In an opinion piece, Yunior García Aguilera argues that Cuba's true confrontation is between its own irreconcilably opposed citizens, not between Havana and Washington. He points to recent events in Cayo Falcones, where Ministry of the Interior authorities claimed to have engaged in combat with Cubans from Florida, as an example of this divide.
Yunior García Aguilera, in his text published in Havana Times, describes a civil confrontation on the island lasting nearly seven decades and reaching its most tense moment. He states that those holding power in Cuba came to it through arms and have insinuated that this is the only way to remove them. Dissenting Cubans cannot publicly express their discontent; organizing protests is illegal, and aspiring to free and plural elections is a legal fantasy.
García Aguilera contrasts this with the Communist Party leadership's willingness to dialogue with Washington, while maintaining an implacable repressive apparatus against internal opposition, which he calls a virtual civil war since 1959, 67 years ago. He recalls that after the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States committed to the USSR not to invade the island following the Missile Crisis. In 1996, after the shoot-down of Brothers to the Rescue planes—where U.S. citizens died—the response was to tighten the embargo, not military action.
The author questions the regime's geographical argument, noting that the United States is closer to Russia via the Bering Strait (82 kilometers between Alaska and Chukotka) than to Cuba (150 kilometers between Miami and Havana). He argues that the regime's official narrative frames the problem as a historical dispute with the United States to attract international solidarity and justify internal disasters. If it were evident that the conflict is against its own citizens, no one in the world would lift a finger for the regime.
García Aguilera highlights the state's efficiency in neutralizing dissenting Cubans, in contrast to its clumsiness against external threats. In the early years of the Revolution, there were mass executions in the 1960s and the 'Escambray cleanup,' an irregular war where thousands of Cubans died at the hands of others. In response to the July 11, 2021 protests, the order was to 'combat,' not national dialogue.
Currently, the climax of this confrontation stems less from Donald Trump's return to the White House than from Marco Rubio, of Cuban origin, as Secretary of State. The Castroist model appears exhausted, unable to convince or meet basic needs.
