On 18 November, I attended the conference “Cuba’s Shadow is Long: The role of the Cuban dictatorship in Russia and Venezuela,” organized by the People’s Party (Partido Popular, PP) and Cuba Decide in the Spanish Senate building. Presentations were made by Pilar Rojo, of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee; Rosa María Payá, a founder of Cuba Decide; and José Antonio Monago, from the PP.
Payá argued that, “The expression ‘humanitarian crisis’ is not enough to describe what is happening in Cuba,” in her description of the current situation on the island, where blackouts are counted in days rather than hours, and where protests by Cubans suffering misery are met with increasing repression by the regime (the number of detainees exceeds 1,700). After commenting on the situation in Cuba, Payá presented the first of the two talks, “Cuba, Putin’s Preferred Ally,” in which she stressed that “Cuba is Putin’s greatest transatlantic ally” and that “The regime facilitates the sending of Cuban cannon fodder to Russia’s war in Ukraine.” These statements are a reference to the presence of Cuban ‘volunteers’ and military professionals in the Russian invasion forces.
Nicolás de Pedro, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Statecraft, reviewed how Russia has taken advantage of the Soviet legacy in terms of influence and espionage, and has boosted it during the last fifteen years. In that sense, Cuba is a key player—but it is not the only one—and de Pedro highlighted cases such as Mexico, where “Russia has more diplomats than in the United States.” He observed that, “Russia is employing an anti-colonialist discourse as a means of influencing all these countries, both in Ibero-America and in Asia and Africa, which is summarized in: The rest versus the West.” This discourse has been further amplified since the invasion of Ukraine, with Russia’s need to show that it is not internationally isolated: “Putin crossed the Rubicon on February 24, 2022, and there is no turning back.”
For his part, Oleksandr Slyvchuk, the coordinator of the Transatlantic Dialogue Center’s cooperation program for Spain and Latin America, discussed the presence of Cuban soldiers in Ukraine, where they are currently fighting as part of the 428th Motorized Rifle Regiment on the Pokrovsk front. The Ukrainian army has captured several Cuban soldiers at the front; but, so far, “The Cuban government has not shown any interest in its citizens for a possible prisoner exchange.” For Slyvchuk, the presence of Cuban soldiers, and the recent arrival of North Korean troops on the Kursk front, are further proof that “We are in a global conflict, not a war between two countries.”
The second talk, “Cuba’s Interference in Venezuela,” was given by the writer Alejandro Peña Esclusa, and by Miguel Henrique Otero, the director of El Nacional. Peña Esclusa highlighted the importance of drug trafficking—of the Cartel of the Suns—as a support for the regime of Nicolás Maduro: “Venezuela is currently the main exporter of cocaine in the world and provides 20% of the world market, for that reason, achieving the liberation of Venezuela would mean the hardest blow to drug trafficking.” Peña Esclusa also mentioned both Islamic terrorism (noting Maduro’s links with Hezbollah) and electoral fraud as export products of Chavismo. For the Venezuelan dissident, Maduro’s government “is a criminal organization directed from Havana, because Cuba controls the Armed Forces, foreign policy, intelligence and even Maduro’s protection.”
Miguel Henrique Otero explained the evolution of the Cuban regime, from the proletariat to post-modern communism, passing through Che Guevara’s guerrilla foquism, to explain the evolution of the regime and its expansion in the continent. For Otero, Cuba’s great triumph is “that Venezuela hands over its military intelligence,” and thus ends up taking control of the country. Although he argued that “Maduro keeps himself in power using the military high command and terror,” Otero sees the result of the last elections with hope because “It was not a 70-30 result in favor of Edmundo González, but a 95-5. Maduro lost even in the military barracks. We are very close to seeing a change.”
The talks of the various speakers were very revealing about both the importance of Cuba serving as Russia’s aircraft carrier in Ibero-America and also its nefarious influence in Venezuela. However, when the media constantly talks about the civilians killed by the latest Russian bombing of Ukraine, or the tortured and disappeared in Cuba or Venezuela, eventually the news becomes routine and becomes a mere enumeration of figures, of soulless numbers that add up to an endless list. However, we are talking about real people and broken lives, and understanding that reality is not only what allows us to empathize with their suffering but also what moves us to action. It is, in short, what makes us human. In this conference, there were many facts and figures, but they were not lacking the necessary human approach, first verbalized by Rosa María Payá as she recalled the assassination of her father, and then by Angélica Garrido.
Angélica Garrido was released in July after serving three years in prison for demonstrating in the anti-government protests of July 11, 2021. Angélica, who was detained along with her sister, the poet Cristina Garrido (who is still imprisoned), was tortured, went on two hunger strikes, and suffered a poisoning that almost ended her life. She told how she was locked up in a narrow punishment cell with hardly any lighting, in which she remained 63 days despite 10 days being the maximum time for such conditions. Her harsh story is like that of so many other Cuban political prisoners who must not be forgotten.
Rosa María Payá made a call to action—because words are useless if they are not accompanied by deeds—and exhorted the audience to support, once and for all, a real change for Cuba. The first step is in the hands of the European Union: to stop subsidizing the Cuban regime with millions of euros under the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement. Now, that ball is in Brussels’ court.
