Several members of the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance confronted the Cuban ambassador to the US, Lianys Torres Rivera, this Friday in a luxury restaurant in Tampa, Florida. The diplomat, meeting “in secret” with politicians related to the regime, was rebuked by the former Cuban political prisoner Roberto Pizano and by his son Raphael, a US Army veteran, according to a video published by the América TeVé channel.
The recording shows how several people try to stop Pizano and those who were with him at the entrance of the French cuisine restaurant Mise en Place. Torres turned his back on the scene while the exiles demanded to declare “something to the camera.” “Have a face, our families are suffering!” they shouted at the diplomat, while they tried to explain to those who detained them that in Cuba “there is no democracy.”
They also mentioned the situation of political prisoners, particularly José Daniel Ferrer and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. “How do you bring a murderer here?” Roberto Pizano adds indignantly, declaring that he spent 18 years imprisoned on the island by the government that Torres represents. Finally, the exiles withdrew from the restaurant with slogans against the Havana regime and asking for freedom.
“We stood up for our political prisoners and for our exile”
“We stood up for our political prisoners and for our exile,” Raphael Pizano told the camera, regretting that restaurant staff called him a “fascist” when he had fought in the US Armed Forces.
Both exiles demanded that Washington closely monitor the trips of Cuban diplomats to South Florida. “They owe us an answer,” they demanded.
In May 2022, Ambassador Torres traveled for the first time to Miami to meet with businessmen linked to the trips to the Island and the sending of remittances from the US. At that time, and despite his intentions to travel “in secret”, the independent press reported his meeting with the “friends” of the regime and his support for the official movement Puentes de Amor, led by Cuban professor Carlos Lazo, a staunch defender of the regime in Florida.
Torres’ dinner with politicians related to the Government of Cuba occurs in the midst of an attempt to thaw between Havana and Washington, which has been slowed down, among other reasons, by the contacts of the leadership of the Island with the Government of Vladimir Putin and the visit to Havana of senior Russian officials such as General Nikolai PatrushevSecretary of the Security Council of his country.
Lianys Torres Rivera has been the Cuban ambassador to the US since 2020. Former representative of the Island in Vietnam between 2017 and 2020, she is the first woman to lead the Cuban mission in Washington, as a substitute for José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez.
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