By René Vázquez Díaz on June 25, 2026
Cubans called Valeriano Weyler, a native of Mallorca, Marquis of Tenerife, and Grandee of Spain—who served as Captain General of Cuba from 1896 to 1898—“The Butcher.”
Weyler, in order to crush the insurrection against Spanish colonial rule, confined and blockaded the Cuban civilian population in what he called “Reconcentration Camps” so that no one could help the mambises.
This Butcher, the Marquis of Tenerife, killed 400,000 innocent Cubans through starvation and disease, and ultimately left Cuba without having won the war.
That Spaniard essentially did the same thing the U.S. has been doing for 70 years against the Cuban civilian population; turning the entire island into a Weylerian “Reconcentration Camp” with its entire population blockaded to the point of death.
Very similar to Mr. Trump and Mr. Rubio who are the modern-day butchers.
President Trump has even fantasized and stated that Mr. Rubio could become the President of the Republic of Cuba one day.
It’s worth remembering that the presidents of that subjugated and oppressed Cuba, which Mr. Rubio dreams of, were given derogatory nicknames by politically frustrated Cubans.
President Mario García Menocal (1913–1921)—a conservative, authoritarian, anti-democratic figure educated (like Rubio) in the U.S.—was called “El Mayoral.” That is, an inhumane slave overseer.
President Menocal had been an administrator for the American Sugar Refining Co. and owned two sugar mills.
In the political skits of the time, people sang an insulting changüí song about him that went:
Cut down the sugarcane, work fast!
Look, here comes El Mayoral
Beating the drum!
What nickname will Cubans give Marco Rubio?
In February 1931, someone planted a bomb in the Presidential Palace to assassinate the dictator Gerardo Machado. The dictator, so highly regarded by the U.S., was lucky and survived. The culprit turned out to be a certain Valdés, a soldier who resembled Mr. Marco Rubio in only one way: he talked compulsively and constantly, without letting anyone else get a word in even edge wise.
The Cubans nicknamed him “Cotorra Valdés” or chatterbox—a nickname Mr. Rubio should be considered for.
Ramón Grau San Martín served as president of Cuba twice. His first term lasted 100 days, from 1933 to 1934, because the U.S., with all its interventionist diplomacy, was against him while conspiratorially supporting Fulgencio Batista and his power within the army. The second time, Grau served as president from 1944 to 1948, and by then he had indeed come to understand that he had to obey the U.S.
Grau had a political slogan that resembles Marco Rubio’s rhetoric: “There will be candy for Everyone!” he said.
His administration however was plagued by poverty, crime, subservience, corruption, and embezzlement of public funds, with no candy for anyone—except for U.S. monopolies.
But nevertheless Grau San Martín called himself “The Messiah of Cuban Identity”.
Watching Marco Rubio today spout empty rhetoric about a Cuba he knows nothing about makes me laugh, as I suspect that when he secretly looks in the mirror, what he sees is a sort of, Gringo Messiah of Cuban Identity.”
We’ll see how he fares with his longed-for presidency.
René Vázquez Díaz is a Cuban writer and translator living in Sweden. Author of several novels and poetry collections.
Source: Cuba en Resumen