Tone-deaf activists flock to Havana, stay in 5-star hotels while the island is in crisis: ‘a mockery of the Cuban people’
Hundreds of deaf radicals are pouring into Havana this weekend to meet with Communist Party officials – staying in luxury hotels and traveling in air-conditioned buses – as the entire island faces a growing economic crisis starving for electricity, food, water and medicine.
The “Nuestra America Convoy” sent social workers from North America and Europe to Cuba by air, sea, and land, under the guise of providing 20 tons of humanitarian aid to protest the United States oil embargo in Cuba.
The list includes Mayor Zohran Mamdani and influential broadcaster Hasan Piker – who recently took a propaganda trip sponsored by Beijing – in Havana, where he broadcast to his 1.6 million Instagram followers on Saturday with a flawless Internet connection and promised to film “content.”
Isra Hirsi, the 23-year-old unemployed activist daughter of “Squad” embattled Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), is also participating in the march – as a delegation from Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America.
The fleet also includes groups identified by the US State Department as Chinese influence peddlers – such as Neville Roy Singham’s People’s Forum and his wife, Jodie Evans’ Code Pink. Evans was all smiles as she posed for a photo with Piker Saturday, wearing a pink keffiyeh.
Other delegates were reportedly staying at the 5-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection, where a room costs between $130 and $520 per night.
Others were photographed riding in comfortable air-conditioned buses, and meeting President Miguel Díaz-Canel at the Palacio de Convenciones in Havana.
Cuban officials reported an island-wide blackout this week in the embattled communist country of about 11 million people, after President Trump in January threatened to impose tariffs on any nation that sells it, cutting off its power.
“When almost the whole country is suffering from a power outage that lasted more than 20 hours, the left was welcomed with air conditioning and misuse of electricity,” criticized Mayra Dominguez, a Cuban living in exile in the US.
“More than 100 families would not be strong today if the Castro regime had not destroyed the Communist propaganda of the international left,” said Dominguez.
“This is a mockery for all Cubans. Leftists visit Cuba like it’s a party at the zoo and then watch the misery from a luxury hotel. It’s strange,” he added.
The event was organized by Cuban politician Mariela Castro through a non-profit organization called Progressive International. Few details have been released about how the hundreds of boxes and suitcases of aid will be distributed when they arrive on the island, local media reported.
Castro is the daughter of Raúl Castro, the former president of Cuba and a major behind-the-scenes player in the country – and the brother of Fidel Castro.
One of the organizations involved in the distribution is the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples, identified by the CIA as a leader in Cuban intelligence.
The convoy has angered Cuban exiles who have been prevented from returning home by the ruling communist party, and they say the government is to blame for decades of hardship.
“After causing more than a million Cubans to leave in just five years and denying many the right to return to their countries, they are now open to help foreigners,” said Cuban artist Salomé García Bacallao, who lives in exile in Miami, posting on Facebook.
“If they enter, we will also enter,” he vowed.
After the US military arrested Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in early January, critical oil shipments to Cuba were halted.
The president of Cuba said that the island has been without oil for three months.
