The communiqué from the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) dated May 17th, 2026, entitled “A Tractor in Common and the Case of the Crazy Parrot. II.- They Won’t Be Able To,” contains a reflection on Cuba that deserves serious geopolitical analysis.
The Zapatistas have hit the nail on the head regarding a truth. The comrades say: “We believe that their resistance and rebellion are evident. They have not only maintained a social project amidst all possible threats, facing all imaginable and unimaginable aggressions, but have also suffered worldwide campaigns of slander and lies.” Therein lies the key. Cuba has not survived despite the blockade. Cuba has survived thanks to the will of its people. And that, from the imperialist perspective, is unacceptable.
The question the EZLN poses is: “Why haven’t they been able to break them? Why would a U.S. military intervention be necessary if, with the support the Cuban opposition has received, they would have already achieved ‘liberation’?” The answer is simple: the Cuban people do not surrender.
As the statement ironically notes, “it may be that the letters to spell ‘surrender’ don’t exist in the Cuban alphabet.” And that’s not rhetoric. It’s a historical fact. Since 1959, the United States has tried everything: military invasion (the Bay of Pigs invasion), targeted assassinations, sabotage, terrorism, economic warfare, media campaigns. Nothing has worked. And meanwhile, Cuba has built a free, world-class healthcare system, eradicated illiteracy, developed its own vaccines, and sent its doctors to save lives in more than 50 countries.
The usual critics, those who are “neither fish nor fowl,” parrot the refrain that Cuba “was beautiful at first, but over time it became a dictatorship.” The EZLN sums it up like this: that’s just another way of saying, “it used to be fashionable to support Cuba, now it’s fashionable to attack it.”
Western hypocrisy knows no bounds. When it suited political correctness, it was admirable. When the empire decided to intensify the blockade and threats of intervention, many who previously applauded now remain silent or, worse, join the smear campaign.
The EZLN recounts an anecdote: A furious US congressman questions CIA officials about plans to “solve the Cuban problem.” The agent explains, in great detail, a plan to poison Fidel Castro and make him lose his beard. The congressman, incredulous, responds: “So we spent so many millions to shave Castro’s beard, to shave him? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just shoot him?”
The anecdote is perfect. It summarizes decades of absurd operations, state terrorism, and ridiculous attempts to overthrow a legitimate government. And yet, Cuba still stands. Not by a miracle. Because, as the statement says, “they made their own history. Not for books, analyses, or reflections without consistent action, but for life.”
Cuba has been subjected to the longest blockade in modern history. More than six decades of commercial, financial, and technological strangulation. And yet, its health and education indicators surpass those of many so-called “first world” countries.
Another question the EZLN poses: “If they achieved all they have with all that against them, how much more could they have done if they had been left in peace?” The answer would imply admitting that the blockade is not a defense of democracy, but a cruel and inhumane punishment for a people who committed the sin of building their own destiny.
The Zapatista communiqué also addresses an aspect that the academic left often ignores: Cuba is not an appendage of anyone. It did not follow imported recipes. It made its own revolution, in its own way, with its own mistakes and successes. And that, for the dogmatic left, is as uncomfortable as it is for the imperialist right. “Whether it is true or not that they have had, have, and will have mistakes, they are THEIR mistakes, THEIR successes, THEIR history, THEIR present, and THEIR future.” That is the fundamental right that the empire denies them: the right to make mistakes and correct them without tutelage.
The EZLN’s conclusion: “Cuba, so close to the United States and so far from understanding, will endure. Because there are those who hope that the island will become a Mariel boatlift from end to end, but there are those who know that what the sun will see when it rises is a Bay of Pigs… the day after.” The empire can continue tightening the screws of the blockade. It can continue funding the internal opposition. It can continue threatening military intervention. It will not succeed. History has shown time and again that peoples who decide their own destiny, without kneeling before any master, are invincible.
Cuba chose socialism. And despite everything, it still stands. That is the lesson the Zapatistas have just reminded us of in the mountains of southeastern Mexico. The blockade against Cuba must end. The threats of intervention must stop. The Cuban people have the right to live in peace, to build their own future, to make mistakes and to correct them without foreign interference.
Original article from La Sexta Nota, May 18th, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.