MIAMI — Reports indicate that Cuba is “open” to U.S. private investment as a humanitarian aid flotilla arrives from Mexico. But amid widespread blackouts ― and now growing unrest ― fueled by U.S. “maximum pressure” campaigns, some South Florida Cuban Americans argue that it’s unwise to engage the island nation’s officials economically before ousting the Communist Party.

The advocates said they want what they’ve wanted for 67 years: Regime change to democracy and a free Cuba.

“I am very sad to think that everyone is thinking business instead of human rights and civil rights,” Democracy Movement co-founder Gus Garcia said. “Everybody is thinking about oil and everybody is thinking about economic gains, when in reality, what we have been fighting for since 1959 is civil and human rights.

“People who have died and are dying in firing squads and jails are not talking about free enterprise. They are talking about freedom of choice, free political parties, freedom of political prisoners.”

They said they also worry that Cuba could be a repeat of what they call “the Venezuela model,” where the U.S. decided to remove dictator Nicolas Maduro but keep regime loyalists in place — rather than allowing the opposition leader, who independent election observers said won the last election, to take the reins.

“We see the removal of the head but not a removal of the monster,” Garcia said. “The monster remains in power.”

Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a democracy advocate, echoed that view. He said efforts to engage the regime economically “are going to increase the suffering of the people.”

“Because the regime is at the end of the rope, you will have an exodus of people,” he said. “However if you disengage with the regime and engage yourself with the Cuban people by supporting the demonstrations, activating the Internet, warning the Cuban regime that the United States will not allow repression of the Cuban people, the Cuban people will not come out of Cuba once that regime falls.”

Sánchez also had pointed words for U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American from South Florida.

“I have been asking for him to come to Miami,” Sánchez said. “I mean, he met with the Russians; he met with the Chavistas in Venezuela; somehow, he is talking to the Cuban dictators in Havana. He needs to come to Miami, where he came from, where he was voted (in) and (where) his political career began, to explain to us what they are trying to do and also to listen to us.”

In a post on social media platform X, U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Florida — a retired Cuban American firefighter and former Miami-Dade mayor — said “‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, same on me.’ How many times is the Cuban regime going to expropriate & steal businesses until they’re finally called what they are: PROFESSIONAL THIEVES! Anybody who invests in Cuba under this regime is insane!”

Last week, prominent Cuban American democracy advocate Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, with the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, told Local 10’s Christina Vazquez that he believes anyone who invests on the island before the Castro family and Communist Party are removed from office would be a “fool.”

Gimenez also stated on X that in his view “the Cuban people deserve freedom, not recycled tyranny. There will be NO US investment in Cuba until the dictator is hip is relegated to the ash heap of history!”

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Florida, stated on X that “the Cuban people want freedom and democracy first. Everything else follows: the right to work, build a business, travel freely, and simply put food on the table. The Castros can delay it, but they cannot stop it. Cuba will be free.”

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