René González is a former member of Cuba’s “Wasp Network,” set up to combat the terrorism long directed against the island by far-right Miami exile groups. Following the murder of over two hundred Cubans in sustained attacks on the country’s aviation, shipping, and tourism sectors — organized by figures like CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles — this intelligence unit worked to infiltrate and undermine the terrorist milieu.

Immortalized in the 2019 Netflix film Wasp Network, González is best-known as one of the so-called Cuban Five. After the FBI broke up the Wasp Network in 1998, González and four of his colleagues were put before a Florida court in a trial internationally condemned for its lack of due process. He was sentenced to a fifteen-year jail spell, and finally returned to Cuba in 2013.

Today living in Havana, González saw first-hand the July 11 protests that captured international attention. In an interview with Voces sin Fronteras, hosted by Jacobin contributing editor Denis Rogatyuk, he spoke about the current situation in the capital, the history of US attacks on the island, and a six-decade-long economic blockade affecting even Cuba’s trade with third countries.