HAVANA – With restricted access and a heavy police presence, the trial of former Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil took place on November 13. He is accused of espionage, embezzlement, and other crimes. Since the charges were announced—right as Hurricane Melissa was battering Cuba’s eastern provinces—the debate has centered on two key issues: Gil is the latest scapegoat, and it’s implausible that he could have committed all the alleged crimes without the knowledge and backing of other high-ranking officials. Multiple voices called for a transparent, televised trial with full media access, but the Havana regime denied this on grounds of “national security.”
On the streets, the blockade narrative has steadily crumbled as the regime’s erratic leadership becomes more evident—marked by the implementation of failed economic policies that have exacted a steep human and material cost. This has shifted focus to political and administrative corruption as the primary cause of Cuba’s collapse. The U.S. embargo is a pretext for the international community. For the vast majority of Cubans, the problem is entirely domestic: the island’s government is thoroughly corrupt. If they’re not running, they’re flying; if they’re not killing the cow, they’re grabbing its leg—as stated in a video produced by Cubanet, an invaluable testimony to how much public opinion has broken free in a context that remains repressive, yet is now marked by a terminal crisis that boils down to two options: protest or die.
Since 1959, Cuba has had cabinets that were more or less competent, with the occasional mediocre official. The team led by Miguel Díaz-Canel has been, by far, the least qualified to lead a poor, indebted, and paralyzed country—despite its supposed mission of changing what needed to be changed. Alejandro Gil was part of that cabinet until last year and now stands accused alongside other minor figures. Within that government, appointments and dismissals have come and gone like buttons being swapped on a shirt to see which one fits best—because that has been the true function of Díaz-Canel’s so-called government: just muddling through. A colloquial phrase that, in practice, means pretending to govern while using that temporary share of power to fulfill ambitions impossible to achieve on a minister’s or executive’s salary. That extra income comes from corruption, influence peddling, embezzlement, and other shady dealings—now all pinned on a single man.
Any one—or several—of the charges brought against Gil could be leveled at all the members of the Politburo and the Central Committee, as well as every deputy in the National Assembly of People’s Power. There are hundreds of officials squandering public funds, diverting resources for personal projects without any oversight whatsoever. Corruption has always existed within the revolutionary state, but never before has the country been in such deplorable conditions. It’s a sign that the same crimes are being committed, only now without even bothering to keep up appearances.
This visible and painful collapse, coupled with the “blowups” among the upper echelons, has shifted Cubans’ focus toward the true root of the problem, which has nothing to do with the embargo. The decision to implement the Tarea Ordenamiento and the subsequent economic shock measures was not made in Washington. Everything the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel has done has accelerated the impoverishment and abandonment of the Cuban people.
Gil’s circus will come to an end, and the verdict will be whatever state security determines. Cubans know it’s a farce—that Gil’s head will roll so that others, higher up, won’t—because someone has to pay for the country’s disastrous course. But the problem will remain, because this isn’t just about numbers or a minister overwhelmed by a position far beyond his capacity. It’s about the system that elevated him, fully aware he wasn’t up to the task, and of the irreversible consequences of such a negligent decision.
“Cuba is a decomposing body,” declares one interviewee—and there may be no image more raw or accurate to describe the island’s reality. The only hopeful sign amid such misery and despair—under the weight of an arbovirus epidemic spreading alongside hunger and the abandonment of entire communities in the eastern provinces—is hearing Cubans speak out, without fear, and say: this government doesn’t work, this government steals, lies, makes excuses, evades responsibility, and always blames someone else. That more and more Cubans are able to identify and point to the real enemy marks another step toward building the national civic movement that could save us.
ARTÍCULO DE OPINIÓN Las opiniones expresadas en este artículo son de exclusiva responsabilidad de quien las emite y no necesariamente representan la opinión de CubaNet.
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