Cuban dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara goes into exile in US

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Cuban government’s “brutal repression against its own people five years ago is yet another reminder of the unparalleled misery and evil inherent in the communist system.”

“Otero Alcántara’s only ‘crime’ was to refuse to remain silent and to use his art to demand, every day, the basic freedoms that Cubans have been deprived of for almost seventy years,” he said in a statement.

The cases of Otero Alcántara and SIM member Maykel Castillo, also known as “Osorbo,” who is serving an eight-year prison sentence, have been a recurring source of diplomatic tension between Washington and Havana.

This tension has escalated in recent months as the Trump administration has hit Cuba with an oil blockade, sanctions and open threats of military intervention.

Last week the BBC’s US news partner CBS reported that the Pentagon was looking at military options in Cuba; However, officials were quoted as saying that the briefings did not mean that any decision had been made to conduct an operation.

The US oil blockade has worsened the ongoing fuel crisis; Cubans have faced prolonged power outages and food shortages in recent months.

The United States also in May announced an unprecedented murder indictment against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro for the 1996 shooting down of two planes that killed four people. Russia and China condemned this move.

According to Onei, tourism has taken a big hit amid US sanctions; The number of people visiting the island in the first five months of 2026 was less than 360,000; This is a decrease of approximately 60% compared to the same period last year.

Washington warned in May that a peaceful agreement with the Caribbean nation was unlikely.