Students at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Havana announced an indefinite academic strike that will begin today if nothing changes.
14ymedio, Madrid, June 4, 2025 — The situation is complicated for the Cuban government after the unrest generated by the enormous increase in the prices of the state-owned telecommunications company Etecsa. Although the authorities announced this Monday a battery of measures with which they intend to calm minds in the education sector, the storm does not subside, and students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing (Matcom) of the University of Havana (UH) announced an indefinite academic strike that will begin today, if nothing changes.
The students released a statement on social networks – later restricted to followers, but not deleted – calling for them to join the protest “bearing in mind that the explanations given in the debate spaces between student bodies and the managers of Etecsa [the State telecommunications company] have not given feasible solutions to the people’s demands.” The students have three fundamental demands, the first being the reversal of the rates announced last Friday, May 30, which multiplied by 13 times the previous prices for some options and prioritized payment in dollars from outside Cuba.
The organizers call for an open meeting with those responsible for what has come to be called the “tarifazo“* and promise to contribute to the analysis and proposal of solutions by sharing their knowledge. They also call for the whole of society to be involved in finding a way out of the situation, and this is perhaps the most significant demand, although it is the most generic. The communiqué closes with a declaration of intent, beginning with a closing of ranks with the regime, and requesting that the response not be limited to the academic sector.
The communiqué closes with a declaration of intent, beginning with a closing of ranks with the regime, and requesting that the response not be limited to the academic sector
“We invite the management of our University of Havana to recognize this legitimate protest, in terms of being a public institution that must represent its students, as it has shown with total interest and conviction so far, to avoid misrepresentation in our revolutionary and honest intentions, which are not content with privileges for the university students but in clear solutions for the people,” demands the statement.
The words do not seem to have found an echo in the University of Havana’s board, which has responded to the call indirectly indicating that meetings were held with those responsible for Etecsa, and the solution must be in this dialogue. “It must be made clear that nothing and no one will interrupt our teaching processes with calls that are totally out of touch with the spirit which has animated exchanges with student and youth organizations,” they warned in a veiled allusion to the call, which became private shortly after publication, as announced by the same officials.
“The Matcom Telegram channel was not deleted. We made it private because people from outside the faculty are entering the group of our institution, and we want to moderate the intentions that can be projected. It is a measure taken by the FEU students themselves to protect the purity of our cause,” they say in a Facebook post, where it was shown that at least part of the University Student Federation, members from the Communist Party machinery who support the regime, are supporting these initiatives.
This was confirmed by the publication of a letter from the FEU Council and the Committee of the Union of Young Communists of the Technological University of Havana José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE), drawn up on the basis of the measures for the student sector announced on Monday. In it, both organizations jointly claim to address the demands of their students when it comes to expressing “again” their dissatisfaction and requesting “more concrete and inclusive solutions in a timely manner,” as well as a “more respectful” position from the Etecsa management.
In the letter, officials who participated in the previous day’s Round Table are accused of “lack of technical rigor in explanations”
In the letter, officials who participated in the previous day’s State TV Round Table program are accused of “lack of technical rigor in explanations” by presenting contradictory graphs on the average consumption of internet data. Although they accept that there is a “cruel impact of the blockade”** and an “urgent need for foreign exchange,” they denounce that “unacceptable inequalities are being generated in a socialist system,” arguing that there can be no privileges for the teaching community. “If the internet should ’prioritize sectors that support the country’s development’, this restriction limits that goal,” they claim.
The letter contains strong criticism of Etecsa, which they accuse of contradicting itself and taking insufficient measures, such as allowing university students to buy two bonuses at the most basic level and hiding the exchange rate used for extra packages, even though it’s obviously the informal rate, plus an abusive lack of transparency. “It is not correct nor is it revolutionary practice to give us news of an immediate implementation without any capacity for reaction or preparation,” they say.
The FEU and the UJC [Young Communist Leagues] launch a battery of proposals to make the borrowing of foreign currency compatible by reducing the damage to the population, including plans segmented by applications, night bonuses for downloads and the extension of benefits designed for students to other sectors, such as professionals and vulnerable groups. “The official solutions have not lived up to the popular demand. They have had disrespectful positions,” they say.
Some official channels and people related to the regime, including the organizer of the El Vedado gas stations and the social group Gente de Barrio organized by Pedro Garcés, have claimed that there are communiqués circulating from several universities “that are false [and] seek to alter the state of opinion and give a general character to this call from the students.” However, the CUJAE letter is not only real and can be downloaded in pdf from the Telegram channel AlmaCujae, but it is also confirmed in another publication of the organization in which Cibercuba is accused of manipulating the news by illustrating it with a photo showing a crowd of students.
“That photo is taken from the start of the course at which Buena Fe was giving a welcome concert,” says the post, despite the fact that the independent media indicates it in the caption. The content of the article, however, is not questionable or slanted.
The FEU of the UH has expressed its opposition, warning that it is in favor of creating a “multidisciplinary group to work with Etecsa” and that it supports the students, but rejects ” media manipulation [and] attempts to alter the normality of university life. We stress the need to respect the importance of the educational teaching process in the current context. The FEU is and will remain revolutionary”, it stressed.
But the fracture is visible in the announcement of the same organization in the Cujae, which uses an energetic and forceful tone against the forms and decisions that, although they have been announced by the company, were taken by the government, As evidenced by the interventions of the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, and senior officials of the Ministry of Communications. Miguel Díaz-Canel himself has expressed his support for the measures taken “in view of the urgent need to maintain and develop an essential service,” and he has promised to explain them better in his podcast Desde la presidencia, which is usually presented on Thursdays every two weeks. However, all indications are that it could be advanced to tomorrow.
The tension is high, even though last night Deputy Prime Minister Eduardo Martínez Díaz appeared on television for another tedious Round Table in which he insisted on exactly the same thing that had been said 24 hours before. “These limitations, although painful, are temporary and respond to the complex economic situation of the country,” he repeated. At about the same time, two agents of the Ministry of the Interior were zealously erasing graffiti from a wall in front of the Universidad José Martí de Sancti Spíritus: “Down with the dictatorship.”
Translator’s notes:
*’Tarif’ translates as ‘price and the ‘azo’ ending in Cuban Spanish is a ’magnifier’. Thus, in this case, the term means roughly: “the gigantic price increase thing”
**There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba in 1962, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in February of the same year, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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