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| Ambassador Mike Waltz highlights Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara's case at the UN |
Yesterday, Cuba’s communist dictatorship in New York City at the United Nations demonstrated once again that one can win a vote, and still lose.
There was a vote on whether or not to have an additional debate on the Cuban embargo, and it won with 136 votes with nine against and 30 abstentions. This was a further erosion of 29 votes when compared to the resolution from October 2025.
However the statement made by Ambassador Mike Waltz, U.S. Representative to the United Nations exposed the kleptocratic nature of the dictatorship, and the wealth of the Cuban dictatorship amidst the squalor lived by most Cuban people.
Even more important, Ambassador Waltz highlighted and named some of the over 1,300 Cuban political prisoners jailed today.
He called out the Cuban delegation for trying to shut down his presentation.
"For 67 years, the Cuban regime has enriched itself, its ruling elites, while abusing its people, strangling private enterprise, criminalizing dissent, and clinging to failed communist economics.
Colleagues, communism has never worked, it doesn’t work, and it will not work.
And when the Cuban people demanded something better, something different, to have a voice, the regime could choose to listen, but it did not. Instead, it chose to imprison 800 of its own people.
And I want to take a moment to read a few of their names. You should hear their names. You should see their faces.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara. You know what his crime was? He’s in maximum security prison. His crime, and this is according to the regime is “artistic expression.” His crime is being an artist, Mr. President.
Fernando Almenares Rivera. His crime? He’s a musician, and he writes songs the regime doesn’t like, calling for freedom.
Maykel Castillo Perez. Another musician in a maximum security prison. What did he do? He also wrote rap songs the regime doesn’t like.
This young man, this amazing young man, Duannis Dabel León Taboada, is a young poet. He’s a poet. He writes poetry, colleagues. 14 years in a maximum security prison.
And these two brothers, Jorge Martín, Nadir Martín Perdomo. The UN—you all—have condemned their imprisonment and called for their release. See their faces as you make your speeches today. Remember them. Because they’re in prison for daring for freedom.
Colleagues, they’re not armed. They’re not violent. They carry flowers, and write poems, and write music. And for that, the regime beats them, detains them, and tries to break them.
These are the names the delegation here banging on the table doesn’t want you to hear. They don’t want this Assembly to hear it. They don’t like free speech. They don’t like dissent."
Yesterday, Vaclav Havel’s maxim written in his important essay, The Power of the Powerless, was seen in action. “If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth.”
Truth and facts are exposing the Cuban dictatorship before the international community, and shaking the regime's pillars to their very core.
This is the first of two blog entries on the UN vote.
Please join us on Saturday, July 11, 2026 at 7pm at the Cuban Embassy in a silent vigil for Cuba's political prisoners and the victims of Castroism.
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