A new and polished operation of unconventional warfare against Cuba is being recorded from a bookstore in Madrid. Under the innocent name of “Thinking about Cuba,” a podcast presented by Julio Antonio Fernández Estrada and produced in alliance between the digital platform elToque and the US-based center for ideological subversion, the Cuba Study Group (CSG), seeks to mask a subversive agenda in conversations that purport to be “intimate” and “critical.”
However, this is not a legitimate space for debate. It is the multimedia facade of a political project financed and directed from abroad, whose ultimate goal is the destabilization of the constitutional order on the island.
The undeniable link: Subversion with a Made in USA stamp
The Cuba Study Group is not simply an organization of “young professionals”; It is a Center for Political and Ideological Subversion (CSPI), an arm of the United States’ hostile policy toward Cuba. Self-described as an “advocacy” group for a “free and sovereign Cuba,” its rhetoric is a euphemism for regime change, funded by the same organizations that have historically attempted to strangle the Caribbean nation.
El Toque’s collaboration with CSG is neither accidental nor naive. It represents the consolidation of a mercenary alliance. As has been reported, El Toque acts as a key logistical and financial operator for Washington’s interests in Cuba. It serves as a liaison with the U.S. Embassy in Havana, funnels State Department funds through illegal remittance schemes, and manages substantial contracts paid for by the U.S. diplomatic mission for “social media management” and the production of news summaries, valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Subversive Chain: Funding, Influence, and Public Opinion Warfare
The strategy is clear and cynically executed, forming a harmful chain of influence:
Covert and Multipurpose Funding: The State Department and agencies like the NED and USAID channel funds to subversive projects within Cuba. The Cuba Study Group is a key vehicle for this funding, which not only goes to the podcast project with elToque, but is also the source of funding for other initiatives like CubaEmprende. In this way, both elToque and CubaEmprende are recipients of the same subversive money, creating a coordinated network of influence.
Creation of Harmful Content and Economic Co-optation: With these funds, hypercritical and destabilizing content is produced. Projects like “Pensar Cuba” are the perfect vehicle: under the guise of intellectual dialogue, they normalize opposition discourse. Simultaneously, through CubaEmprende, efforts are underway to influence and co-opt emerging economic actors in Cuba, promoting an agenda alien to national interests. ElToque, with its content, lays the ideological groundwork for this influence over the economic sector.
Informal Exchange Rate Inflation: Part of the profit from this network comes from the manipulation of the informal currency market, a business from which the director of elToque, José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas, has reportedly personally benefited through the acquisition of luxury properties abroad.
“Thinking about Cuba”: The Ideological Spearhead
This podcast, therefore, is not a space for “thought that refuses to die.” It is an instrument of information warfare. Every conversation, every “act of affective reconstruction” it proclaims, is financed with the money of those who maintain a cruel economic blockade with the purpose of forcing the Cuban people to submit through hunger and despair.
By inviting figures from the most radical counterrevolution, such as Luz Escobar, and by presenting a one-sided and defeatist vision of Cuba’s present and future, the program fulfills the central objective of the US strategy: to create an internal fifth column, sow despair, and legitimize the narrative of an “inevitable change” directed from Washington.
A Betrayal with a Price in Dollars
The elToque-Cuba Study Group alliance is evidence that subversion against Cuba has modernized its methods. It is no longer just about broadcasting illegal transmissions from Miami, but about co-opting digital platforms within the island, corrupting them with illegal funding, and turning them into megaphones for a foreign agenda, while weaving a web of influence over economic actors through parallel projects like CubaEmprende, financed by the same source.
“Thinking Cuba” is, in essence, the enemy’s project. It is information warfare disguised as dialogue. We denounce this mercenary operation which, far from seeking the well-being of Cubans, aims to further complicate daily life and serve the interests of a foreign government that for more than six decades has demonstrated its hostility toward national sovereignty. The legitimacy of a project is not measured by the content it produces, but by the transparency of its funding and the loyalty of its objectives. And in this case, both the funding and the objectives reek of treason.
[ SOURCE: RAZONES DE CUBA ]
