Defenseless in the Storm: Hurricane Melisa in Authoritarian Cuba

Hurricane Melissa expected to hit southeastern Cuba on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning (Oct 28 and 29. 2025) as a major hurricane, dumping 10 to 20 inches of rain and leading to catastrophic flooding and numerous landslides. Via ABC News. October 27. 2025.

As per Granma, the daily newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, the Cuban government has decreed a cyclone alert for eastern Cuba. Starting at 9:00 a.m. today (Oct 27), the provinces of Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, Granma, Las Tunas, and Camagüey have moved to the hurricane warning phase, while the provinces of Ciego de Ávila and Sancti Spíritus are under the hurricane watch phase.

When Disaster Meets Dictatorship: The Defenseless State of the Average Cuban

When natural disasters loom over Cuba, the country’s deep structural weaknesses rise to the surface. The moments that most expose the defenseless state of the average Cuban are those when hurricanes approach — as Hurricane Melisa is expected to do next Wednesday.

Houses in Guantanamo province damaged by Hurricane Oscar. Photo from November 2024. Via CubaNet.

For decades, Cuba has lacked an independent legal system that guarantees private property or allows the existence of truly private businesses. The few self-employed workers permitted by the regime operate under heavy state oversight and are denied the full autonomy that defines real entrepreneurship. This reality leaves citizens almost entirely dependent on the state — a state that is itself bankrupt, opaque, and politically motivated in the way it distributes even the most basic resources.

A Country Without Independent Relief

Cuba’s vulnerability is not only physical but institutional.
The island has no space for genuine nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) capable of mobilizing and distributing aid independently. The Law No. 54/85 on Associations, adopted in December 1985, not only restricts the creation of independent associations that could freely manage humanitarian assistance without state control — it prohibits the existence of most NGOs altogether. What the regime officially calls “civil society” is, in reality, a network of loyal mass organizations or a handful of citizens’ groups that have established associations considered “illegal” by the government.

In practice, this law turns every disaster into an instrument of central planning — and, too often, corruption.
Cuba’s centralized government and its strict control of information make humanitarian coordination slow, politicized, and opaque. International aid agencies face bureaucratic delays, arbitrary restrictions on how funds can be used, and shifting diplomatic conditions that sometimes disrupt long-term support. The state remains the only entity legally authorized to receive and distribute aid — and it does so without transparency or accountability.

In a nation where more than 89 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty, ordinary Cubans already face conditions akin to a failed state — with prolonged blackouts, lack of running water, an ongoing epidemiological crisis, uncollected garbage rotting in the streets, a collapsing public-health system, and humanitarian conditions considered the worst in more than six decades.

This monopoly over humanitarian relief only deepens despair. Ordinary Cubans cannot form civic groups, local charities, or community networks to prepare for or respond to disasters. They cannot legally organize to rebuild their own neighborhoods. Their only lifeline often comes from relatives abroad — through remittances or personal shipments — not from a state that routinely uses external assistance for political loyalty rather than human need.

Debris and mud block a street in the town of San Antonio del Sur, in Guantánamo province, eastern Cuba, after the passage of Hurricane Oscar. The hurricane caused the death of at least seven people and destroyed more than 11,000 buildings, 60 kilometers of roads, and many coffee, banana, and tomato plantations.
Photo: Archive. Courtesy of Claudia R. Ortiz/IPS. Oct 31, 2024.

Lessons from Hurricane Oscar

The arrival of Hurricane Oscar on October 20, 2024, exposed the scale of this institutional failure.
Oscar made landfall as a Category 1 storm in Baracoa, Guantánamo province, with winds reaching 130 kilometers per hour. Torrential rains and flooding devastated the municipalities of Baracoa, Imías, Maisí, and San Antonio del Sur. Official reports counted eight deaths, two missing persons, and more than 11 000 damaged homes.
According to United Nations data, nearly 150,000 people suffered severe impacts, and about 14 300 homes were either destroyed or heavily damaged. Over 15 000 hectares of farmland were ruined, heightening the risk of food insecurity in a region already struggling with chronic shortages.

Rather than empowering citizens to help one another, the Cuban government established checkpoints to control access to affected areas and to monitor donations. Independent groups that tried to deliver supplies faced restrictions and intimidation. Aid became another tool of political control.

What the World Sent — and What Cubans Received

After Oscar, humanitarian shipments poured into Cuba.
The European Union released €600 000 in emergency funding for food, shelter, health, and sanitation, and organized an air bridge carrying more than 100 tons of basic supplies.
Spain’s AECID sent 9.3 tons of tents, mosquito nets, and kitchen kits worth over US $56 000.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) delivered 24 tons of humanitarian goods, including solar lamps, tarps, tools, cooking utensils, and hygiene products.
UNICEF provided 51 medical and supply kits, 28 of them funded by the Embassy of Canada, covering an estimated 86 000 people in Guantánamo for three months.
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) deployed critical health supplies — trauma kits, emergency medicines, and tarpaulins — to the same region.

Canada and Norway joined the humanitarian appeal with donations of US $400 000 each. According to local media, the Embassy of Mexico in Cuba, in collaboration with the Mexican company Richmeat, which operates on the island, donated 100 tons of ground beef (250 000 units) for families affected by the hurricane.

A month after Hurricane Oscar’s landfall, some residents were still sleeping outdoors, in tents, or in the homes of neighbors who had suffered less damage — a stark reminder of how little the influx of international aid translated into real recovery on the ground.

All this assistance, though generous, entered through the Cuban government’s hands. And therein lies the tragedy: arrival does not equal delivery.

Despite the abundance of announced donations, by early November 2024 official media informed citizens that those who lost their homes would be required to pay 50 percent of the cost of building materials and mattresses — items meant to be distributed for free.
This echoes a long-standing pattern in Cuba’s disaster-management system: humanitarian aid is absorbed by the state and selectively redistributed according to loyalty, not need.

Houses in Guantanamo province damaged by Hurricane Oscar. November 2024. Via CubaNet.

A History of Misuse and Corruption

Past hurricanes tell the same story.
An ex-officer of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces told CubaNet that disasters are viewed as “harvest time for the State Reserve.” Donations are often confiscated by military officers before normal customs inspections take place. The State Reserve, technically under the Armed Forces, takes priority over civil defense and claims the best supplies for its own networks.

During Hurricane Matthew in 2016, high-quality mattresses donated by Italy were reportedly diverted to hotels run by the military conglomerate GAESA, or given to high-ranking officers, while genuine victims were forced to buy thin mats for 300 to 1 000 pesos. In the Cuban system, even humanitarian crises become opportunities for patronage and enrichment.

Why Freedom Matters in a Storm

This monopolized structure transforms every natural disaster into a human-rights crisis. The lack of independent institutions — from courts to charities — leaves Cubans utterly defenseless before both nature and the state.
When citizens cannot form NGOs, register community initiatives, or legally raise funds for local recovery, the very concept of solidarity is nationalized and corrupted. It ceases to be about people helping people and becomes about the regime controlling its population through dependence.

Cuba’s situation contrasts sharply with that of other Caribbean nations, where civil-society organizations and faith-based groups often play vital roles in disaster response. In those countries, transparency, competition, and accountability can exist. In Cuba, even the act of helping one’s neighbor is mediated by bureaucracy and ideology.

What to Expect as Hurricane Melisa Approaches

As Hurricane Melisa nears Cuba, history is set to repeat itself.
No independent organizations will be allowed to act. No citizen networks will be permitted to organize shelters, distribute food, or rebuild homes. Once the storm passes, official propaganda will again proclaim “solidarity” and “revolutionary unity,” while ordinary Cubans queue for materials that were donated to them yet sold back at a price.

Cuba’s humanitarian crisis is not born of nature but of politics. It is not the hurricane that leaves Cubans defenseless, but a system that forbids freedom of association, private property, and civic action. The world will send help, as it always does, and the regime will once more take credit for aid it neither funded nor distributed fairly.

Although there is no independent way to verify how the average Cuban benefits from that aid, experience shows that hurricane victims remain homeless for years — sometimes for decades. The pattern is clear: relief becomes dependence, and dependence sustains the dictatorship.

Until Cubans can freely create independent organizations, every disaster will remain another opportunity for the regime to tighten control and profit from misery.
Hurricane Melisa will test not only Cuba’s fragile infrastructure but the conscience of the world. True disaster relief begins not with donations — but with freedom.