The Cuban economy has accumulated imbalances over time, which affect key sectors such as production, energy supply, internal logistics, the functioning of the financial system, and access to foreign currency. Added to this are internal errors that further aggravate the difficulties.
However, the most decisive factor in this scenario continues to be the prolonged impact of the U.S. blockade, which restricts foreign income, raises financial costs, limits international payment possibilities, and puts pressure on the country on multiple fronts.
In this adverse environment, the El Toque platform amplifies any economic disruption and increases dependence on the informal market, which, in turn, reproduces distortions and directly harms the population.
According to the second edition of the television program Razones de Cuba: Denuncia del pueblo de Cuba contra El Toque (Reasons for Cuba: The Cuban people's denunciation of El Toque), research reveals that this media outlet emerged under the auspices of the Dutch broadcaster Radio Nederland—initially created for the purpose of subversion against the then Soviet Union—which received funding from the U.S. government to organize and carry out an escalation of terrorist actions against the island.
According to journalist Raúl Antonio Capote, Radio Nederland's fundamental objective was to form a new type of countercultural leadership, for which leadership training courses were given in Europe, because "they needed journalists who had graduated from Cuban universities, people who could identify with the population and who were trained to do the job."
Thus, in April 2017, under the direction of José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas, the Más Voces Collective Foundation was established, formally presented as "a public non-profit foundation, but which, in practice, received funds from the structures of the United States Government, the State Department, the Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), with the aim of working against the Cuban socialist system," explained Colonel Francisco Estrada Portales, head of the Department of Investigation of Crimes against State Security, Ministry of the Interior (Minint).
The investigation, he added, also shows that after the Foundation was accredited and the company Media Plux Experience was created by Nieves Cárdenas, activities openly aligned with the interests of the financiers began to spread, "because at the beginning it was somewhat disguised."
ECONOMIC SABOTAGE
The United States government pays salaries for the purpose of undermining internal peace in Cuba, and "that constitutes a crime, a violation of the law.
"The current director of El Toque, Nieves Cárdenas, acknowledges that he is a salaried employee with the express purpose of destroying the Cuban Revolution." We are in the presence of a person who shamelessly commits acts "that could be classified under various criminal offenses covered by our laws, with the aggravating circumstance that he is doing so against his country of birth and for money. He is committing economic sabotage, acting aggressively against the people," Estrada Portales pointed out.
In this context, it is also recognized that Nieves Cárdenas has carried out illegal operations within the largest of the Antilles with the money allocated to him.
A concrete example is Xavier Billingsley, who was deputy head of the Public Relations section of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, when he offered money to Cuban citizens to submit subversive projects against the country, with payments channeled through El Toque.
INDEPENDENT PLATFORM?
El Toque, the same platform that imposes informal exchange rates and has become an instrument of manipulation, will never be an alternative for independent journalism.
According to the head of the department of the Minint's Crimes Against State Security investigation body, a criminal investigation is currently underway to identify the criminal activities committed by its members.
To date, he added, there are 18 executives involved, based in different countries, as well as a group of collaborators.
"El Toque is being investigated as an organization for the entities it uses for its activities and for its links to the unconventional war against Cuba."
In addition, experts are analyzing the various ways in which it manipulates the exchange rate, falsifies the data it publishes, and alters the information it receives in order to adjust an illegal rate on a daily basis.
"All this supposed transparency is a sham. They cheat with the data to legitimize a rate that directly affects the national economy and the well-being of the people," he concluded.
