Dissident pushes for change in Cuba, one ladle at a time

By Dave Sherwood

Jose Daniel Ferrer stepped onto his front porch in Santiago de Cuba on a recent morning, shaking hands and asking after people's health as he greeted a small crowd of the ailing and elderly gathered at his doorstep.

Inside, he, his wife Nelva Ismarays Ortega, and a staff of around a dozen dispensed steaming rations of boiled potato, yucca, pumpkin, chicken, rice and spaghetti cooked in steel cauldrons over an open fire on their back patio.

But Ferrer's is no ordinary soup kitchen.

The bespectacled 54-year-old - the founder in 2011 of an opposition group called the National Patriotic Union, or Unpacu - is among the communist-run island's last remaining and highest profile dissidents.

In an interview last week at his home in a downtrodden neighborhood on the outskirts of Santiago, he told Reuters his real aim was to bring "democratic change" to Cuba.

"Political activism is my reason for being," said Ferrer, talking in a commanding baritone while seated in his living room in the country's second largest city, a 12-hour drive over rutted roads from the capital Havana.

"The only solution to hunger here and throughout Cuba is to bring in democracy."

That kind of bravado is almost unheard of on the island, by law a one-party socialist state that does not tolerate dissent.

Ferrer said he began his food kitchen at the start of the year and by April was serving upwards of 1,000 rations a day.

But then, he said, state security cordoned off the area around his home, threatening those who arrived with detention or removal of government benefits and complicating shopping for stew ingredients.

The Cuban government did not respond to a request for comment on Ferrer's allegations, which were backed by other dissidents and his staff.

Josefina Reyes, 34, said she began helping out in Ferrer's kitchen two months ago, and that she was recently threatened by state security for her participation.

Reyes denied any political activism as she served up rations of stew.

"As far as I can tell I've done nothing wrong," she said.

Reuters did not observe any police activity during an approximately five-hour visit to the neighborhood.

Ferrer has released a steady stream of videos and posts on social media detailing the alleged harassment. That has caught the eye of the U.S. State Department.

"We stand with Jose Daniel as he provides life-saving aid to the people of Santiago de Cuba," the State Department's Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs wrote on X on April 2. "The Cuban regime should focus on caring for its people and not repressing them - those responsible will be held accountable."

Cuba contends a decades-long U.S. trade embargo - plus fresh sanctions imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump - are to blame for near catastrophic economic woes, shortages and fast-diminishing social services.

It has for decades offered its citizens deeply subsidized food, fuel and healthcare, and runs nearly 1,500 of its own soup kitchens, according to Ministry of Interior Commerce statistics.

Four government-run operations in the capital Havana last week that were visited by Reuters were providing those in need with simple meals of rice and vegetables, cucumber salad, and bread. Prices ranged from 2 pesos (less than 1 U.S. cent) to a cap of 25 pesos (7 cents).

The food did not match that provided by Ferrer.

But, said 75-year old Adolfo Guillermo Mateo as he arrived at a small state-run soup kitchen in central Havana on a recent weekday morning, the subsidized meals had sustained him for nearly a decade - breakfast, lunch and dinner.

"Sometimes the food is good, sometimes it's average, but the workers here do what they can to provide us with the best service possible," Mateo said.

JAILED AFTER PROTESTS

Ferrer is hoping his community aid program will mobilize a popular movement, although his ultimate aim of upending the one-party government seems to face long odds.

Following anti-government protests on the island in July 2021 - the largest since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution - many dissidents, including Ferrer, were jailed. Others fled to exile.

Ferrer was one among over 500 prisoners released on parole earlier this year following a deal between the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden and Cuba, brokered by the Vatican. Ferrer said he emerged from jail appalled by the depth of suffering and hunger he saw, a situation he blames on the government.

Cuba's government dismisses Ferrer as an unhinged U.S. government-financed pawn, accusing him of fomenting unrest.

Ferrer, who has called for nonviolent change through civil disobedience, said he had not received funding in 2025 from the U.S. government. He said his roughly 400 donors to date were primarily "independent Cuban workers," the majority of whom reside in the U.S. and contribute small sums to his cause.

Three members of the hardline Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, he said, had also provided seed capital for his project this year from their personal accounts.

The Trump administration's recent decision to pull funding for many international aid projects has forced him to look elsewhere, Ferrer said.

"To be effective, it's very important that policies allow us to alleviate shortages, hunger and extreme misery in Cuba," he said. "We're hoping that the U.S. will release funds to help."