{"id":242943,"date":"2026-03-30T04:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T04:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242943\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T04:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T04:26:10","slug":"as-u-s-threatens-cubans-look-ahead-with-hope-and-trepidation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/242943\/","title":{"rendered":"As U.S. threatens, Cubans look ahead, with hope and trepidation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HAVANA\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Yenisey Taboada\u2019s small apartment on the outskirts of Havana is filled with photos of her imprisoned son.<\/p>\n

Duannis was 22 and watching soccer at a cafe when he spontaneously joined Cuba\u2019s biggest antigovernment street protest in decades. He was beaten by security forces, arrested and sentenced to 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n

His mother\u2019s apartment is also filled with American flags. <\/p>\n

Taboada fervently dreams of U.S. intervention to topple Cuba\u2019s Communist Party and free her son, now 26, and an estimated 1,000 other political prisoners. The recent U.S. military operation to overthrow Venezuela\u2019s authoritarian leader, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a>, gave her hope. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re being repressed,\u201d Taboada said. \u201cWe can\u2019t do it alone.\u201d <\/p>\n

1 <\/p>\n

\"the <\/p>\n

2 <\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

3 <\/p>\n

\"Yenisey <\/p>\n

1. Yenisey Taboada\u2019s small apartment in Havana is filled with photos of her imprisoned son, Duannis Tabaoda. 2. The sister of Duannis Taboada has a tattoo recalling July 11, 2021, the day her brother was arrested after joining an anti-government protest. 3. Yenisey Taboada at her small apartment in Havana. (Kate Linthicum \/ Los Angeles Times) <\/p>\n

Other Cubans, though, are furious at the U.S. and President Trump, who said this month after launching war on Iran that he believes he will have \u201cthe honor of taking Cuba,\u201d adding, \u201cI can do anything I want with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to make Cuba another colony, like Puerto Rico,\u201d said Rafael Garc\u00eda G\u00f3mez, 63, who works in a hotel. He blamed the U.S. oil embargo for the island\u2019s deepening energy crisis<\/a>, and vowed to take up arms if Trump attempted military action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will determine our own destiny,\u201d Garc\u00eda said.<\/p>\n

But who, exactly, is \u201cwe\u201d? Leaders in Havana and Washington say they are in direct talks <\/a>for the first time in years, but as speculation mounts over what will come next, one thing is becoming abundantly clear: The Cuban people have, so far, been excluded from any deal-making.<\/p>\n

\u201cCivil society doesn\u2019t have a seat at the table,\u201d said Manuel Cuesta Mor\u00faa, a longtime pro-democracy activist in Havana. \u201cWe want dialogues and discussions where the Cubans are the protagonists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Men <\/p>\n

Men fish as the vessel Maguro, symbolically renamed \u201cGranma 2.0\u201d as a tribute to the yacht used by Fidel Castro\u2019s guerrilla fighters to launch their revolution in 1956, arrives at the port of Havana from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the Nuestra America convoy. <\/p>\n

(Yamil Lage \/ AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

As the oil blockade quickly exhausts Cuba\u2019s supply of fuel, triggering a series of lengthy, island-wide blackouts<\/a>, many here are exhausted and are becoming increasingly vocal about their desire for fundamental changes in Cuba. <\/p>\n

But what Cubans want is far from uniform. <\/p>\n

Many agree that relieving economic distress must be an immediate focus, but while some believe that should entail a gradual, socialist-style liberalization of the economy, others want a total transition to free-market capitalism, including more foreign investment and private enterprise. <\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s politics. Many are fed up with the one-party political system, but debate what might replace it. <\/p>\n

Decades of poverty and the crumbling of Cuba\u2019s once-idealized healthcare system have sparked widespread disillusionment, said Ted Henken, a professor of Cuban studies at Baruch College in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve had a really gradual but very clear decline in investment in the boilerplate communist revolutionary ideology over the last 35 years,\u201d Henken said. \u201cBecause you can\u2019t eat ideology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rarely meet Cubans who defend that system,\u201d he added, \u201cbecause they\u2019ve lived in it, and it doesn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n

People walk and ride on a street without power during a nationwide blackout in Havana on March 22. Havana\u2019s once bustling streets are often largely empty.<\/p>\n

(Yamil Lage \/ AFP \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Cuba\u2019s leaders have insisted in recent weeks that their political system is not up for debate. <\/p>\n

There are no political public opinion polls in Cuba. Most people are not used to speaking out, afraid that even a social media post criticizing the authoritarian government could land them in jail. The country\u2019s most vocal activists fled the island after Cuba\u2019s repression of the nationwide protest on July 11, 2021 \u2014 the ones in which Duannis Taboada marched.<\/p>\n

But in interviews across Havana this month, some on condition of anonymity, many people said they were so desperate, any change would be welcome. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hell,\u201d said a taxi driver named Pedro as he drove past heaps of garbage rotting in the streets because there is not enough gas for trash trucks. \u201cThere are people here who have gone years without eating meat or fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he wants the U.S. to do to Cuba\u2019s leaders \u201cwhat they did to Maduro.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey should send them to prison and only give them bread once a day, so they know what it means to die of hunger,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"People <\/p>\n

A nationwide power outage darkens a street in Havana on March 21.<\/p>\n

(Yamil Lage \/ AFP \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Critics of the Cuban government say the replication of the U.S. model in Venezuela \u2014 which removed Maduro but kept his left-wing Chavista movement intact \u2014 would be a disappointment. Maduro\u2019s vice president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, now governs Venezuela, while the U.S. controls the country\u2019s vast oil reserves. Venezuela\u2019s leading pro-democracy opposition figure, Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, remains in exile, and the U.S. has not yet called for new elections. <\/p>\n

Cuba, which has been under authoritarian control for decades longer than Venezuela, has a less developed opposition, said Cuesta. Building democratic institutions would take time, which is why he advocates for what he describes as a \u201ctranquil transition,\u201d which would include a calendar for future elections.<\/p>\n

There is also a large contingent of Cubans who say the United States should stop meddling altogether, seeing Trump\u2019s actions as the latest in a long history of U.S. interventions<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not negotiations. These are not fair talks,\u201d said Liz Olivia Fern\u00e1ndez, 32, a Havana-based journalist with the news outlet Belly of the Beast. \u201cYou can\u2019t make a deal with an abuser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to gain my confidence,\u201d Garc\u00eda said, \u201cdo you hit me with a stick?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuba is coming from a weakened position, as the energy crisis sparks new waves of anger at what many see as mismanagement of the state-controlled economy. \u201cThe U.S. is going to put conditions on us, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen,\u201d said a doorman who spoke on condition of anonymity. <\/p>\n

\"Fish <\/p>\n

A man returns from fishing on a makeshift raft in Havana during a national blackout on March 22. The U.S.-imposed oil embargo is forcing Cubans to scramble for energy and food.<\/p>\n

(Yamil Lage \/ AFP \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Back in Taboada\u2019s neighborhood, the electricity had been out for nearly 24 hours. As the sun sank, neighbors began banging spoons on metal pots from inside their homes, the subtle but unmistakable clank of government protests. A recent demonstration in eastern Cuba that began with clanging pots and ended with citizens burning down the local Communist Party headquarters resulted in dozens of arrests. <\/p>\n

Still, the sound heartened Taboada. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels as though the Cuban people finally have a sense of hope for freedom,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She sometimes argues with her neighbors about what that freedom would look like. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what party governs,\u201d a neighbor told her as they stood around on the sidewalk, escaping the darkness of their homes as the blackout stretched on. \u201cWhat matters to me is how am I going to feed my family. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters is the economy,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe need a capitalist economy, I don\u2019t care what the party is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A man enters his home next to a mural depicting Argentine-born revolutionary leader, Ernesto \u201cChe\u201d Guevara, after a power outage in Havana on March 5. <\/p>\n

(Yamil Lage \/ AFP \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need more than that,\u201d she said. \u201cIf communism continues, there will still be political prisoners. People will still be tortured.\u201d<\/p>\n

People like her son. \u201cI cannot bear the thought of another mother having to endure what I have,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

She is allowed weekly visits to Duannis, who has staged several hunger strikes. She said he was tortured, and lost vision in one eye. <\/p>\n

He has asked her to bring him books by Nelson Mandela, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Jos\u00e9 Mart\u00ed, who fought for Cuba\u2019s independence from Spain.<\/p>\n

He is developing his political consciousness, she said, that he will be able to exercise one day, when Cuba is free.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Brazilian activist Thiago Avila waves a Cuban flag on board the vessel Maguro as it arrives from Mexico with humanitarian aid as part of the Nuestra America convoy, docking at the port of Havana on March 24. <\/p>\n

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