A bench with Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas’s name inscribed was unveiled and blessed on the Malecón of Our Lady of Charity.
Cuba’s humanitarian crisis, the birth anniversary of Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas and the 30 year anniversary of the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down observed, and calls to indict Raul Castro for ordering the shoot down that killed four humanitarians dominated the news this past week.
Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas was born 74 years ago on February 29, 1952. A bench with his name inscribed was blessed on the Malecón of Our Lady of Charity ( La Ermita) , dedicated to his memory. Ambassador Mike Hammer and the Payá family attended and spoke at its unveiling.
This was followed at 4:00 PM with a memorial mass offering our prayers for all those who have died for the freedom of Cuba and for the political prisoners who suffer on the island today. During the homily, Father José Espino read an excerpt from The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 43 – 48) and a reflection on Christian nonviolence and the nature of authentic freedom.
Love of Enemies.*
44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,45 that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.46 For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors* do the same?47 And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?*
Yale professor and author Carlos Eire published the OpEd in The Washington Post titled “What it’s like to watch a dictatorship strangle your home country” on February 26th which focuses on the humanitarian crisis, and the prospects of a democratic transition in light of the aftermath of the January 3, 2026 rendition of Nicolas Maduro, and newly applied pressure by the United States on Cuba. On the same day the Center for a Free Cuba’s executive director, together with other Cuban human rights defenders, testified before the Canadian parliament in a hearing on Cuba’s humanitarian crisis. Below is an excerpt from the hearing.
On February 25, 2026 the Cuban dictatorship announced that a shoot out had taken place with Cuban exiles. CFC’s executive director interviewed by NTD News a day later, warned that Havana was not a reliable narrator, and that an independent investigation needed to be conducted to establish what had happened. He also pointed out that Cubans were killed on October 28, 2022 when a boat carrying refugees was ambushed and sunk north of Bahia Honda by a Cuban coast guard cutter. Mother of a child killed in the attack was arrested after exposing Havana’s false narrative.
On the 30th anniversary of the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down, the Center for a Free Cuba’s executive director had an opinion piece published in The Washington Times that made the case that the Helms-Burton act that was signed into law in March of 1996 in retaliation for Havana’s act of state terrorism lays out the path to a democratic transition in Cuba. Family members of the four men killed organized a vigil at Florida International University on February 24, 2026. Members of Brothers to the Rescue held a vigil at Opa Locka airport at a memorial for the four members killed. All called for the United States to indict Raul Castro for ordering the murder of Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre Jr.
The Center also organized a silent vigil at the Cuban Embassy on February 23, 2026 remembering Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who died on February 23, 2010, following a prolonged hunger strike, in which prison officials denied him water contributing to his death, and remembering Carlos Costa, Pablo Morales, Mario De La Peña, and Armando Alejandre murdered on Raul Castro’s orders on February 24, 1996. During the hour long vigil fact sheets were distributed on what had been done to Orlando Zapata Tamayo, and on the Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
The Washington Post, February 26, 2026
What it’s like to watch a dictatorship strangle your home country
This is not a time for optimism about Cuba — not yet. But I hope soon.
So, you spend lots of time scrounging for food, which is always in short supply, waiting in line for bits of meat that are often unavailable. If you do find some protein, you have no fuel or electricity with which to cook it. You might not have running water either. That, too, is available only intermittently and unpredictably.
But how can you scrounge for food and other necessities? Good luck finding transportation to take you where you need to go. Few buses. Few taxis. If you are among the lucky ones with access to a car, you’ll have to wait weeks to get just a few gallons of gasoline.
Worse, inflation and currency devaluations constantly eat away at the purchasing power of your meager income or pension.
Monstrous heaps of stinking trash clog the streets, except in the enclaves reserved for tourists or communist oligarchs and apparatchiks. Garbage trucks disappeared a while ago — including the 100 Hinos and Kyokutos donated by Japan in 2019. These are broken down and irreparable, save for the few reserved to cart away the refuse of tourists and elites.
Unsurprisingly, vermin and insects multiply, including swarms of mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya fever.
Good luck, too, finding medications for these epidemics, or any other malady. There are few to be found. This is true of all medical supplies and equipment. Ambulances are as rare a sight as snowflakes. Then, a final indignity: No hearses for funerals. No coffins, either.
But one thing remains abundant: repression. Should you dare to complain about these ludicrous privations, or call for change to address them, you will be warned to shut up. If you refuse to heed that warning, you will end up in some prison. Be careful: There, the guards reward common criminals for abusing political prisoners.
Cuba’s 67-year-old dictatorship is dying, or so it seems from news reports and personal accounts of the millions who struggle to subsist beneath it. It is a victim of its own monumental failures, which have strangled the island’s economic development and driven nearly one-third of its people into exile.
Cuba has been a hellish place ever since its takeover in 1959 by the military junta that still rules today. But in the past few years, due mostly to the inane policies pursued by its communist leadership, it became a failed state, unable to feed its own people. It survives on life support provided by other nations and — ironically — by the 3 million Cubans in exile who send billions of dollars in remittances back to their families.
All is collapsing: infrastructure, agriculture, power plants, social and medical care, sanitation, transportation, schools, the tourism industry and everything else — with the exception of the machinery of repression. Sadly, as essential goods and services vanish, the one thing that Cuba’s inept government keeps in tip-top shape is its eagerness to stifle and punish dissent. It is this fiendishly effective repression that prevents the final disintegration of the callous communist junta that calls itself “the Revolution.”
You might ask yourself: What is next? Will Cuba’s dictatorship strike some kind of deal with President Donald Trump? What are the chances of positive changes?
Unfortunately, the prime directive of Cuba’s communist dictatorship remains what it has always been: Stay in power. Nothing else matters to them.
Consequently, the immediate future of Cuba cannot be predicted, because as Trump ramps up the pressure on Cuba’s leaders and speaks of ongoing negotiations with them, he keeps the details of all potential “deals” under wraps.
Trump’s intervention in Venezuela offers no clues. He seems to have chosen a cautious and gradual transition for that nation. But Cuba is in much worse shape than Venezuela, and it has no oil to fund the massive reconstruction that the island desperately needs.
What will happen if the people of Cuba, especially its youth, take to the streets to demand regime change, as Iranians did last month? Such a popular revolt is possible, you bet, but what would be the outcome? Would Cuban protesters be slaughtered by their dictatorship? Or could a massive, unprecedented display of discontent cause the dictators to flee the island?
What if, in other words, Cuba suddenly finds itself freed from its long nightmare?
We exiles, along with the brave Cuban dissidents on the island, have plans. Many plans. I affixed my signature to one such plan, which is linked to a petition drive, a few days ago. Naturally, our plans share common goals but are beautifully diverse, the exact opposite of the rigid ideology that enslaved our island. But reaching a consensus will be a challenge, for sure. Creating a genuine democracy will take time, and plenty of arguing and negotiating.
But first the nightmare must end. The gloom lift. The dawn arise.
As much as I and most other Cubans would love to see Cuba rebuilt and quickly transformed into a free, democratic, prosperous nation, this moment in history, right now, is full of uncertainty, too freighted with the potential for chaos, violence, disappointment.
This is not a time for optimism — not yet. I am keeping my optimism under lock and key. At least for now. But oh, how I itch to unlock it. The sooner, the sweeter.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/02/26/cuba-communism-poverty-exile/
Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, February 27, 2026
A radical examination of the humanitarian crisis in Cuba
Meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian Parliament on February 26, 2026 on the humanitarian crisis in Cuba
Center for a Free Cuba, member of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance testified on February 26, 2026 before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in the Canadian House of Commons on the humanitarian crisis in Cuba
A humanitarian crisis persists in Cuba, predating President Donald Trump’s executive order of January 29, 2026, which imposed tariffs on nations supplying oil to Cuba directly or indirectly.
Yesterday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced the Trump administration’s intention to allow energy companies to sell fuel to private enterprises in Cuba, while maintaining strict sanctions on the Cuban government.
Cuba has endured a permanent humanitarian crisis since 1961, driven by two main factors: the inefficiencies of its communist system and U.S. economic sanctions.
The critical question is which contributes more to the ongoing economic disaster?
Prior to the 1959 communist revolution, from 1952-1958, Cuba’s food supply was highly productive, ranking third in Latin America for daily calorie consumption.
This success stemmed from nationalistic policies promoting agricultural self-sufficiency to meet market demand.
This ended under Fidel Castro’s regime, which seized and collectivized properties, prohibiting farmers from selling crops to non-state entities.
By 1964, the government’s Acopio system controlled all agricultural products, setting production quotas and requiring sales to the state. Cuba’s recent agricultural law (Decreto Ley 358 of 2018) upholds these prohibitions on private sales.
Food rationing began in 1962 as a control mechanism and persists today; items are subsidized but insufficient to sustain individuals.
As Reuters journalist Marc Frank reported in 2010, Cuba’s centralized system forces farmers to sell fixed crops to the state in exchange for supplies, often leading to rotting crops and shortages of inputs like feed, pesticides, and fertilizer. These inefficiencies—unrelated to sanctions—stem from the absence of market mechanisms.
Media outlets like Diario de Cuba (March 18, 2021) and 14ymedio (June 15, 2021) document rotting tomatoes, onions, and vegetables due to Acopio’s delays in collection.
Farmers face fines, detentions, or imprisonment for attempting independent sales.
Consequently, Cuba imports 70 to 80% of its food, even during periods of heavy Soviet subsidies or Venezuelan aid (e.g., 2011-2014, with no fuel shortages). Rationing continued unabated.
Since 2000, much of this food has come from the U.S. In 2025, Cuba imported $810.8 million in U.S. goods. Today, Cuban chicken primarily originates from Alabama and Mississippi.
Per the Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2024, Cuba’s poultry imports were led by the U.S. ($298M), followed by Brazil ($39M), Netherlands ($21M), Poland ($9.67M), and Paraguay ($510k).
The nation subjected to comprehensive multilateral sanctions by the United States and much of the world was Apartheid South Africa. Experts note that, despite targeting agricultural products, these sanctions had minimal impact on the regime’s food supply, as South Africa, like Cuba, effectively circumvented the restrictions.
The same cannot be said for the devastating effects of communist economic planning on food security.The 20th century’s greatest famines stemmed from communist forced collectivization: in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s policies led to the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine, where grain seizures for export caused 6 to 10 million deaths; in China, Mao Zedong’s 1959-1961 Great Leap Forward resulted in over 30 million starving, even as China exported food to Cuba. Cuba’s humanitarian crisis arises not from unilateral U.S. sanctions, but from Havana’s adherence to this failed model.
Since 2022, the Center for a Free Cuba has urged the international community to establish a humanitarian corridor delivering aid directly to Cubans in need, bypassing the kleptocratic Havana regime.
In February 2026, the State Department announced an additional $6 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, building on the $3 million successfully delivered in January to the Catholic Church’s Caritas organization. Testimonies confirm the initial aid reached victims directly, bringing the total U.S. distribution to $9 million.
The Center also endorses the appeal by Human Rights Action Group and Democratic Spaces, both Canadian NGOs, calling on Canada to press Havana to legalize independent civil society for effective aid distribution.
https://notesfromthecubanexilequarter.substack.com/p/a-radical-examination-of-the-humanitarian
How the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down impacts on a democratic transition in Cuba today
By John Suarez
Change is in the air in Cuba, but it is not due to an internal uprising. The totalitarian dictatorship built by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro with the aid of the Soviet KGB, East German Stasi, and former Waffen SS members has built through terror and murder the perfect prison to contain the Cuban people in misery.
Despite this Cubans risked everything standing up for freedom in Cuba through citizen initiatives like the Varela Project, and paid the ultimate price.
Others sought to begin new lives abroad and freedom only to be massacred by Cuban government agents in the Florida Straits, while others died due to the elements, and the lack of fresh water.
Brothers to the Rescue, an initiative by volunteer pilots came into existence in 1991 following the death of 15-year old refugee, Gregorio Pérez Ricardo, due to a lack of water.
They sought to save refugees in the Florida Straits, and succeeded in saving over 4,200 lives..
Brothers to the Rescue also connected with the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta, GA and held teach-ins on nonviolence in South Florida.
On January 13, 1996 from international airspace they successfully leafleted Havana with a message of empowerment, solidarity, and excerpts of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Cuban dictatorship outraged by this legal act of resistance initiated Operation Scorpion, using their spy network in the United States to gather information, sow division, and plan the shoot down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes.
The terror attack was carried out by Cuban MiGs on the afternoon of February 24, 1996 killing Armando Alejandre Jr. (45 years old), Carlos Alberto Costa (29), Mario Manuel de la Peña (24), and Pablo Morales (29) over international airspace.
It also led to the passage of the Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act) on March 12, 1996 which codified sanctions, and their lifting on the following three conditions established in this law: 1) The liberation of all political prisoners. 2) The legalization of all political parties, labor unions, and the press. 3) The scheduling of free, multiparty elections for the Cuban people.
Change is underway, due to external factors because the United States will no longer tolerate hostile governments in its neighborhood. The Trump Administration’s November 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States states it will not tolerate hostile actors in the Western Hemisphere.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”
This is bad news for the dictatorships in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela that are both hostile to the United States and allied with Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.
The Cuban dictatorship is the oldest of these dictatorships, which exported and successfully implanted its model in Caracas and Managua, visiting misery and terror on millions more in those nations. The Trump Administration on January 24, 2026 issued an executive order describing Cuba as a malign influence undermining U.S. national interests in the region, and provided some specific examples.
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The Cuban regime aligns itself with numerous hostile countries and malign actors, hosting their military and intelligence capabilities. For example, Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility focused on stealing sensitive national security information from the United States.
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Cuba provides safe haven for transnational terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, and supports adversaries in the Western Hemisphere, undermining U.S. sanctions and regional stability.
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The regime persecutes and tortures political opponents, denies free speech and press, profits corruptly from the Cuban people’s misery, and incites chaos by spreading communist ideology across the region.
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These actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy, requiring immediate response to protect American citizens and interests.
Havana has also visited terrorism on innocents throughout the region, including the United States, and continues to harbor terrorist fugitives who murdered Americans, like bomb maker Guillermo Morales, to the present day.
128 years ago the United States entered the Spanish-American war following the explosion of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898, and Cuba’s independence would be decided in April 1898 by the Teller Amendment in Congress that would become law.
Today, thanks to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, passed due to the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown thirty years ago, and U.S. national security interests in the region, history may be rhyming to a similar tune, that of a Cuba Libre with a clear path to democratic, multiparty elections and freedom for all political prisoners in exchange for all sanctions being lifted.
John Suarez is a human rights activist and executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba and a former program officer for Latin America Programs at Freedom House.
WSVN, February 24, 2026
30 years later, families of Brothers to the Rescue victims demand prosecution of Raúl Castro
WEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) – Thirty years after Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes over international waters, the victims’ families gathered in Miami-Dade County to honor the dead and renew their call for justice.
Dozens held a moment of silence at Florida International University on Tuesday afternoon to mark the somber anniversary.
“It’s something that will forever be etched in my mind and in my heart,” said Cuban-American activist Sylvia Iriondo.
Brothers to the Rescue was an anti-communist humanitarian organization that flew volunteer missions over the Florida Straits to locate Cuban refugees attempting to flee the island by sea. Over the years, the group is credited with saving thousands of lives.
On Feb. 24, 1996, the Cuban Air Force, under orders from the Castro regime, shot down two of the organization’s Cessna aircraft in international airspace, killing all four men aboard.
[ Full article ]