The final days of the Cuban dictatorship: without a people, without a narrative, without an economy, and without options
By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 22/06/2026
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After more than 67 years of state terrorism, aggression and intervention in every country in the Americas, expansion and transformation into the leading narco-state of the 21st century, subjecting its people to misery, and perpetrating common crimes and crimes against humanity, the Cuban dictatorship is dying, devoid of any possibility of governance or survival. These are the final days of a regime of organized crime that has no popular support, that has lost its revolutionary narrative, that has destroyed the Cuban economy, and that has no options left.
Fidel Castro seized power on January 1, 1959, by force, clinging to it through executions, torture, massacres, disappearances, imprisonment, exile, and all manner of crimes under the guise of revolution, with rhetoric of popular liberation and promises of equality, prosperity, independence, and a long list of adjectives that are now proven to be fallacies. He institutionalized “state terrorism” as a system for maintaining power with impunity and indefinitely, “anti-imperialism” as a survival mechanism by confronting the United States, “popular liberation” to organize terrorist and guerrilla groups, “internationalism” as a justification for intervention, and the Cold War transformed Cuba into the communist base of the region.
When the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union protected itself by creating the São Paulo Forum, operated and directed by Lula da Silva in Brazil, with workers' resources, which it operated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, Cuba was a parasitic state dependent on Soviet support, so without that support, the dictatorship created the "Special Period" to survive. In the last decade of the 20th century, Cuba was the only dictatorship among the 35 countries that make up the Americas and had reduced its regional aggression operations due to a lack of resources. The expectation of democratic governments was that the 21st century would be one of full democracy with the end of the Cuban dictatorship.
In 1999, Hugo Chávez became president of Venezuela and immediately began to support and rescue the Cuban dictatorship. Hugo Chávez, as a capitalist partner embezzling Venezuela's oil and wealth, Fidel Castro contributing the revolutionary narrative and the criminal method of remaining in power indefinitely, and Lula da Silva, with the São Paulo Forum tasked with "multiplying the axes of confrontation," formed a populist Bolivarian movement under Chávez's leadership that eventually became known as 21st-century socialism or Castro-Chavismo.
The 21st century in the Americas turned out to be one of the expansion of the Cuban dictatorship, which installed its dictatorial model in Venezuela with Chávez/Maduro, Bolivia with Morales/Arce, Nicaragua with Ortega/Murillo, and Ecuador with Correa. It progressively gained control of almost every country in Latin America, installing quasi-dictatorial governments through coups, elections, electoral fraud, terrorism, campaign financing, and a long list of crimes. The conveniently timed death of Hugo Chávez transferred command of the criminal group and control of Venezuelan wealth to Castro and the Cuban dictatorship.
The most successful moment for the Cuban dictatorship was the 2015 Summit of the Americas in Panama, where the President of the United States recognized dictator Raúl Castro as the de facto leader of Latin America, proceeding months later to restore bilateral relations. However, the civil resistance of the region's peoples, the visibility of the criminal operations of 21st-century socialism linked to human rights violations, the transformation of dictatorships into narco-states and platforms for extra-hemispheric dictatorships like China, Russia, and Iran, and the increasing "hybrid warfare" actions against the United States and democracies, revealed the true nature and danger of Cuba and its satellites.
The Cuban population under Castro's regime always tried to migrate, to escape the island that had become a prison. Although control of Venezuela and the expansion of narcoterrorism operations represented significant income, it was primarily for members of the regime.
Today, the Americas and the world witness in real time the reality of the misery, degradation, humiliation, and despair of the Cuban people, and the regime's eagerness to fabricate changes and present sophistry of support. The reality is that popular repudiation of the dictatorship represented by Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro is total; they have no popular support. No one—neither inside nor outside Cuba—believes in the Cuban revolution, proven to be organized crime. The country has no economy and no way to confront the misery within its criminal system. And the dictatorship has no possibility of support, sources of resources, or investments; it has no options.
With Trump at 47, the United States established its "National Security Strategy" in 2025 and began operations against transnational organized crime that holds political power in several countries and territories of the Americas. Everything points to a Cuban dictatorship.
The arrest of Nicolas Maduro, the military fiasco suffered by the Cuban dictatorship's forces in charge of his security, the loss of income and oil that the dismantling of Venezuela's narco-dictatorship represents, and the United States' ultimatum to the Castro regime with multiple economic and political signals, show that the escape of the dictatorial leadership, its capture, its neutralization, its fall, its surrender, or any other form of termination of the dictatorship has arrived.
Lawyer and Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».