In the eastern province, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences has threatened students, while the university rector asks for “no repression.”
14ymedio, Havana, 9 June 2025 — The students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computing (Matcom) of the University of Havana, the first student group to call a strike against Etecsa’s price increases (el tarifazo) — which affect internet and phone service — is also the first to cancel the strike this Monday, while it continues in other parts of the country, particularly at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Holguín.
The voting at Matcom reveals, however, a high level of discrepancy, since only 51% of participants (173) voted in favor of returning to the classroom, while 82 students were opposed and 25 abstained, according to information provided by the Council of the University Student Federation (FEU).
During the coming week, says the text, they will wait for the results of the working group that is evaluating solutions to the conflict, while other ways of showing their dissatisfaction and concern that do not affect the teaching are considered. They express confidence that a solution will be found to ensure “the right of the people to free access to information and communications”.
The hill of the University of Havana is apparently back to normal]
This Monday, according to 14ymedio, the hill of the University of Havana is apparently back to normal. There was student movement at Matcom, while the cafeteria near Philosophy, History and Sociology was closed for electrical problems. The students rested in the shade on the benches of one of the courtyards.
In contrast, the situation is different in the east of the country, where, according to sources, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences in Holguín has personally warned the scholarship students, one by one, of the consequences for their future employment. Despite this, the majority of students at the provincial university are not going to class, whose rector has called for “no repression of the students”. Students are coming to the classrooms, according to these same sources, only to meet and organize the protests.
The unrest generated in the universities remains latent, whatever the decision, to the point that the official media, La Joven Cuba, published an editorial whose title itself points out the gravity of the situation for the authorities: “Time is running out”, and it develops the idea that this crisis “may define the fate of the country”.
The editorial goes beyond the mere tarifazo in practical terms and questions the actions of a government that makes decisions without the citizenry and without responding “effectively to the demands rightly made”. It says that what happened was predictable. According to 14ymedio sources, the workers of the state telecommunications monopoly, Etecsa, did not know until Friday the 30th what the price changes were going to be. “It’s going to be loaded,” said a Holguín employee at the meeting, where several warned of the criticisms that would rain down.
The editorial of La Joven Cuba says that the tarifazo goes beyond a specific issue and channels a malaise that spreads like an oil stain by the impoverishment of “many segments of the population”. Meanwhile, it reproaches, nothing changes in the political culture of the State. “Those who designed and supported the announcement of the measures assumed that it was enough to communicate them for the people to accept,” a decision that not only is a “communication error” but also a “political” one.
The text goes further: it deplores the verticality of the State and points directly to the military conglomerate Gaesa, the real owner of Etecsa, which is “a very difficult obstacle to overcome” for its “preponderance” in the economy and the fact that it “escapes” not only from popular control but also from the supervision of the State and the Comptroller’s Office.
The editorial also asks for explanations – coinciding with what this newspaper warned about after the appearance of Miguel Díaz-Canel in a podcast – because the alleged technological disaster of Etecsa has neither been reported nor planned to avoid this situation. “And, above all, why should the population pay more for services that don’t improve and suffer, without alternative, the consequences of the poor management”?
The text leaves no stone unturned. It accuses the government of leaving the country without a business law in a situation of economic collapse; of continuing with a dollarization that does not offer outlets to the population but only more problems; and, above all, of “entrenching itself in the notion that current conditions cannot be changed”. Although it admits that there are limitations arising from the blockade, this argument cannot be used by the government without being accompanied by the “necessary criticisms of its economic and political management”.
“The Cuban Government seems to be more comfortable making strong denunciations of what the opposition says or does, rather than addressing the real problems facing it internally,” it continues. However, it does consider that “although the PCC has lost leadership, opposition movements organized inside and outside the country have not been able to fill these gaps – among other factors, because they do not present a viable and credible plan to improve the living conditions of the majority”.
The long text ends by urging authorities to realize that the main damage “is not to people’s pockets, but to trust, already difficult to sustain” and reminds them that they have less than two months to act. “If the government is not able to reverse course; if the National Assembly of People’s Power does not reflect this malaise with debate in July; if ultimately, the politics do not change and the integral reform of the economy is not pushed once and for all, the time will come when there will be no room for maneuvering, no political confidence to rescue”.
Meanwhile, groups protesting the tarifazo continue to emerge. On Monday, the messages of rejection from several Christian churches in Cuba, such as the Pentecostal, the Presbyterian and the Baptist, traditionally linked to the opposition, have spread, according to Martí Noticias. In addition, a call for a “boycott” by the exile community continues to circulate on social networks, asking that those in the community not contribute by paying for recharges in the hard currency that the regime so desires.
“I would never dare to ask them to stop sending remittances for food, because, unfortunately, food for Cubans depends on the people they have on the outside. But the phone refills are different; it will not affect them greatly if they cannot access more data with gigabytes”, said activist Saily González Velázquez, who lives in Miami. She, like other exiles, accuses the state telecommunications company of carrying out a new kind of “apartheid” among Cubans, this time a technological one.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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