This Is the Cuban Official Who Tried to Silence the U.S. Ambassador to the UN

The official from Cuba’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations who appears in the video posted by U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz is Richard Tur de la Concepción, according to an image analysis conducted by elTOQUE. Waltz accuses him of attempting to intimidate UN staff into cutting off the U.S. delegation’s microphones during the debate on the embargo on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

Tur de la Concepción is listed in the Cuban Foreign Ministry directory as first secretary of the mission in New York, in charge of matters related to the Fifth Committee, the General Assembly body that deals with the UN’s budget and administration. In April 2024, the official newspaper Granma identified him as first secretary of the Mission in its coverage of Ambassador Ernesto Soberón’s presentation of credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. 

In December 2024, he spoke on Cuba’s behalf in the debate on the organization’s 2025 budget and, on other occasions, has spoken on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

The Allegation

After the session, Waltz shared the video on X and wrote that one of the Cuban regime’s “diplomats”—his quotation marks—pressured UN staff to silence the U.S. delegation while he was “exposing the regime before the entire world.” According to the ambassador, when one of the diplomats on his team realized what was happening, the Cuban official also tried to intimidate him.

The video shows the official identified by elTOQUE as Tur de la Concepción attempting to forcibly snatch away the phone a U.S. diplomat was using to record him and swatting at him.

Waltz did not identify the Cuban diplomat by name in his post.

Diplomáticos cubanos ante la ONU confiaron a una vendedora de motos los trámites de sus envíos a Cuba

En los correos filtrados de la Embajada cubana en Washington descubrimos que, en julio de 2025, dos diplomáticos de la misión cubana ante la ONU y su hija de 13 años firmaron poderes notariales a favor de la misma persona para enviar vehículos a la isla. Los adultos enviaban dos motos de fabricación china y casi 70kg de paquetería. La apoderada resultó ser una prolífica vendedora de artículos varios, entre ellos motos, en los grupos de compraventa que abundan en redes sociales. En la tercera edición de Los archivos de la embajada levantamos las irregularidades del proceso.

The American who recorded the video is J.P. Freire. According to Freire, the Cuban official lashed out at him for recording him inside the General Assembly and then warned him that if he did the same on the streets of New York, he would have the right to sue him for violating his privacy. Freire, who called him a “violent foreign leftist,” questioned that claim: the Cuban delegation’s own team, he said, was recording throughout the chamber.

Freire said the Cuban government sought “once again” to intimidate staff in the chamber into cutting off Waltz’s microphone for exposing “the dictatorship’s hypocrisy and wealth at the expense of the Cuban people.”

“While the Cuban mission tries to silence criticism of the Castro regime’s abuses and wealth, they want to avail themselves of U.S. rights they do not even understand,” he wrote.

What Happened in the Chamber

The incident occurred during one of the most tense sessions of the annual debate on Cuba’s resolution against the U.S. embargo.

During his remarks, Waltz accused Fidel Castro of sending “thousands of gay people, Christians, Afro-Cubans, and others to concentration camps.” The Cuban delegation responded by pounding on their desks, while Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla shouted toward the rostrum, demanding that General Assembly President Khalilur Rahman call the U.S. ambassador to order.

Then, as other members of the Cuban delegation pounded on their desks and shouted, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez rose from his seat, walked to the podium, and shouted at Waltz: “You are a liar!” The ambassador replied: “Do you understand who you are dealing with? This is the United States. Back off.”

“This is the United Nations. This is not your communist dictatorship. You cannot silence me or my colleagues,” Waltz stressed. “Imagine what happens when someone asks these questions in Havana, rather than in a room full of ambassadors and cameras. Imagine what happens to those people if this is the intimidation and disruption we see here,” he added.

Rahman threatened to suspend the session. When he finally gave the Cuban foreign minister the floor, Rodríguez accused Waltz of attacking “the dignity of the Cuban people and government.” Waltz resumed his speech, but the Cuban delegation again interrupted him by pounding on their desks.

A Pattern

This is not the first time the Cuban delegation has tried to silence the U.S. ambassador. In July, during a special session on the embargo convened at Havana’s request, Cuban diplomats interrupted Waltz by pounding on their desks and shouting objections. Last week, members of the delegation confronted him as he left an event organized by the U.S. mission in New York, where former Cuban political prisoners denounced repression on the island.

The interruptions, the shouting, and now the allegations of pressure to cut off microphones reveal a diplomatic corps that, when faced with criticism, resorts to the same methods the regime uses against dissent on the island: silencing anyone who speaks out.

The General Assembly will vote on the resolution against the embargo this Wednesday.