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Political scientist Julio M. Shiling, director of Patria de Martí and principal adviser on transitional justice for Rosa María Payá’s team, explained on Nov. 3 in Madrid how he proposes to address transitional justice in Cuba during the first 100 days of a transition government.
Shiling spoke at the event “Cuba en el umbral” (Cuba on the Threshold), at the Hotel Wellington in Madrid, where Payá and Pasos de Cambio presented the transition plan for Cuba one day before the 30th Ibero-American Summit. The plan devotes one pillar to “Institutions and justice,” which includes recognizing victims, establishing responsibilities and guarantees of non-repetition.
Shiling: the fall of the dictatorship is not enough
Shiling warned that the fall of a dictatorship “does not even remotely guarantee” that democracy will follow. He explained that the depth of the steps needed depends on the type of dictatorship, and that Cuba is “a model of total domination with kleptocratic leanings.” That is why, he said, the work will be large: “We must clarify, hold accountable, repair, deprive and break with the symbolism” of the dictatorship.
Transitional justice in Cuba: what would happen in the first 100 days
During the first 100 days of the transition government, he said, the following would be launched: a historical clarification commission and processes of purging and lustration; a serious investigation of GAESA; an analysis of labor violations and of the plundering of Cuba’s heritage; a review of “odious” debts; and restitution or compensation for confiscated properties, both residential and commercial, with full right of permanence for the occupants. Those programs, he said, are meant to ensure that the country the transition government hands over to the Cuban people is “worthy of their trust” and “worthy of the sacrifice of so many heroes” and of the blood shed over the years.
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The 1940 Constitution and excluding the Communist Party
He said the 1940 Constitution, “modified for our times,” is a necessary starting point. The electoral system, he added, echoing Berta Soler, must exclude “anti-system parties and movements,” such as the Communist Party of Cuba, “because a party cannot absorb the state.” The state, he said, is supposed to “represent all of us, not be the machinery of a party.” “Democracy is not a suicide pact,” he said, and it needs defense mechanisms in order to last.
Democracy, he said, needs mechanisms to keep “wrongdoers” from taking advantage of the system and then destroying it. As a warning, he cited “legal revolutions,” which enter “through the democratic door” and then destroy the system.
De-communization, memory and civil society
Shiling also called for a break with dictatorial symbolism, a process of de-communization that in Cuba’s case he called “descastrocomunización,” or de-Castro-communization. He said heroes must be memorialized and civil society rebuilt through civic education and an awareness campaign.
He closed by comparing Cuba to a patient who needs intense treatment, especially in the first period, and special care for life: that treatment, he said, is transitional justice. He warned that the disease “is contagious,” so the rest of the Americas and the world’s democracies must be careful. Speaking briefly in English for the international guests, he added: “Democracy is the next step after liberation,” but “there are certain mechanisms that have to be in place.”
Context: the Cuba transition plan presented in Madrid
Shiling is the author of 16 books, the latest on the requirements for Cuba’s democratic transition. The plan presented by Payá’s team stems from the Liberation Accord, signed on March 2, 2026, in Miami by Pasos de Cambio and the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. It proposes a phased road map, with a transition government of limited duration leading to free elections. According to Cuba Decide, it has three phases: liberation; stabilization and reconstruction; and democratization.
Read our full coverage of the presentation of the transition plan for Cuba.
Shiling spoke mostly in Spanish; quotes from those remarks were translated by Cubanos por el Mundo.
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