Max Lesnik dies, controversial figure of Cuban exile in the US

Cuban journalist Max Lesnik, director of «Radio Miami Today», died this Saturday in that city, according to sources close to this controversial figure of Cuban exile in the United States.

«Radio Miami Today dresses and extends his most felt condolence to his family, and all those who during his life, without repairs, understood the tireless Cuban, whose maximum aspiration was that Washington respect the sovereignty of Cuba and that his people were the protagonist of his destiny,» he wrote that medium in his social networks.

Born in 1930 in turns, Villa Clara, from a Polish father and Cuban mother, Lesnik became involved from a young age in political activism, as a member of the Orthodox party. Then he participated in the fight against Fulgencio Batista, in which he reached
be part of the second National Front of the Escambray, commanded by Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo.

With the arrival of Fidel Castro to power on January 1, 1959, Lesnik resumed his work as a journalist, publishing chronicles in the magazine Bohemia and driving a daily program in the National Radio station.

His criticisms of the links between the new regime and the communists of the then Soviet Union (USSR) led to the break with Castro, whom he had met in his university years.

In 1961 he exiled in the United States, where he remained for decades as an open critic of the «hard hand» approach against the Havana regime that many members of the Cuban exile community in the US embrace.

Among his most controversial positions was to criticize the operation of Bay of Cochinos, facilitate in the 70s the dialogue between the Cuban community in the US and the authorities of Havana; and be part of the approach between the Catholic Church and the communist regime on the eve of the historic visit of Pope John Paul II to Cuba in 1998.

Throughout his life he remained as a figure close to Fidel Castro, with whom he met in 1978 in Havana, and a fervent defender of the communist regime from exile, through his work as a journalist and at the same time activist of the Martian Alliance group.

Numerous official media on the island have recognized this Saturday the closeness that the exile with the Cuba regime, a country that visited frequently and where it was received in the highest spheres of power.

Cuban dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel offered on Saturday condolences to his daughter Vivien and the family and friends of Lesnikwhom he described as an «irreducible Martian.»

The journalist said he was the objective of a dozen attacks in the US for his support for Castroism.