Exiled businessmen will only invest in a Cuba free of “tyranny”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – More than 25 Cuban businessmen exiled in Miami signed on Wednesday an agreement for the future of Cuba in which they commit themselves to create a reconstruction fund when “tyranny” ends and not to invest in the island until then.

At the headquarters of Brigade 2506, as the exiles who in 1961 tried to “liberate” the island by force of arms are known, the “businessmen for a free Cuba”, convened by the Cuban Resistance Assembly, expressed their support for the protests initiated on July 11 and reaffirmed that the “supreme objective” is to achieve freedom.

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“We do not want a people of slaves,” reads the document for “a future of prosperity for Cuba,” which was read by Sergio Pino, president of the Century Homebuilders Group construction company before everyone signed it in unison.

The businessmen, among them also Venezuelan exiles like Nelson Mezerhane, owner of “Diario de las Americas”, refuse to invest in private companies in Cuba, a possibility that the Cuban government is facing a serious social and social problems economic crisis amid the covid-19 pandemic, recently opened for the exiles.

“We are not interested in investing in Cuba as long as the regime of terror imposed on the country by the Castro family, the communist party, and a corrupt military claque is in power,” they say.

They also say that they have been successful in exile and do not need to “profit from the pain of the Cuban people in complicity with the regime”, but they are motivated by the desire to help their “brothers and sisters” to get out of “62 years of misery”, as Pino defined them.

The document states that for Cubans to develop their “entrepreneurial and hard-working nature,” they need “a system of full rights and freedoms,” which they lack because of “communist tyranny”.

“Once the country has been liberated from tyranny, and a path to freedom and democracy has begun,” the businessmen pledge to privately establish “a fund for the reconstruction of the republic,” which will advise and support the island’s entrepreneurs with credit, financing and accounting systems.

The objective will be “to develop as soon as possible in our beloved land thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises that are truly owned by their individual and family owners and not by an oppressive state”.

During the event, the president of Brigade 2506, Johnny López de la Cruz, reiterated a call to the Cuban military, regardless of their rank, to side with the people and not with a government that “only cares about staying in power”.

Pino, who a few days ago offered to help with decent housing for military and police officers who refuse to repress those who demand a change in Cuba, affirmed that the offer still stands and asserted that “when Cuba is free, it will be the best place in the world”.