State Security, Cuba’s feared counterintelligence agency, arrested Ernesto Ricardo Medina in front of his three-year-old daughter. Agents knocked on the house’s front door at 6 a.m. It was Friday, February 6. At that same hour the power went out in Holguín, in the island’s east. Nothing unusual in a city used to blackouts. “Tico, it’s the police,” his wife, Doris Santiesteban, warned him after looking out the window. Medina went downstairs and opened the gate. “It’s only a search order,” he said after the operation’s commander showed him the document.

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Saying that Cuba is in crisis is hardly news. It has been for decades. Nor is it news that Washington’s sanctions have worsened the health of an economy that is now on life support. Both statements are axioms. But talking about Havana is a high-risk sport.

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