Inside Cuba’s Police State: From Ration Cards to Black Berets with Gelet Martínez Fragela

Summary

Podcast Summary

Conversations With Coleman: "Inside Cuba’s Police State: From Ration Cards to Black Berets"

Guest: Gelet Martínez Fragela
Date: October 27, 2025
Host: Coleman Hughes
Duration: ~58 minutes

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Coleman Hughes sits down with Cuban-born journalist and political refugee Gelet Martínez Fragela to discuss the realities of life under the Cuban regime. Fragela, founder and editor-in-chief of ADN Cuba and ADN America, provides a deeply personal and investigative look into Cuba’s state machinery, its repression of civil society, China’s and Russia’s support, propaganda operations, and why so many American activists remain mistaken in their perceptions of Cuba. Together, they explore the roots and costs of the dictatorship, the 2021 pro-democracy uprising, labor camps for children, mass incarceration on Minority Report-like grounds, and much more—all with a focus on dismantling persistent myths about Cuba’s system.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gelet Martínez Fragela’s Background and Journalism (02:00–04:14)

• Fragela explains her journey from Cuba to Costa Rica as a child, her family’s opposition and persecution under Castro, and her pivot from entertainment TV production to founding investigative news sites focused on Cuba and Latin America.
• Her impetus: Disillusionment with major media’s reluctance to call leftist regimes “dictatorships,” leading her to independent journalism.
  • “There is an attempt to sanitize dictatorships around Latin America, especially if they’re on the left.” (B, 03:18)

2. ADN Cuba’s Impact and Regime Censorship (04:14–06:57)

• ADN Cuba was blocked in Cuba just six months after launching.
• The Cuban government blamed Fragela and her site for instigating the 2021 nationwide uprising.
  • “During those protests...Cuba’s appointed president...said, ‘La orden de combate está dada’ (‘the order of combat has been given’)...They began to crush all of the protesters.” (B, 04:55)
• The regime’s efforts to shift blame included bizarre scapegoating (like a porn actress tweeting about Cuba).

3. Personal Family History of Persecution (07:19–11:25)

• Fragela’s grandfather was imprisoned for opposing the Castro regime post-Bay of Pigs.
• Her family’s life in Cuba was defined by reprisals and necessity of escape.
• “Once you’re a political prisoner and you live in a communist dictatorship, that affects your entire family.” (B, 08:04)

4. A Concise History of Cuba’s Descent Into Dictatorship (11:25–16:45)

• Cuba’s devastation under Spanish rule, U.S. protectorate period, and rise and true nature of Fidel and Raul Castro’s Communism.
• Persistent myths corrected: Batista wasn’t a right-wing dictator but led a socialist coalition; Communism entrenched in Cuba since early 20th century.
• Communists co-opted idealists like Che Guevara, destroyed civil society, and imposed economic ruin.
  • “How did they eliminate racism in Cuba? By crushing all of Civil society of black men and women and Cubans and educators and unions.” (B, 15:40)

5. Debunking the “Embargo Causes Poverty” Myth (16:45–20:19)

• US is Cuba’s largest food and medicine trading partner; embargo not respected by other countries.
• Primary cause of poverty is economic mismanagement and total state control.
  • “The real embargo is the embargo that the Cuban regime has over people...Their life is completely controlled by the Cuban regime.” (B, 18:42)
• The regime manipulates international data for propaganda.

6. The Myth of Cuban Healthcare Superiority (20:19–23:39)

• Cuban healthcare is weaponized for diplomatic/soft power; conditions in Cuban hospitals are dire.
• “The trains also arrived in time in Nazi Germany. I mean, I think the fact that people...have to say, ‘How about they get good health care?’—somehow that mitigates the suffering...The Cuban regime has no shortage of police patrols...but there are no ambulances.” (B, 20:43–21:01)
• Personal anecdote: Fragela had to return her stitching thread to the doctor due to lack of supplies. (B, 22:28)

7. Totalitarian Social Control: Labor Camps and Indentured Servitude (23:39–27:27)

• Children and adolescents sent to agricultural labor camps; parents have no choice.
• Families resorted to faking injuries to protect their children from these camps.
• Dual identities developed as survival tactic under oppression.
• The same repressive apparatus targeted homosexuals and religious people, often with lethal consequences.

8. The Irony of Western Leftist Admiration for Castro (27:27–30:23)

• American activists romanticize Cuban leaders while ignoring or denying systemic repression.
• Cuba’s carefully managed propaganda machine indoctrinates visiting activists, never showing them dissidents or the true state of society.
• “None of these activists are going to go and live in Cuba unless they’re running or trying to escape justice here.” (B, 28:52)

9. Life Under Daily Rationing and Deprivation (29:33–30:23)

• “Ration cards” strictly limit essentials: four eggs per month, no milk after age seven, state-owned empty stores.

10. Minority Report-Style ‘Pre-Crime’ Repression (33:11–35:28)

• “Pre-political social dangerousness”—people imprisoned not for crimes, but for perceived risk to the regime.
• “If the regime thinks you are capable of committing a crime, then you’re charged…you can spend like three years in prison.” (B, 33:22)
• Cuba’s prison population exploded from 14 to 290 prisons since the 1950s, despite only doubling its population.

11. The Roots and Reality of the 2021 Uprising (35:28–39:50)

• Combination of internet access, artist-led activism, pandemic failures, and hardline US policy created a catalyst for mass protest.
• Consequences remain severe; many believed the dictatorship would fall, only to face renewed crackdown.

12. On U.S. Policy and the Obama-era Thaw (39:50–42:18)

• Fragela criticizes Obama’s engagement for extracting no meaningful concessions from the regime.
• “The reality is that the Cuban regime did not change its nature one bit...it legitimized them for a brief time.” (B, 41:09)

13. Current State and Structure of the Cuban Regime (42:18–44:35)

• Miguel Díaz-Canel is wholly a puppet for Raul Castro and Cuba’s intelligence/military class.
• “He doesn’t have the charisma that Fidel Castro had...he’s a complete idiot, to be honest.” (B, 42:38)
• Dictatorship propped up by vast internal and international intelligence networks.

14. Cuba’s Misinformation Campaigns and Support for Terrorist Groups (44:35–50:00)

• Extensive state media disinformation on issues like Israel.
• Cuba hosts, supports, and coordinates with terror groups like the PFLP, Hamas, Hezbollah, acting as a hub for anti-Israel propaganda.
• Cuban intelligence exchanges secrets it extracts from the US in return for funding from Iran and others.

15. Chinese & Russian Paramilitary Support (51:02–54:55)

• China trains the "Black Berets”—Cuban riot police—to suppress protest, using methods honed in Hong Kong.
• China and Russia both operate spy facilities and provide key tech (like solar plants to stabilize the grid and regime).
• Western media largely ignored the presence of Chinese paramilitary in Cuba.

16. US and International Policy Prescriptions (54:55–57:25)

• Need for targeted sanctions on Cuban military interests.
• Urges coalition with allies to stop European funding and UN legitimization of Cuban repression.
• Europe continues to fund the regime, despite its support for Russia in Ukraine and record on human rights.
• “In my opinion, all cards should be on the table. I have no problem with regime change in Cuba.” (B, 57:06)

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Memorable Quotes

• “There is an attempt to sanitize dictatorships around Latin America, especially if they’re on the left.” (Fragela, 03:18)
• “The real embargo is the embargo that the Cuban regime has over people.” (Fragela, 18:42)
• “You have a ration card: you can buy four eggs a month per person. When you turn seven, you don’t have right to drink, to buy milk anymore.” (Fragela, 29:38)
• “You don’t have to commit a crime to go to prison. If the regime thinks you are capable of committing a crime, then you’re charged and you’re sent.” (Fragela, 33:22)
• “None of these [Western] activists are going to go and live in Cuba unless they’re running or trying to escape justice here.” (Fragela, 28:52)
• “He [Diaz-Canel] doesn’t have even the verbal skills that Castro had. So he’s a complete idiot, to be honest.” (Fragela, 42:38)
• “Cubans are stealing secrets in the US and then they trade it for these dark subsidies...with Iran, with China, with Russia.” (Fragela, 49:02)
• “I have no problem with regime change in Cuba. I would love to see my country free.” (Fragela, 57:06)

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• [02:00] – Fragela’s background, journalism origins
• [04:14] – Blocking of ADN Cuba, regime blaming media for protests
• [07:19] – Family history: persecution and leaving Cuba
• [11:25] – Historical myths and reality of Cuba’s transition to communism
• [16:45] – Embargo debate and economic control
• [20:19] – Cuban healthcare myth
• [23:39] – Labor camps, “indentured servitude” for children
• [27:27] – Western activist admiration for Cuban regime
• [29:33] – Ration cards and deprivation
• [33:11] – “Pre-crime” repression and exploding prison population
• [35:28] – 2021 protest origins and fallout
• [39:50] – Obama-era engagement critique
• [42:18] – Structure and persistence of the dictatorship
• [44:35] – Cuban propaganda, Middle East, Israel
• [51:02] – Chinese and Russian support, Black Berets
• [54:55] – What U.S. (and allies) should do

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Where to Follow Gelet Martínez Fragela

• ADN Cuba: adncuba.com
• ADN America (English): adnamerica.com
• Twitter: @HelitMartinez

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Tone & Takeaways

With clarity, frustration, and a relentless pursuit of truth, Fragela takes apart decades-old romanticization of Cuba on the left, revealing the deep costs of repression. The episode leaves listeners with a nuanced understanding of both the brutality of the regime and the strategic disinformation that enables its survival. For anyone interested in Latin American politics, human rights, or the way narratives shape Western perceptions, this is essential listening—or reading.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman. My guest today is Hellet Martinez Frajela. Hillette is a Cuban born journalist and television producer who became a political refugee after leaving Cuba. She founded ADN Cuba and later launched ADN America where she serves as founder and editor in chief. In this episode, we talk about the state of human rights in Cuba today. We talk about the legacy of Fidel and Raul Castro. We talk about the Minority Report like system used by the Cuban police to arrest dissidents. We talk about China's involvement in propping up the Cuban regime. We talk about the Cuban regime's role in supporting terror groups. We talk about the labor camps that Cuban children were sent to and much more. So without further ado, Helet Martinez Frajela hi listeners. I want to tell you about the Free Press's latest new podcast, Old School with Shiloh Brooks. When we met Shiloh, he was one of the most popular professors at Princeton and he was making reading great books cool again. Now he's hosting this show to help all of us, and young men in particular, get back into reading for pleasure. The show features intimate conversations with fascinating men, from fitness gurus to philosophers about books that shape their lives. They cover books like the Old man in the Sea, Middlemarch, and Down and out in Paris and London to bring you a truly old school education. New episodes out every Thursday. And in fact, I am one of his first guests. So go to Old School with Shiloh Brooks on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. Hale, thank you so much for doing my podcast.

[B]

Thank you for inviting me.

[A]

It's been a few years since we chatted and I was very impressed by you then. And I'm very impressed by ADN Cuba and ADN America, the journalistic outlets that you founded, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's just excellent journalism about what's going on in Cuba. Before we get into Cuba, give my listeners a sense of who you are. What is your story? How did you become a journalist that focuses on Cuba and Latin America?

[B]

Well, first of all, thank you. You're very kind. So I was born in Cuba. I'm also a political refugee. I left my family for Costa Rica when I was 10 years old. And a few years ago I founded this site that you mentioned, Idea in Cuba, which covers human rights inside the islands, human rights violations, and also the attempt of the Cuban regime to destabilize the Western hemisphere in Latin America and meddle with U.S. interests. Now, I didn't originally begin as a journalist. I was working in media as A TV producer. And I was a little bit tired of working. I was mostly producing entertainment shows. And I shifted to the news department at Telemundo, which is a Spanish station here, that is Telemundo and NBC. And I think what happened to me is that there were two moments where I was writing a story, and it was actually not even about Cuba, it's about Venezuela. And I remember someone from the national team called me and said, oh, you're too biased against the Venezuelan government. And I say, how to bias? Meaning, like, I mean, what am I supposed to know? Yes, you can't call it a dictatorship. We can't call it a regime. So to me, that was very shocking because you can't call it what they are. So it is all of this attempt to sanitize dictatorships around Latin America, especially if they're on the left, they have no problem calling what they are if they're on the right, but if they're on the left, there's always an attempt to sanitize the true nature of. Of this regime. So then it happened a second time, and I just, you know, I realized that wasn't for me. And then I decided to found my own news site. And I was already producing content inside the island. I was working for other people and helping them produce documentaries inside Cuba. And one thing led to the other. And, you know, here I am a few, eight years after.

[A]

Yeah, and my understanding is your website is banned in Cuba.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

And there was a minister that blamed the 2021 pro democracy uprising partly on your reporting and your website.

[B]

Yes, on our website and the work of some of my colleagues that they actually mentioned by name. So what happened is this. I've been running the site for the past eight years. Six months after we launched the site, they blocked access inside the island, so people can only read it through VPN or if they go on social media. And in 2021, in July 11 happened, and it was like an uprising nationwide. The biggest we have seen in the history of the Castro regime. And shortly after, like a day after the Cuban regime. Well, let me rectify. During those protests, when everyone was on the street, we were the first sight to livestream what was happening inside the island. Right. The first protest. We began livestreaming everything. And Cuba's appointed president, Miguel Diaz Canel, went on tv, on national tv, and said, la orden de combate estada, the order of combat has been given. And to the streets revolutionary. Like that. Very. No, with total impunity. And immediately they deployed the black barrettes. And they began to crush all of the protesters. So I. I broke a story a day after where I found that the Chinese paramilitaries have been training the Cubans black berets on how to crush dissent inside the island. So immediately after that, they went on. They did this big press conference, and they said that we had motivated, incited somehow this national uprising, which is completely ridiculous. Can you imagine if I had that, or if the people that were working with me had that power? We would be doing it every day. Right. But they also. To illustrate how ridiculous these regimes are, they also blame it on a porn actress. Not just on the porn.

[A]

They blame it on a porn actress.

[B]

Correct. Because there was an ep, Something happened two days before that. A porn actress called Mia Khalifa had tweeted something that became viral. And people began to correct what she was saying because she was blaming everything that was happening inside the island on the embargo. And then people began to rectify her. Right. And she retracted her statement and she began criticizing the Cuban regime. Went viral. I guess a lot of people are following Mia Khalifa.

[A]

Definitely. A lot of people are following Mia Khalifa. That's an understatement.

[B]

Yes. And then, well, everyone began retweeting that. And after a day after the protest began. So. They're so silly, right? They're so weak. The arguments are so weak that they have to make up this, you know, manipulate your reality to an extent that is even laughable.

[A]

Yeah. Wow. Okay. There's a lot to get into there. But I want to rewind and get a little bit more of your personal story, because you said that you left Cuba at age 10 and your family were political refugees. Describe how that happened.

[B]

Well, there were many events. My grandfather on my mother's side, he was a political prisoner. He was an academic. And when the Bay of Pig happens, he and his students joined the opposition. At that time, that was 61, if I remember correctly. At that time, many members and many groups in the opposition were waiting for the Kennedy administration to send armed support. That didn't happen. And everyone was arrested, either arrested or some others were killed. So in the case of my grandfather, he was charged with 20 years in prison. He left. He was out of prison, I believe, after six years. He had a heart condition. And that really led to a. Once you're a political prisoner and you live in a communist dictatorship, that affects your entire family. My grandmother was an academic also. She was a biologist. She could never work, work again. Because you can't have an academic that it's related to a Political prisoner then that was on my mother's side. And now what happened in my father's case? His parents were not really part of the opposition. They were simply not involved in just trying to maintain all of the possible distance with the Cuban regime. But my father was a lawyer, a criminal lawyer, and he got into some troubles at the end of our time in Cuba, trying to defend certain people, saying certain things during trials that he was going to. They were going to get rid of, take away his license to practice law. So we always wanted to leave the island as. As far as I remember, that there are two things you do in Cuba. Either you join the opposition or you leave the island right when. When you don't think there's anything that else that you can do.

[A]

And it was at that time still illegal to leave, I imagine, right?

[B]

It was. And in my case, children can leave Cuba or couldn't leave Cuba at that time unless it was a definite. You were living. Definitely. So Costa Rica didn't give those kinds of visas at the time I left for Costa Rica. So my parents prepare all the documentation, and we would go to the. We would go to the immigration officer and we tried to talk to the guy to just distract her so he would never look at the real number on the visa, because if not, me and my sister wouldn't, you know, couldn't have left. And I remember even on the airplane, my father looked at my mom and he said, we're free. And my mom said, no until we land. Right. Because she could still feel that at any given moment they could take us and, you know, down off the plane because we didn't have the right visa.

[A]

Yeah. Okay. So I think to get a little bit more context, it would be good to go back to the story of how Cuba became a communist dictatorship. And obviously the story. You can start the story as far back as you want, but I think for an American audience, the story starts with the Spanish American War and America's possession of what used to be Spain's colonial possessions, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, Guam, and so forth. So if you could give a little potted historical reminder of how Cuba came into the possession of the United States briefly, and then how it became independent and how it became a communist dictatorship.

[B]

Okay. So when during the Spanish war, Cuba was a country that was devastated, the Spaniards had created a concentration policy, was basically concentration camps that they built in Cuba to separate people that were living in rural areas from the rebels and from helping the rebels. So around 200,000 people had died in Cuba as a result of this reconcentration policy that the Spaniards implemented in the island in 1902. We were a devastated nation by war, really. We had been fighting for an independence for so long, and the country was ruined and we became a protectorate of the United States. We were a free country, but we had a very special, in that sense, relationship with the United States. And the United States has some leverage definitely in Cuba, but by all means, we were an independent country. There is the perception, and there is the myth, especially the myth that the Cuban regime has amplified, that we were somehow a puppet of the United States. Now, that wasn't always the case. In fact, Nicaragua at a point asked the US to become also a protectorate, and the US refused because Cubans had caused a lot of drama also for the US because they used the United States also to solve some of our domestic crisis when it was convenient. The misconception is that people think that Castro became Communist later in life, like after 1959 when he took control of the island. That is not the case. Raul Castro was a member of the Communist Party for a long time. The first Communist Party in Cuba began in 1919. It was actually an American intellectual that traveled to Cuba and opened the Communist Party with some Cuban anarchists. That party went into disgrace, didn't gather a lot of traction. And then in the 20s, there was a Polish revolutionary, a Communist, that came to Cuba and he opened the Cuban Communist Party. Now, before Castro took power, we had a dictator called Batista. I'm sure some Americans might be familiar with him. Now Cuba has. The Cuban regime has portrayed Batista as a dictator, dictator on the right. Another misconception. Batista was really a socialist. In fact, the coalition that Batista led that helped him gain power in Cuba was called the Democratic Socialist Coalition. He was revered by many people in the left in Latin America. But what happened is that the Communist Party, who was completely controlled by Russian intelligence at the time, not just in Cuba, but around the world, it had lost a lot of credibility among the Cuban people because of the deals that the Communist Party did with Batista. It had changed the name of the Communist Party to the Socialist Party by order of Stalin at the time. So they needed to hide. There was the need to hide the fact that the Castro were Communists, but Raul Castro had been a long time member of the Communist Party. And then Communists are modern sophists. They try to manipulate reality to win control. And they usually use people who are idealists, like Che Guevara, political gnostics, people who think that your society is flawed, that Human nature is somehow flawed and you have to fix it. You have some moral mandate to fix that. Flawed and sophists like Castro usually use these people that would not be stopped at anything, like Che Guevara to do their killing and do their bidding. Right. So they slowly got control over all of the opposition. By the time the Moimimeento 26 de Julio, 26 July Movement, took control of Cuba, immediately people started seeing the true colors. Right? It was evident that they were communists. They promised elections. They said, in 18 months we're gonna have elections. And then those elections never happened. When 18 months passed, they said, elections. Why do we need election if we fix everything? They came in and said, well, 1959, we won. There's no racism in Cuba. We eliminate it by grace of our presence here. And how did they eliminate racism in Cuba? By crushing all of civil society of black men and women and Cubans and educators and unions. They completely destroy civil soc. They destroyed the industry, they destroyed our education, they nationalized the whole system. 89% of Cubans today, the result, the aftermath, is that 89% of Cubans today live under the poverty line. They can make more than $171 a month for a family.

[A]

Yeah. So the common argument that you hear from American activists on the left that defend the Cuban regime is that the reason Cuba lives in poverty is because of the embargo that America has had on Cuba. We can't trade with them other than basic essentials that we've had for, you know, 70 years now. So how do we know that Cuba's poverty is a result of its economic system and not of the embargo?

[B]

Well, the data is very clear. Since 2007, the US became Cuba's biggest trade partner. We trade food with Cuba, we trade medicines with Cuba. That doesn't ban European nations, for example, from trading with Cuba. The embargo applies to the US but doesn't necessarily, and it's definitely not respected by other nations. Cuba's biggest partner is China. China is right now giving the Cuban regime a life because if not, it wouldn't be able to survive. So the myth that Cuban's poverty is a result of the embargo, first, the problem with that premise is that it lies in the idea that somehow you cannot punish dictators or criminals for their behavior if there is some form of collateral damage. So I disagree with that. The embargo is not a regime change mechanism. It's a deterrence mechanism to try to contain this ideology, this criminal organization, because that is what The Cuban regime is. It's not like a criminal organization. It's a criminal organization that took power by force and never run elections in the country. So how do you deter a criminal organization that has been expanding around the world, that has meddled with issues in Africa, that has taken control over Venezuela? Because it's indisputable now that. That what happened in Venezuela is a result of Cuban intelligence meddling in Venezuelan affairs. It basically has control over Nicaragua also. It has been meddling with issues in Colombia, Chile. So what do you do? Nothing. So it's very difficult to quantify the extent of the embargo. But today you tell that to Cuban people in San Diego and nobody buys it, because the real embargo is the embargo that the Cuban regime has over people that they're not free to do anything. Their life is completely controlled by the Cuban regime. Now, Coleman, if we take what they say, if we say, okay, what the Cuban regime is telling me is true, let me tell you a little fact. The Cuban regime reports a GDP that is 200 billion a year. That is almost double the GDP of Dominican Republic. So you can't have it both ways. Either they're lying, and if they're lying, they have to be lying all the time, right? So if you're an activist and you're telling me, oh, because it is the embargo, hold on, how are they reporting a GDP that is like New Zealand? I don't see people from New Zealand going back to going to live in Cuba or even people from Dominican Republic, but there are many Cubans who would pray to live in Dominican Republic. So they manipulate facts, they manipulate the data, and they have spent a lot of money trying to maintain all of this intelligence machine that they have around the world that is completely disproportionate to the size of the country and even the GDP of the country.

[A]

The other argument you hear from American activists and intellectuals, and I think, if I'm recalling, even Noam Chomsky has made this argument, well, of course, that the Cuban healthcare system is better than the American healthcare system and that this is a testament to, to how socialized or communist medicine is much better than what we have in America. What do you make of that argument?

[B]

Well, the trains also arrived in time in Nazi Germany. I mean, I think the fact that people, in order to justify the brutality of a dictatorship, has to say, how about they get good health care? Somehow that mitigates the suffering of the Cuban people. The second thing I would say is that I don't Know what hospitals they are going, because many members of my family are doctors. And let me tell you, the Cuban regime has no shortage of police patrols and police cars. But there are no ambulance. So they're making the choice not to buy medicine. They're making the choice not to buy ambulance. People can't even get to the hospital because the ambulance never arrive. But every activist in Cuba right now has a police car in front of their house. And that it's, you know, that is never. There's never a shortage of money and tools to repress people. The healthcare system in Cuba has been used as a diplomatic tool, as a soft power tool, precisely to create that idea. But it has been typical of all communist regime. The Soviet Union also had that, and they invested a lot of in sports. It is unsustainable. You can invest and inject all of those funds into this healthcare system that is incapable of sustained by itself. So it's crumbling today. Once we stop receiving all of the fund and the subsidies from the Soviet Union, the healthcare system is completely disrupted. There is nothing. Have you seen photos of a hospital in Cuba? It looks like we're in war, in a war zone. I mean, I don't know how much time I have.

[A]

You have as much time as you want.

[B]

Let me tell you a little story.

[A]

Yeah, please.

[B]

When I cut my leg once in Cuba, right? And my parents took me to the hospital. And I remember, you know, I was a child, I remember the doctor came and he said, don't worry, you're not gonna have a scar. I have like this strain that is gonna be very thin. And I'm like, okay, okay. And he gives me the strain and he leaves. He comes back and said, excuse me, can you give me about the string because I don't have enough to do the stitches.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

And that was in the 90s, right? And you never heard Fidel Castro before the 90s complain about the embargo. Everything he was talking was campaigning around the world for people not to pay the external debt. Right. Never talk about the embargo. The embargo became an excuse. Like all dictators are going to always use excuses after the 90s because they needed someone to blame because of the disaster, the economical disaster that they created. There is no production in Cuba. Cuba has to import 90% of what they consume because they destroy all of our industries.

[A]

Yeah. So let's talk about some of the other aspects of life under communism. You've talked about labor camps that even miners have to participate in. You've talked about what you call indentured servitude?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So can you describe that for me? What do you mean by that?

[B]

Look, under communism, right? People have this idea that communism is an economic system. That is the last thing they are. Communism is really a moral system. You and me, we both have the understanding that we have a set of inherited rights, that we are born with those rights and they're given to us not by men, but by virtue of our shared humanity, right? Or God. People who are religious. Under communism, you're not treated as an individual. You're a tool that serves the state to maintain and sustain the machinery that is the state. And when you are no use for the state, you're completely discarded. So based on that premise, you as a father, as a parent, you have no control over the lives or choices that you can make or not make over, for example, for your children. So when we were kids in Cuba, every summer, the Cuban regime created labor camps, right? They would send you. There's no way to say no, you have to go. They would send you for months, maybe a month, maybe two, depending, to these labor camps to pick, I don't know, potatoes, oranges. You would sleep on these barracks. I remember I didn't go because I left when I was 10. And that usually begins when you're a teenager. But my sister had to go. And my father always told the story that she would beg him not to send her to the labor camps, right? But you had no choice. So people in Cuba do all kinds of bizarre things to avoid going to those labor camps. Especially if you're a girl, you're going through puberty, and then you're sent to this place that is really, you know, you're sleeping with everyone there. Everybody's looking at you. The conditions are really, you know, they're not in good stage. And people would. For example, in one year, my father had to get a doctor to pretend that my sister had broke her arm. And they actually had to put a casket because you had to prove that she was not capable of going to the labor camps, right? And people would do all kinds of things because part of communism is that it destroys the moral compass of our society. So people develop these dual identities where your private self is somehow completely in contradiction to your public self because it's a way of surviving, right? So this labor can happen with children, but also happen with homosexuals. They were called military unit of health to production. And they would send homosexuals, intellectuals, they would send religious people. One of my cousins, he was a homosexual, and he was sent to one of these camps. And when he tried to escape, they shot him and they destroyed his entire arm. So it is very difficult for me to understand how is it that American youth would go to my country from the comfort of their democracy to actually defend the brutality of a regime that destroyed all human dignity. I remember in Cuba when I was a child, we were not allowed to go to hotels because you can't go to hotel. Hotels are for foreigners. You can't even go to certain places in. Inside your own country. And that was widespread.

[A]

You know, it's amazing. There's. There's always been a fascination from activists on the American left, especially racial justice activists, with the Cuban regime, with Castro and Che, in particular, the Black panthers in the 1960s. You had, you know, when Eldridge Cleaver was on the run from, from the authorities in America, where did he go? He went to Cuba, you know, among other places. Black Lives Matter co founders, when, when Castro died, wrote him what was basically a eulogy and a love note talking about how, you know, what an incredible example he was. And I learned from reading your website that this, this guy, Manolo de los Santos.

[B]

Oh, yeah, the director of the People's.

[A]

Forum, Director of the People's Forum, heavily involved in the recent Columbia protests over. Over Israel, said, fidel is for us, a great example. We wish all leaders were like, of course. So there's this incredible irony where what these activists imagine they are protesting in America and in the west is the very totalitarian repression which they are praising in Cuba. How does that not like what's going on in their mind that allows them to hold those contradictory ideas at once? What's going on there?

[B]

Yeah, look, the Cuban regime, you're always going to have people who have grievances in every society. Right. It's normal. And the Cuban regime uses those grievances to recruit many of these activists. Now, when you go to Cuba, let's make sure people understand none of these activists are going to go and live in Cuba unless they're running or trying to escape justice here. Nobody is deciding to just go and live in Cuba. Right. They're here in Manhattan. They're criticizing here, but they're not going to live in Cuba with a racial card. Like people in Cuba are leaving. Right. But when the Cuban regime.

[A]

Sorry, racial card.

[B]

Oh, I'm sorry, yes. It's like, I'm probably mispronouncing it.

[A]

No, no, no, you pronounce it. Well, just. I don't know what it is.

[B]

It's a card they give you that is, well, they tell you what you can buy in the store, right? So you can buy four eggs a month per person, right?

[A]

Ration. Oh, ration.

[B]

Ration. Ration part. Okay, so you can buy four eggs a month. When you turn seven, you don't have right to drink, to buy milk anymore. So they, you know, they have like this list of goods that you're allowed to buy now. The stores are empty, but.

[A]

Well, you have the right to buy.

[B]

It's a establishment. You have the right to buy. Although there's only sugar and flies in those. But hey, don't laugh because you guys are. Very soon maybe you're gonna have like the.

[A]

You have government owned grocery stores.

[B]

Yeah, In Manhattan, the bodegas here. So as I was saying, what happens is when these activists get to Havana, they're usually received by an institute, a friendship institute. It's called ICAP. And that is 90% of that institute is really Cuban intelligence. So they take you on these tours, they say they're meeting with civil society, but they're not meeting with civil society. It's all a facade. They take you on these tours that are very well organized to show you how really life is in Cuba according to the regime. And there a process of indoctrination begins to take place. If, to go back to your example, if you look at some of the activists in this solidarity movement with the Cuban regime, Claudia La Cruz, for example, the president of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, she said, my activism really solidified when I was 17 years old and traveled to Cuba. It's a very well orchestrated propaganda campaign to downplay the nature of the Cuban regime and to really win the hearts and minds of people who have no real context about what's happening inside the island because they do not go and meet with the opposition. You know, I think I sent you a while ago. We have a rapper, Michael Osorbo. Horrible situation. He's actually a Grammy winner. And Michael, he was sentenced to nine years in a maximum security prison because of that song. Okay, we have Luis. He did a song called Patre Vida, the one that made him. He won the Grammy because of that nine years. Okay, you have Luz Manuel Otero Alcantara, another Cuban activist. What was his crime? Nothing. Do art. Right. In that case, he left his house to go to the July 11 protest. He was arrested immediately when he exited his house. Cuba, we have Right now over 1,000 political prisoners in Cuba. Since 2024, 100 people have died, almost 100 in the prison system for malnutrition, because they were denied medical care. Some people have committed suicide because they just can't take it anymore. Or a hunger strike. When do you read that on the press? You're not going to read it because the press agencies that go to my country, like Reuters or ap, in order to maintain their accreditation inside the island, they have to do this sort of ornamental journalism, right, where everything is very decorative, looks like they're covering the island. But they don't really go to tell the stories and the struggles of the Cuban people. They don't narrate that.

[A]

You've also talked about people that are imprisoned even before they commit a crime, like Minority Report. Yes, pre political social dangerousness.

[B]

Yeah, pre crime dangerousness. The Nazis also had that. They had a preemptive dangerousness. And I think they passed it in 1933. I believe Franco in Spain also had something similar. And then in Cuba. So in Cuba, you don't have to commit a crime to go to prison. If the regime thinks you are capable of committing a crime, then you're charged and you're sent. You can spend like three years in prison because they think you have a behavior that it's, you know, prone to. You're prone to break the law. That's basically what they use. If you're a Coleman, you're meeting with Helit, right? And Helit is in the opposition. And you don't. And you know, you don't follow their orders. You don't stop talking to me or you're joining a human rights movement or whatever, whatever they think. And then even if you never broke the law, they said, yes, but you have a pre criminal personality, right? You have the psychology of someone that can commit a crime. And this data that I give you, the thousand political prisoners that we have, we're not taking into account that because there's no way for us to really document all of the thousands of Cubans that are languishing in prison because they didn't commit a crime, but the regime thought they could at some point in their life do that. So to illustrate for your audience, when the Cuban regime took power, we were a population of 6 million and 14 prisons. Today, the population increased to 11 million and we have 290 prisons. So while the population didn't even double, the prison system increased by 1300%. So you have. If you know a Cuban person, you will always hear that they have someone that spent a long time in prison or was either killed by the Cuban regime. Statistically, it's like that. It's one of the highest rates of Incarceration in the world.

[A]

Yeah. So what sparked the pro democracy protests in 2021? You know, it's. It's, in a way, it's surprising to me that there have not been more huge protests like that since 1959. What accounts for that? Is it just the successful repression of the people? And what changed in 2021 that allowed for that protest to take place?

[B]

It is a successful repression. You know, under communism, silence becomes the language of fear, Right? You express your fear by staying quiet, by not speaking up. And the consequences when you speak up are really tragic. Right. The first thing they did when they took power, they would take people to the movie theater to watch movies of the firing squads. So imagine a society that since the beginning, right, you were born, you were a child, and you were seeing what was the consequences of speaking up. Then we had a big protest in 1994. It was called the Maleconazo, and that is what gave rise to the Valsero crisis in the 90s. Now, El Maleconazo only happened in Havana. I think there were some factors that contributed to the July 11. One is that Cubans in 2018 had access to Internet. For the first time, people could have Internet in their phones. So for the first time, people were really watching the reality they've been living all of their life, but they were seeing other people speak up. They were looking at data and information they have perhaps not even read before. There was a movement of artists called Moimiento San Isidro. San Isidro movement, who were very popular, became very popular inside the islands. A group of intellectuals and Cuban artists, people were being expelled from their universities for speaking up. So there were a lot of things happening in the island. The Trump administration, to be fair, the first Trump administration really sanctioned the regime, increased sanctions in the regime, but it was very supportive of the Cuban democracy movement. So there was a momentum in the island at that time. And then Covid happened and the healthcare system was collapsing. People couldn't even get ambulance, et cetera. So there were many factors that reached that crescendo that people just exploded. And when the first protest happened, people that I've interviewed now, protesters that are here in the US Seeking asylum, interview them. And they've said, I saw it on social media and inspired me to go and join the protest. And it's very sad because most of them, the ones I spoke to, they said that that day they left their house thinking they were never going to return to an unfree Cuba, to a dictatorship. They thought they were going to return to a Free Cuba. And of course, that didn't happen.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and LifeLock has tips to protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let Lifelock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free [e-mail] Podcast terms apply. You know the words dominating today's headlines.

[B]

Private equity, generative capital gains tax on Fed rate cuts.

[A]

But do you understand how they impact.

[B]

Your world and your wallet?

[A]

In a world that skims the what? Understand the why. Because context changes everything. [e-mail] so Obama, I think, in his second term, loosened some of the embargo restrictions. And at the time, I remember paying attention to it and it felt like for the first time, relations between America and Cuba were thawing and it could usher in kind of a new era. What did you think about that at the time and what do you think about that choice now, in retrospect?

[B]

Well, I was never supportive of his choice because it came with we were not getting anything in return, right? Obama opened to the island, but the United States was not getting anything in return. The situation with the political prisoners were the same, et cetera. Now, to be fair, I understand the argument of some people made at the time. It's like, well, we have tried everything. Let's try something different, right? So I'll give them credit for that. But the problem is that there were no concessions, right? The Cuban regime committed to nothing. Immediately after Obama gave that famous speech in the island, the repression continued. Even as Obama was walking the streets of Havana, the opposition was being crushed. They were not even allowed to go to some of the gatherings and they had been arrested. The Ladies in White, which is a movement of women who had their husbands and their kids in prison, were being completely crushed and persecuted all the time. So there was a feeling in Havana that that could be the Cuban perestroika. That is real. Many activists that I, people that work with me and young journalists tell me, you know, they had that dream that maybe this is. But the reality is that the Cuban regime did not change its nature one bit. And I was mentioning before the problem with Washington and policymakers that they think that you can change the nature of a communist dictatorship with diplomacy or with somehow engaging with them. And if you look at what happened with China in the next 30 years, we were told the same argument. If we engage, if we open the economy, somehow the Chinese Communist Party is going to be less lethal. Human rights in China are going to improve, and that hasn't happened. It has gotten worse. It empowers them. And sadly, what Obama did is that it legitimized them for a brief time, because the US by removing the pressure and removing these sanctions and the accountability that, okay, you can't just go and do that around the world and we're not going to make you accountable. It legitimized the Cuban regime. So it really took a toll on, on the Cuban opposition in that sense, because it didn't take into account the brutality of the Cuban regime.

[A]

How is the current president of Cuba, Miguel Diaz Canel, how is he at all different from Castro, or is he just more of the same? Is there any daylight between how he governs and how the Castro's governed?

[B]

No, he's a puppet of Raul Castro, right? He's very loyal to, to Raul Castro. He doesn't have the charisma that Fidel Castro had. He doesn't have even the verbal skills that Castro had. So he's a complete idiot, to be honest. I mean, the things he says is completely. He's out there. But Cuba is a dictatorship of intelligence. Alexander Litvinenko used that term to refer to the Russian Federation. And that is exactly what Cuba is. So imagine Cuba as a teeter totter, a seesaw. So in one side of the seesaw, you have all of the counterintelligence apparatus inside the island. That is what it's used to crush the opposition. And you have committees of the defense of the revolution. Those are like neighborhoods, vigilantes that are aimed at targeting the opposition, telling on you. Because under communism, something happens where you shift all of your autonomy to the state. So the state has a lot of control over your life. You have zero control over your life, but you have a lot of control over the life of your neighbor because you can watch and you can tell the state. So they're very efficient in that sense, crushing the opposition inside. And then the other part is the intelligence apparatus that they have abroad, all of this propaganda machine, all of the Solidarity groups, all of these academics that they have in universities around the world, all of the intelligence agents that they have positioned at all levels of the US Government, there are many examples in history about that. So they're capable of keeping power, maintaining power, even if the charismatic leader is no longer there. And that is the case of Diaz Canel, because the machine, it already has the conditions to survive. And really the militaries who control everything. 90% of the economy is controlled by the military.

[A]

I learned from your website that Cuban state media or, or an organ controlled by, by the Cuban state reported last year that Israel nuked Syria. Now this obviously was news to everyone else in the world because that didn't happen. But can you describe a little for me how the Cuban regime, what the Cuban regime has done by way of disinformation about the Middle east and about Israel specifically?

[B]

Sure. So the Cuban regime in 2017 allowed a branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to be launched inside the island. This is a terrorist organization, as you know, and from there.

[A]

And it's the communist branch of the.

[B]

Correct of the plo. Correct. It's a Marxist secular. Yes. The PLO was the first place in Latin America where they opened an office was in Cuba in 1974. Now the PFLP is part of the PLO. They have like 11, I think, or 13 organizations inside. And the PFLP is one of them. And this is an organization that has become very popular in the US. You have NGOs in the US who are financing some of the media sites in Latin America and others in English that you have members of the PFLP living in Havana writing for these new sites. So the Cuban regime has been organizing and orchestrating a propaganda campaign that they began organizing even since October 7th happened. A few months before October 7th happens, they were meeting in Lebanon with Hamas media relations team. And if you keep track of everything that they have done, you see that the Times Square protests that took place here in October 8th, the leaders of the movement two weeks after were already in Havana. So Cuba is allowing members of the pflv, for example, to meet and to organize meetings and exchanges with U.S. activists. And they have been behind a lot of the misinformation, a lot of the propaganda campaign against Israel, the strategy to frame and legitimize violence as resistance. Right, because that's what they're doing. So there is a group that is called Al Tahmou. It's a pro Iran, pro Hezbollah group that is basically trying to legitimize violence from all of these terrorist organizations. Every member of this group, their board of trustees, their board members, their members of the Houthis, Hezbollah, Palestinian Jihad, PFLP. Since 2022, they have been traveling to Havana to meet with like minded groups that Havana, through this friendship group that they have have been helping them penetrate Latin America, create connections with all of this vast network of intelligence the Cuban regime has developed throughout the years. Some of these groups have consultative status inside the United Nations. So this is not a mild thing. I was listening to a podcast of a member of the PFLP a few months ago. He was giving an interview in Spain, in the Basque country, and he was saying that Cuba is actually leading the effort, the Nine Group in the United nations, all of this effort against Israel. And that is not a coincidence. The Cuban regime has a lot of influence inside the United Nations. The mission that they have here in New York is extremely influential, and they use it to recruit people in the US So they're very well positioned to advance this propaganda campaign. And they're being very focused since the beginning in helping Iran and helping all of these groups. There are numerous meetings. Iran gave them $200 million at the end of 2023 for basically nothing. Right. Because what Cuba does is they trade secrets that they steal in the US and this is something that every CIA agent, FBI person that has worked in counterintelligence can tell you. Cubans are still secrets in the US and then they trade it for this dark subsidies. It's not that they sell it. They don't put a price, but they trade this intelligence with our enemies, with Iran, with China, with Russia. Annabelle Montes, which was a Cuban spy, that she was spying for Cuba for 13 years, she stole, for example, a satellite program that the U.S. nobody knew that the U.S. was developing that satellite program. It cost billions of dollars, and she gave it to the Cubans. So this. Because they're undermined, they're underestimated. People are like, oh, this poor island that is battling the oppression from the U.S. there's not a lot of interest in the U.S. to really go and target all of these intelligence operations. We're very focused in Russia. We're very focused on China. But Cuba is the sub of the sub of the sub of. Of the Office of Counterintelligence. There's not a lot of. I wouldn't say interest, but they're not a lot of resources to really. And they're also. There's a lack of knowledge of expertise in the region in general.

[A]

Yeah, There's a really common feeling among certain Americans that the American government just does regime change all over the world so easily. And every time there's an uprising in an. In an Arab country or in Ukraine, really, the CIA orchestrated the whole thing. And my most common retort to that argument is, if America could easily do regime change, we would have done regime change in Cuba decades ago, before any Other country. Right. We've had a communist dictatorship a couple miles off the coast of Florida since 1959. And you're telling me we've just left it there? No, it's not. Obviously, America will almost always support an uprising that aligns with our principles or aligns against our enemy's principles. The second an uprising happens in Libya or Tunisia or Ukraine, we're gonna get in there and try to give resources to the people. But we can't create it out of nothing, right?

[B]

No.

[A]

So finally, the last thing I want to ask you about is another example in this vein I learned from your website is Cuba hosting Chinese paramilitary organization inside Cuba and having them train the Black Berets, the anti riot police. How did this come about? And why wasn't this more widely reported in American press? Because this is a pretty big story.

[B]

Yes, yes, correct. The story circulated mostly on conservative media, who often pays attention to these issues. And it circulated even in some independent media in China. Right. The media that is not controlled by the ccp. But it is an issue that has gone under reporters. So the Cuban regime, I think since 2016, they've always had these exchanges. But since 2016, the Chinese paramilitary, they began training the Black Barrett. So this is very strategic because then when you have an uprising, you don't have to send the military, so nobody can really put a finger on you. So you train this paramilitary organization that is the Black Berets. They really train like the armed forces, but they don't have that category. And they did it following the same model that China used in the Hong Kong protests to crush dissent. You would see all of the agents dressed in civilians, but the shoes were the same. Even the bats that they were using to beat up the opposition were the same. All of the strategy to terrorize people, they immediately cut power, cut the Internet, and they would go and drag people out of their house at night looking for anyone that participated in the movement. It was very random. And then after people were sentenced to 10 years, 25 years, so you would make an example out of them. And that's, you know, a lot of people that participated were really frightened. They were hiding because at any given moment they could come and take you. So Cuba right now has allowed China to put a spy base in Cuba to spy in the U.S. russia also has one. They always had one, but they had closed it. And then they reopened the Russians. And China is really now the one that is coming to Cuba's rescue. Because the electrical grid in Cuba is completely destroyed. So we have island wide Blackouts that the Cuban regime doesn't have the capability to fix because there's no way they can fix the deterioration of all the power plants. So now the Chinese came to help them and they're building like 55 solar plants, solar power plants, in order to save the Cuban regime from collapsing. Because if they can connect the island, if they can provide electric power, there's gonna be an implosion in Cuba. I have no doubt in my mind that that could really cause the end of the Cuban regime. Because what they do is right now we have blackouts of 20 hours, right? Then when you have four hours of power, people are so focused on trying to save their food and cook anything, right? But you can't sustain power if you have no way to bring back the power even one hour. Right. And we had around 850 protests in the last year. So people are still protesting. It's just that they're not as widespread as what we saw in July 11, that it was happening at the same time in every town in, in Cuba. But we're still having a lot of protests. We just were reporting on one in Havana because there's no water. People have been without water for days. So.

[A]

Okay, final question. Obviously, the situation vis a vis human rights, humanitarian issues in Cuba is, is tragic. It's terrible. Any American that's not taken in by the pro regime propaganda should want American policymakers to help. Right. What is the best way to help? What's the best policy that, that an American administration could have towards Cuba? Again, we don't have the ability to just pull strings and change things all over the world, but we have the ability to nudge things in the right direction. So how should we do that?

[B]

I think there are sanctions that should be applied, that should be applied in a strategic way to deter and dismantle the Cuban military entities that operate around the world. There's also a need for the US to really rally a coalition of allies because Europe is basically sustaining the Cuban regime in a big capacity. They're giving millions of dollars to the Cuban regime. I was in the Parliament last year discussing that and it's unbelievable how undeniable they are. Despite the fact that Cuba has sent 7,000 soldiers fight in the war between Ukraine and Russia, they're fighting on the Russian side, they have sent more soldiers, more mercenaries they call them, than even North Korea. Right. So despite this fact, the European Community still is sending $180 billion million dollars to Cuba and investments. So there is a. We have a big need to deter this from happening and to reduce all of the funds that go for the Cuban regime, because they use these funds to repress people. So I think there are a lot of. And in my opinion, all cars should be on the table. I mean, I have no problem with regime change in Cuba. I would love to see my country free. I think the only people that have a problem with regime change are problem that people that haven't endured communism and can't really imagine what we went through and what is happening inside the island. So I think all cards should be at the table because this is a. A regime that is expanding around the world, that is destabilizing countries around the world, and they're trying to meddle with U.S. interests. So I think I'm hoping that the Trump administration follows through with some of the policies they said they were going to implement.

[A]

Okay, thank you so much for that. And where can people follow you if they want to learn more about your work and ADN?

[B]

Well, they can go to adnqua.com, which is like Cuba's DNA. That's what it means. ADN cuba.com they could also visit us on adnamerica. Com. We publish there in English, some, some stories and through social media.

[A]

And you're on Twitter. What's your Twitter handle?

[B]

Oh, it's Helit Martinez. Yes.

[A]

Perfect. All right. Thank you so much, Helit.

[B]

Thank you for having me.