor of a free and democratic country."
The incident on Tuesday occurred during the annual debate on the embargo against Cuba, where Waltz criticized the Cuban government, denounced the human rights situation on the island, and declared amid the interruptions that the UN "is not their communist dictatorship."
The event also resulted in an additional incident: according to an investigation by elToque, an official identified as Richard Tur de la Concepción, from Cuba's Permanent Mission to the UN, attempted to snatch the phone from Waltz's spokesperson while he was recording the confrontation. The U.S. ambassador himself reported that a Cuban diplomat pressured UN staff to cut off the microphones of the Washington delegation.
On October 19, Cuban diplomats led by Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán staged a protest in the halls of the UN against opponents José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, shouting “terrorists,” “liars,” and “get out of the UN.” Days later, Rodríguez described Otero Alcántara as a “criminal” and a “circus performer.”
Rodríguez, for his part, posted a video of the confrontation on the social media platform X, presenting it as a defense of Cuban dignity and described Waltz's speech as a "media circus."
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