{"id":500079,"date":"2026-03-02T23:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500079\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T23:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:17:12","slug":"florida-mother-masterminded-speedboat-mission-to-topple-cuban-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/500079\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida mother \u2018masterminded\u2019 speedboat mission to topple Cuban regime"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Cuban former political prisoner once honoured by the US State Department for her opposition to Fidel Castro\u2019s communist regime was the \u201cmastermind\u201d behind the failed plot to topple his successors, authorities in Havana alleged.<\/p>\n

Maritza Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez, a mother of two who was detained or imprisoned in Cuba 30 times before fleeing to Florida in 2002, was said to have led the logistics and financing of the ten-man mission, in which four were killed and six detained in a shootout at sea with border guards.<\/p>\n

Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez, 62, called them \u201cthe ten most virtuous people in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no greater act of love and sacrifice than the one who gives his life for his brothers and the homeland,\u201d she stated on social media, sharing a photograph of herself with some of them making \u201cL\u201d signs to signal libertad \u2014 freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cDown with the murderous Castro-Canel communism. Fire to the dictatorship,\u201d she stated, using a joint term for the former and current presidents, Ra\u00fal Castro and Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel. She did not respond to enquiries about her alleged role.<\/p>\n

\"Maritza<\/p>\n

Maritza Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez with Amijail S\u00e1nchez Gonz\u00e1lez, bottom left and Leord\u00e1n Cruz G\u00f3mez, right<\/p>\n

Officials from Cuba\u2019s Ministry of the Interior displayed the equipment they said was seized from the group\u2019s boat, which was intercepted by a coastal patrol<\/a> off Cuba\u2019s northern coast early last Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The haul included a dozen high-powered rifles, 12,800 rounds of ammunition, pistols, sniper vests, a generator, Starlink satellite kits, a drone, scopes, radios, combat knives, helmets, camouflage gear and bolt cutters.<\/p>\n

\"Seized<\/p>\n

Radios were among the hoard of equipment seized by a coastal patrol\u2026<\/p>\n

AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u2026 along with guns<\/p>\n

AP\/RAMON ESPINOSA<\/p>\n

\"Assorted<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an incalculable imbalance of force,\u201d said First Colonel Ybey Carballo P\u00e9rez of the Cuban Border Guard. \u201cIf we had not reacted the way we did, the ones who would have died would have been on the Cuban side.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US State Department said it would investigate but has not countered Cuba\u2019s account.<\/p>\n

Relatives and friends of the ten rejected the regime\u2019s description of them as \u201cterrorists\u201d, calling them heroes and freedom fighters who wanted to help Cubans rise up against tyranny. Some had warned it would be a \u201csuicide mission\u201d and thought they had abandoned the idea.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI had heard something about a year ago but I never believed they were going to do it \u2026 I said \u2018You guys are crazy, it\u2019s not a good moment for this,\u2019\u201d said Armando Labrador, head of Cuba Primero, a Miami-based group pursuing non-violent advocacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to talk bad about them \u2014 at the end of the day they are very brave \u2014 but the real truth is that what they did was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez rose to prominence within Cuba\u2019s dissident movement during the presidency of Fidel Castro, who seized power in 1959 after overthrowing the government of Fulgencio Batista. Castro stepped down in 2008 and died in 2016.<\/p>\n

\"Fidel<\/p>\n

Fidel Castro with Nikita Khrushchev in 1963<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n

She was detained repeatedly for speaking out against the dictatorship, organising protests and promoting freedom of expression and democracy, spending time in \u201cpunishment cells\u201d measuring just one metre wide that drove others to suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was in pre-university and I saw how the regime beat my classmates at school just because they wanted to leave Cuba, because they wanted to emigrate, I said, \u2018This can\u2019t be.\u2019 From that moment on I began to confront the regime,\u201d she recalled in an interview for Memory of Nations, a database of testimonies from survivors of totalitarian regimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my protests \u2026 I was prevented from entering university and from playing sports. From then on, my life became a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1996 Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez was arrested by state security agents for \u201cattempting to harm the nation\u2019s economy\u201d after they found a letter she had written to President Clinton commending the Helms-Burton Act, legislation he enacted to formalise US trade and economic sanctions against Cuba.<\/p>\n

Two years later she defied a house-arrest order and slipped out to attend a historic Mass led by Pope John Paul II, the first pontiff to visit the island. As the Pope addressed Fidel Castro in the crowd, calling on him to end political oppression and pressing the US to lift sanctions, Lugo stood wearing a T-shirt with the slogan \u201cDo not be afraid\u201d and handed out photographs of political prisoners to foreign journalists.<\/p>\n

In 2001 she wrote an essay entitled \u201cI Accuse\u201d while in Cuba\u2019s notorious Manto Negro (black cloak) women\u2019s prison and smuggled it out to the Florida congressman Lincoln D\u00edaz-Balart, who read it aloud in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cI accuse these miserable and cowardly men and women who, through the use of force, commit all types of human-rights violations while nothing stops them as they attempt to defend a false revolution built and maintained upon a foundation of lies and infamies,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop the continuous wanton detention of innocent people whose only crime is disagreeing with the Castro regime \u2026 As a physically defenceless woman in ill health, as a mother of two unfortunate daughters currently without a mother\u2019s care and armed with my religious faith as my only weapon, I accuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Her husband Rafael Ibarra Roque was president of the Frank Pa\u00eds 30th of November party, a Cuban pro-democracy group. He was arrested in 1994 and imprisoned for more than 17 years, accused of \u201csabotage\u201d because he had sent reports abroad of the human-rights crackdown.<\/p>\n

Lugo Fern\u00e1ndez was one of four female political ex-prisoners honoured by the Cuban American Bar Association at a ceremony in Miami in 2024. Each was presented with a letter from the then US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, commending their courage.<\/p>\n

On Saturday Mike Hammer, the US charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires in Havana, promised that an end was in sight to 67 years of repression. \u201cI see it coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a Cuban American Bar Association gala in Miami, Florida, he added: \u201cThis administration is determined to make the dream of the Cuban people to live in freedom come true \u2026 Cuba is a priority for the \u2018America first\u2019 foreign-relations agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marco Rubio speaks on the speedboat incident last week<\/p>\n

In Miami\u2019s Little Havana, Cuban-Americans called for Cuba to be next in line for regime change, following US actions in Iran <\/a>and Venezuela<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s squeeze on Cuba has so far focused on economic and diplomatic routes. Back-channel talks between US and Cuban officials have included Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, 41, the grandson of the de facto leader Ra\u00fal Castro, 94.<\/p>\n

Hammer has met Cubans who he says were warned by authorities: \u201cIf you meet with Hammer we\u2019re going to interrogate you, we\u2019re going to arrest you.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that people had been defying the threats, telling him: \u201cUpload this meeting to social media, take pictures of us, tell the world that we are suffering, what we are experiencing \u2014 and tell the world that the Cuban people want to live in freedom, in peace and with the opportunity to prosper.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cPeople are expressing hope not that change can happen but that change will happen. That\u2019s what we\u2019re working on \u2026 in 2026, Cuba will be free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month Hammer also visited Spain and the Vatican to rally support for regime change in Cuba.<\/p>\n

President Trump suggested last week that he might pursue a \u201cfriendly takeover\u201d of the island. But on Sunday Lindsey Graham, the US senator for South Carolina, also suggested that it might not be so friendly. \u201cCuba is next. They\u2019re gonna fall. This communist dictatorship in Cuba; its days are numbered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Labrador said: \u201cI believe Raul\u2019s grandson is going to have some involvement in a new government \u2026 We want a free and fair election within 18 months to two years and the way we get there isn\u2019t important, as long as we get there. He realises something needs to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cuban former political prisoner once honoured by the US State Department for her opposition to Fidel Castro\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-500079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}