标签： Cuba

On a Wednesday morning in late May 2026, Cuba’s top leader — Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic — traveled to the University of Computer Sciences (UCI), an institution that has embodied founding revolutionary leader Fidel Castro Ruz’s vision of linking academic innovation to the long-term success of the Cuban Revolution for nearly 25 years.

Accompanied by senior government officials including Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz, Education Minister Naima Ariatne Trujillo Barreto, Higher Education Minister Walter Baluja García, and UCI Rector Raydel Montesino Perurena, Díaz-Canel held wide-ranging dialogues with students and faculty, toured campus laboratories and the university’s pioneering K-9 program for children of staff, and observed the institution’s growing software export operations.

Rector Montesino walked the delegation through UCI’s decades-long evolution, from its launch in 2002 with just a single degree program to its current portfolio of four undergraduate credentials: three bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science Engineering, Bioinformatics Engineering, and Cybersecurity Engineering, plus one associate degree in high-demand Network Administration. To date, more than 18,000 students have graduated from the institution, which now counts six faculties, seven development centers, and 2,552 enrolled undergraduates — a figure campus leadership says it is positioned to expand. Even amid the ongoing national energy crisis and persistent U.S. economic pressure, Montesino emphasized UCI’s core commitment to leaving no student behind, adjusting curricula and prioritizing in-person learning where possible. This year alone, 554 students will complete their degrees, 100 more than the 2025 graduating class. While transportation challenges remain the institution’s most pressing operational hurdle, Montesino noted that campus leaders have leaned into adaptive, flexible strategies to keep operations running smoothly, staying true to Fidel’s founding vision of UCI as an experimental teaching-production hub that blends innovation and public service.

One of the most notable adaptive initiatives on display during the tour was UCI’s on-campus primary and secondary school, the Pioneers Project.uci.cu, launched in response to barriers created by the intensified U.S. blockade. When children of UCI faculty and staff who live on campus were cut off from their zoned schools in the La Lisa district due to transport and resource constraints, campus and education leaders repurposed existing university space and teaching talent to launch a full-scale program serving learners from preschool through 9th grade. Education Minister Naima shared that the program, which draws students from multiple local school zones and leverages existing university faculty expertise, has filled a critical gap while creating a replicable model of adaptive education. “There’s a lot of heart behind this experience,” Naima told reporters, noting that while the exact model may not work at every Cuban university, its core approach of leveraging existing institutional potential can be scaled across the country. Even amid the prolonged hardship imposed by the blockade, Naima emphasized, all participating students are on track to complete their grade levels on schedule — a victory for creative resilience in the face of external pressure. During a warm interaction with young students, a second-grade pioneer expressed affection for the Cuban leader, to which Díaz-Canel responded with a call for the next generation to prepare diligently to serve their country.

The final stop on the tour was UCI’s Software Export Laboratories, where more than 600 specialists including students, faculty, and dedicated industry professionals develop digital products for international markets. Dr. Reynaldo Rosado Roselló, who leads the program, explained that the initiative operates on a shared benefit model that generates revenue for the national government, the university, and the participating specialists, all of whom are paid in foreign currency for their work. Over recent years, the program has ramped up its export operations to increase foreign currency earnings for Cuba, with one three-year-old spinout company already generating more than 150 million pesos in domestic revenue and over half a million pesos in foreign currency in 2025. Rosado noted that expanding software exports remains UCI’s top strategic priority, aligned with Fidel’s original vision for the institution: to train top digital talent, drive national digital transformation, and generate critical foreign currency for the Cuban people. Díaz-Canel challenged the UCI community to expand their work further, emphasizing the university’s central role in advancing Cuba’s national artificial intelligence strategy and integrating AI across all sectors of Cuban life. He shared his vision for UCI to become Cuba’s first “Smart University”, calling for accelerated progress toward that goal.

At the close of the tour, Díaz-Canel visited a commemorative plaque marking Fidel Castro’s first visit to UCI on December 12, 2002 — the date now recognized as the institution’s official founding. On that historic day, Fidel called UCI students “the troops of the future”, a phrase that grew into the university’s enduring motto: “Connected to the future, connected to the Revolution.” Speaking to young innovators on campus, Díaz-Canel struck a hopeful tone amid ongoing economic pressure from the United States. “Waking up here today at UCI — with the little school, with the new school model, and now with this development you (the young people) are experiencing — fills one with happiness and, above all, with confidence that, even in the most complex situation, we will overcome it,” he said, framing the campus’s progress as a powerful example of creative resistance: resistance that is not merely about enduring hardship, but about growing and advancing even in the most challenging circumstances. The work underway at UCI, he emphasized, proves that Cuba can continue to build and thrive despite external pressure, laying a strong foundation for future progress across every sector of the nation.

In a sharp rebuke of a recent legal action brought by the United States Department of Justice against iconic Cuban revolutionary leader Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, Cuban legal and political authorities have labeled the accusation a baseless, illegitimate act of political provocation designed to distort the historical record of a 1996 national sovereignty defense. The analysis, published by Arnel Medina Cuenca, a Doctor of Science and full professor at the University of Havana’s Faculty of Law, in Cuba’s state newspaper *Granma*, outlines the extensive legal and historical flaws in the U.S. indictment.

From the perspective of international law, the U.S. government has no legitimate standing or jurisdiction to prosecute a sitting former leader of a sovereign foreign nation for actions taken to protect that nation’s territorial integrity. This move represents an unacceptable overreach of extraterritorial authority, a blatant violation of established global legal norms, and a deliberate attempt to undermine Cuba’s sovereign status, the analysis argues. The indictment specifically targets the 1996 downing of two aircraft operated by the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue, which the U.S. has framed as a humanitarian organization. Cuba rejects this narrative, documenting that the group carried out repeated hostile provocations against the Cuban state between 1994 and 1996.

### Legal Foundations of Cuba’s 1996 Action
Cuba’s 1996 response to Brothers to the Rescue incursions was a fully legitimate exercise of the right to self-defense, fully protected under the United Nations Charter, the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, and long-recognized principles of air sovereignty and proportional use of force, the analysis confirms. Extensive documentary evidence shows Cuban officials exhausted all peaceful diplomatic channels to halt the airspace violations long before any defensive action was taken. Between 1994 and 1996, the Cuban government submitted more than 25 formal complaints to the U.S. State Department, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, detailing repeated unauthorized incursions. When the U.S. failed to act to stop the flights, Cuba issued explicit public and official warnings, including a direct alert to then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, that any unauthorized aircraft entering Cuban airspace would be intercepted and neutralized if necessary.

A full chronology of violations confirms the persistent pattern of hostile activity: multiple incursions by Florida-based aircraft across western Cuban airspace in 1994 were formally reported to U.S. authorities; a 1995 low-altitude flight over the city of Havana by four U.S.-registered aircraft violated restricted military airspace; and two January 1996 flights dropped anti-government subversive propaganda over Cuban territory. Many of these overflights took place in designated military training zones, creating severe risk of civilian and military aviation accidents.

Brothers to the Rescue has systematically misrepresented as a humanitarian group, but its documented actions show it was dedicated to orchestrating hostile acts against the Cuban government, propped up by U.S. inaction that allowed the provocations to continue. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has already denounced the indictment as a purely political action with no grounding in law.

### Broader Context of U.S. Aggression
Cuban officials emphasize that the prosecution of a historic revolutionary leader is not a legitimate exercise of justice, but a severe breach of diplomatic norms that undermines the core foundations of global international institutions. According to Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this indictment fits into a longstanding U.S. pattern of using spurious legal accusations to justify military intervention against sovereign states, instrumentalizing the U.S. judicial system as a tool for geopolitical aggression.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío noted that the fraudulent process against Castro is part of a broader U.S. strategy of fabricating pretexts to justify intensified collective punishment of the Cuban people through the long-running U.S. economic blockade, which Cuba describes as genocidal.

Cuba has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to global peace and its unwavering right to self-defense as enshrined in the UN Charter. The Cuban government is demanding an immediate end to the abusive misuse of U.S. judicial institutions for political ends, and insists on full respect for international law and the sovereign equality of all nations. No false ruling or coercive measure will break the Cuban people’s resolve to defend their nation and socialist revolution, the statement confirms.

Cuba is calling on the international community and people of goodwill globally to join in denouncing this provocation, a move that has already drawn condemnation from multiple governments, political parties, social movements, and prominent public figures around the world. The Cuban people have reaffirmed their full, unwavering support for General Raúl Castro, and note that any attempt by U.S. imperialism to subdue Cuba will be met with steadfast, heroic resistance.

In a demonstration of deepening cross-continental cooperation, Cuba has taken delivery of the first installment of a major 60,000-ton rice donation from China, with the initial 15,000-ton shipment docking at Havana’s port this past Saturday. Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Cuba’s President and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party, publicly expressed profound gratitude for the donation in a post to his official Twitter account on May 25, 2026.

Díaz-Canel emphasized that the support comes rooted in the shared political commitment of both nations to advance the Cuba-China Community of Shared Future. He framed the donation as a meaningful reflection of the solidarity extended by the Chinese people, ruling party, and national government to Cuba. “This important shipment, which arrived Saturday at the Port of Havana, marks the beginning of a new donation totaling 60,000 tons, which will gradually arrive in our homeland,” he added.

The Cuban leader described the contribution as a noble gesture of solidarity, outlining that the full donation will be distributed to millions of domestic consumers across every Cuban province and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud. The rice will also be allocated to support the country’s public health and education institutions, two core pillars of Cuban public welfare.

Closing his statement, Díaz-Canel noted that the long-standing ties of friendship and collaborative partnership between Cuba and China only grow stronger during critical moments, reaffirming the value of bilateral alignment on shared goals and mutual support.

Nearly seven decades after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, the enduring character of Raúl Castro remains a steady, defining force in the legacy of the island’s revolutionary struggle. This retrospective reflection, originally published by Granma in 2006 and republished to mark Raúl Castro’s birthday, traces the revolutionary leader’s journey from his childhood in Birán to his pivotal role as a commander in the mountains of eastern Cuba, capturing the unwavering spirit that has defined his lifelong commitment to Cuba’s people.

The story opens in the thick of the 1958 revolutionary war, anchored in a moment of quiet exhaustion that reveals the grit of the guerrilla movement. In the damp highlands of the Sierra Maestra, a young Raúl Castro allows himself only a fleeting moment of rest, his mind flooding with memories stitched together from a lifetime already steeped in struggle: the scent of orange blossoms in his family’s groves back in Birán, the sharp tap of his father Ángel’s cane on wooden floorboards, the overlapping sounds of a life forged in rebellion — train whistles pulling into Santiago, the rustle of priestly cassocks in the corridors of his strict religious school, the thunder of crowds marching, the crackle of gunfire outside the Moncada Barracks, the roar of enemy aircraft over guerrilla territory. Disoriented by fatigue, he cannot immediately place whether the exploding shrapnel echoing in his memory comes from the harassment after the Battle of Alegría de Pío or air raids targeting his column as they advanced toward the Second Eastern Front. Yet after only minutes of sleep, he jolts awake and returns to his urgent work.

For hours, Raúl had written tirelessly, forearms braced against rough mountain planks, after days of marching, ambushes, reconnaissance, combat and enemy bombings. In his message to revolutionary leadership, he laid out a clear strategic assessment: following Fidel Castro’s decisive defeats of Fulgencio Batista’s army offensive in the Sierra Maestra, the shaken dictatorship — reeling from the arrest of American citizens on the Second Front, rising troop desertions and plummeting morale among Batista’s ranks — would be desperate to score a symbolic victory to cling to power. The lightly armed Second Eastern Front, he warned, would almost certainly be the target. He closed the urgent dispatch with a request for critical reinforcements: “If they would send us the 159 Springfields and the M-2s that are over there, we could do many things, at least prevent them from penetrating our lines; they must send them here urgently. I had to sleep for a while, lying on the same table where I’m writing to you, so I could finish this. Vilma is writing next to me in the same condition, so please forgive me that this isn’t as long as I’d like; in any case, it’s better this way for you, since all we do is ask for weapons!!”

That letter, dated July 5, 1958, captures the urgency and resolve that marked Raúl’s leadership from the earliest days of the revolution. Barely 27 years old when revolutionary forces descended from the mountains to claim victory in 1959, Raúl had already spent half his young life fighting for a transformative vision for Cuba. Born June 3, 1931, in the sweltering midday heat of rural Cuba, he was the fourth child of Ángel Castro and Lina Ruz, the youngest son his father affectionately nicknamed “My little calf.” In the small village of Birán, he was remembered as a quick-witted, mischievous, warm-hearted boy who prioritized his family above all else.

After leaving the strict, discipline-bound Jesuit school Belén, where he bristled at mandatory prayers and confessions, Raúl returned to work on his father’s farm until Fidel encouraged him to pursue university study in Havana, either in law or public administration. When he submitted his application in April 1950 and moved to the capital, he unknowingly stepped onto a path that would write him into the history books. Fidel introduced him to Marxist texts, which opened Raúl’s eyes to a new vision of social justice, and he embraced these ideals with the unshakable focus of a compass and the fiery passion of a young man fighting for what is right. His courage became legendary during the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, when he was detained by guards at the Palace of Justice — only to disarm his captors, save his small contingent of fighters, and lead them to safety.

That bold action cemented a truth that would define Raúl’s role in the revolution for decades to come: where Raúl was present, the impossible became achievable. Years later, after the Granma landing and the devastating dispersal of revolutionary forces at Alegría de Pío, when Fidel had lost many comrades and thought Raúl may have fallen, his relief at seeing Raúl alive turned to unshakable confidence: “Now we will win the war!”

To the Cuban people, Raúl has always been known for much more than his strategic skill on the battlefield. They remember his rebellious temperament, his sharp good humor, his approachable simplicity, his unwavering rectitude, his austere work ethic and his warm, jovial demeanor. Above all, he is celebrated for his unyielding loyalty and the singular courage that earned him his place as the revolution’s second-in-command through his own merit, not by circumstance. Alongside Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Celia Sánchez, he was Fidel’s most trusted right hand, a steady anchor rooted deeply in the struggle, a testament to the personal virtues that would carry him through decades of service building the revolution, developing Cuba’s armed forces and shaping the nation’s political and social life. Beside him through every step was his partner Vilma Espín, a fellow guerrilla fighter; their decades-long revolutionary love story revealed the quiet tenderness and sensitivity that lay beneath his tough public resolve.

As the reflection concludes, marking the anniversary of the revolution and Raúl’s life of service, the core truth of his legacy remains unchanged: Raúl remains the same man who joined the struggle as a young idealist, bringing the same boldness, simplicity, unshakable faith in Cuba’s youth, complete selflessness and restless, joyful, profound spirit to every chapter of the nation’s journey. He always believed the revolution could transform Cuba, and time has proven him right again and again. Firmer than ever in his convictions, he has earned the enduring respect and affection of the Cuban people, who have seen his steady leadership through every trial and recognize him as an eternal brother in the struggle. Bound by shared sacrifice and shared vision, Fidel and Raúl together forged the generous, unyielding, foundational legend of the Cuban Revolution — a legacy that endures, anchored in the unchanging character of the man who never stopped fighting for a better, happier homeland.

On May 22, 2026, Cuban President and First Secretary of the Communist Party Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez issued a forceful rebuke of the United States Department of Justice’s unsubstantiated accusation against revolutionary leader Raúl Castro Ruz, using his social media platform to galvanize national unity in the face of what Cuban officials frame as renewed imperial aggression.

Díaz-Canel emphasized that this latest provocative action by Washington has only deepened solidarity across the island nation, strengthening the long-held sense of national honor, dignity, and anti-imperialist resolve that has defined Cuba’s position in global affairs for decades. “The General of the Army is Cuba, and Cuba must be respected,” he stated in his online address. “The heroes of the Homeland are not to be disrespected, nor are history and traditions to be offended without response. Not in Cuba.”

Per the Cuban president’s account, the unfounded prosecution attempt against the revolutionary leader in a U.S. court represents the most recent in a long line of provocations from what Cuban leaders describe as the nation’s historic adversaries. He noted that despite decades of systemic economic hardship and critical supply shortages driven largely by the U.S. trade embargo – which the Cuban government describes as a genocidal blockade – the Cuban people have stood firm in rejecting outside interference.

“Our people have fiercely risen above the daily hardships and shortages, caused primarily by the genocidal blockade, to respond to the latest infamy of the Cuban nation’s historical enemies: the attempt to prosecute the leader of the Revolution in a U.S. court,” Díaz-Canel wrote. He added that the new attack has “further united us and elevated the honor, dignity, and anti-imperialist sentiment of a people already recognized worldwide for their courageous resistance to any kind of subordination to the empire.”

To demonstrate collective support for Castro, Díaz-Canel echoed a call for a national gathering scheduled for Friday morning at Havana’s iconic Anti-Imperialist Tribune. The rally was organized through a joint initiative by the Young Communists League, a broad coalition of Cuban mass organizations, student groups, and youth movements, all mobilizing to stand with the revolutionary leader.

A separate official statement from the Revolutionary Government of Cuba clarified that the U.S. accusation relies entirely on deliberate, dishonest manipulation of a 1996 incident, in which Cuban air defense forces downed two Miami-based aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a U.S.-based organization classified by Cuba as a terrorist group. Cuban officials have long stressed that the aircraft repeatedly violated Cuban national airspace for open hostile activities, a fact that was well-documented and publicly known at the time and in subsequent decades.

In an official statement released on May 21, 2026 — marked as the “Year of the Centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz” — Cuba’s Council of State, acting on behalf of the National Assembly of People’s Power, issued a fierce condemnation of what it calls a politically motivated, outrageous accusation brought by the United States Department of Justice against Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the iconic leader of the Cuban Revolution.

The body fully backs the Revolutionary Government’s official declaration rejecting this unlawful and contemptible action, which Cuban authorities frame as a transparent case of political manipulation that deliberately twists historical facts surrounding the 1996 downing of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft over Cuban territorial airspace. The Miami-based group has long been classified as a terrorist organization by the Cuban government.

Members of the Council of State further denounce that the U.S. federal government is weaponizing its legal system to advance a long-standing policy of aggression targeting the Cuban Revolution. This tactic, they argue, openly flouts core principles of international law and constitutes a deliberate violation of Cuba’s national sovereignty and national dignity.

Alongside the condemnation of the accusations against Castro, the Council issued an unqualified rejection of unilateral executive orders from the U.S. President and other coercive policies first introduced during the Trump administration, including a string of recent false, unethical allegations targeting senior Cuban state and government leaders. Cuban officials argue these moves serve a deliberate, harmful goal: to tighten the decades-old illegal U.S. blockade and escalate pressure meant to suffocate the island nation’s resilient population.

The statement concludes with a defiant assertion that the U.S. executive branch’s anti-Cuban rhetoric of hatred and aggression will once again fail, overcome by the unshakable commitment of the Cuban people to defend their hard-won independence. “The Homeland and its Socialist Revolution will be defended. Always onward to victory!” the declaration reads, closing with a clear message: “Cuba wants peace!”

Cuba’s head of state has issued a scathing rejection of newly unveiled U.S. government accusations targeting former Cuban leader Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, framing the charges as a transparent display of Washington’s long-standing arrogance and mounting frustration over the Cuban Revolution’s unyielding principles and the unified moral standing of its leadership. In an official statement posted to the social platform X, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel underscored that the allegations are a purely politically motivated maneuver, completely devoid of any legitimate legal foundation.

Díaz-Canel argued the move is designed solely to prop up a manufactured narrative that Washington can use to justify what he called the reckless ambition of potential military aggression against Cuba. “The United States is lying,” he stated firmly, accusing U.S. authorities of deliberately distorting the facts surrounding the 1996 downing of aircraft belonging to the anti-Castro group Brothers to the Rescue, which the Cuban government has long labeled a narco-terrorist organization.

The Cuban president emphasized that his country holds extensive, well-documented evidence proving that Havana did not act recklessly, nor did it violate international law when it downed the planes. He contrasted Cuba’s actions with the consistent pattern of U.S. military conduct, pointing to what he described as cold, premeditated, publicly acknowledged extrajudicial killings of civilian vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific regions carried out by American forces.

Díaz-Canel reaffirmed that the 1996 incident, which took place on February 24, was a clear exercise of legitimate self-defense within Cuba’s own territorial waters. He explained that the aircraft had repeatedly violated Cuban airspace in dangerous incursions organized by well-documented terrorists, and that the U.S. government in power at the time had been warned more than 12 times about the activity. Despite these repeated warnings, Washington chose to ignore the notifications and allowed the violations to continue.

He went on to defend Raúl Castro’s personal and professional legacy, noting that the veteran revolutionary leader’s long record of ethical leadership and commitment to human-centered values directly contradicts every slanderous claim leveled against him. Throughout his career as a guerrilla commander and head of state, Raúl Castro earned the profound love of the Cuban people, as well as widespread respect and admiration from global and regional leaders, Díaz-Canel added. These deeply rooted, widely recognized moral values, he concluded, serve as both the former leader’s strongest defense and an impenetrable moral shield against what he called the absurd effort to undermine his standing as a heroic figure in Cuban history.