I mean, I'm just listening to Cubans themselves, they call it a regime.
One of Cuba’s most prominent former political prisoners, José Daniel Ferrer García, the founder of the opposition group Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), went into exile in Miami in October after decades of activism and multiple imprisonments.
“Most Cubans, inside and outside, want change,” he says. “But you cannot lead opposition inside Cuba because the regime jails any potential organiser immediately.”
Another exiled political dissident, Luis Leonel León, Miami-based director of the Cuban Studies Institute, argues that forced exile has always been the regime’s fix – sending generations abroad and giving rise to what he calls the “empty island”. For many, he says, hope is so diminished that even rebelling seems pointless; the best option is to leave rather than fight.