HAVANA, Cuba. – From the ambitious and elitist perspective of the GAESA holding company, Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz was always a “necessary evil.” The regime needed the old man’s cunning to “renegotiate” what had already been negotiated and, since he was also the interlocutor requested by counterparts, it was extremely difficult to push him out until just a few days ago. Not even Raúl Castro dared to remove him entirely, faced with the reality that he had no replacement.
They almost had one for a brief time, but in July 2022 everything collapsed with the sudden death of General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, who had already been chosen—without question—to directly replace Rodrigo Malmierca as Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (MINCEX). Fate, however, forced them to reactivate Cabrisas once again in April 2023. He had worked tirelessly as the mentor of GAESA’s former president.
The plans backfired, and so strongly that the constant reshuffling in such a short time at the ministries of Foreign Trade and Economy, the repeated reactivation of the same figure (Cabrisas, since the 1980s) in the same posts, speaks to the desperation caused by the lack of replacement “cadres.” To the point that these portfolios have not only been closely watched by “trusted” appointees within the Castro family itself, but have ended up in the hands of those whose sole mission was to ensure GAESA’s control from the shadows.
In that regard, the mission of electronics engineer Oscar Pérez Oliva-Fraga, son of Mirsa Fraga Castro and grandson of Ángela Castro (sister of Raúl and Fidel), within MINCEX as deputy minister, was merely that of “observer.” This was the same role he played in his previous post as director of Business Evaluation at the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZED), appointed directly by López-Calleja. But the “business director”—as the position is informally called—is the person who decides who and how one enters or exits a business deal.
His rise from deputy minister to first deputy minister in January 2024, and then just four months later replacing Cabrisas Ruiz as minister (barely a year after Cabrisas had been appointed), could be called a desperate decision. He was merely substituting, both as an official and as family, for his cousin Ana Teresita González Fraga (considered until then to be Cabrisas’s replacement, as MINCEX’s first deputy minister).
Ana Teresita was reassigned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to handle the Department of Cubans Abroad, given the importance that group holds in today’s economy—as senders of remittances, as tourists, as importers and financiers for both the formal and informal economies (in other words, for GAESA), as well as political mediators across borders.
It is important to understand that both Oscar Pérez Oliva-Fraga and his cousin are fundamental pieces of GAESA’s machinery, which functions as a money-making and money-seizing machine (leaving in its wake the severe poverty the island endures) run by the Castro family. In these desperate times, with no outsiders they can trust blindly, the family has been forced to expose the strings that pull the system.
With regard to these cousins in power and the desperation of the Castros, strong rumors are circulating—emanating from the family circle itself—pointing to a possible return of José Antonio Fraga Castro, former president of Labiofam until the 2014 scandal that led to his dismissal. He may resurface as an executive at an important GAESA company or as a high-level adviser. They are as short on business brains as they are on loyalists they can feel secure with.
GAESA, where the most powerful ambitions of the top figures of the Armed Forces and the Interior Ministry converge, with billions of dollars accumulated as a fortress to respond to a collapse or crisis of power, is the only guarantee of “continuity” for a regime that today may need more than 80% of its revenues just to stay afloat—a situation that could very soon lead to an implosion (some, too optimistic even inside the regime, dare to call it “controlled”).
In this sense, Oscar Pérez Oliva-Fraga (playing the role that would have gone to Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja) has as his sole mission ensuring that all strategies implemented by MINCEX serve to strengthen GAESA. Already in 2019, he had managed to place Colonel Manuel Marrero Cruz, former president of Gaviota (2002), as prime minister and head of government—a move that guaranteed they could handle the obstacle Miguel Díaz-Canel might have posed had he taken his role as “president” too seriously.
Over the years GAESA has been moving its pieces until it completely dominated not only the regime’s economy but also bent the repressive apparatuses to its benefit—apparatuses that had previously only been tasked with protecting the safety of the top Castro figures.
Today, for example, they have Homero Acosta, colonel and military judge, as secretary of the National Assembly of People’s Power and the Council of State (controlling the steps and decisions of a “trusted” figure like Esteban Lazo, drafting laws to strengthen the holding company from which he comes). They also flaunt their nepotism by appointing Division General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, nephew of Julio Casas Regueiro (who died in 2011), as Minister of the Interior. Julio Casas was the creator of GAESA and the first mentor of both López-Calleja and Marrero Cruz.
Other Fragas and other Castros, as well as other Casases and other Regueiros, are distributed across this same structure. It is no coincidence—rather part of the same “family” scheme—that the current Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, was appointed.
But with this reshuffling of “cadres” at MINCEX, which they have tried to present as a “natural” replacement, in reality GAESA has been becoming much more visible at the head of foreign trade and, above all, in the renegotiation of debts—an area left unprotected after the absence of another trusted figure at Cabrisas Ruiz’s level. For that role, they never intended to find anyone outside GAESA.
Recibe la información de CubaNet en tu celular a través de WhatsApp. Envíanos un mensaje con la palabra “CUBA” al teléfono +1 (786) 316-2072, también puedes suscribirte a nuestro boletín electrónico dando click aquí.
HAZ TU DONACIÓN AQUÍ
