SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The young Adrián Rodríguez García, 19 years old, died on December 31, 2023 while spending the Active Military Service in Cuba, just a few hours after receiving a visit from his mother.
According to the story offered by a source close to the young man, CiberCuba, Adrian, a native of Santa Clara, was supposed to finish his period in the Service at the beginning of December. However, the officers of the unit known as Manuelita delayed the process and on the last day he was still not released.
According to the story told by CiberCubaOn December 31, when he was on guard duty, he received a visit from his mother, who brought him food “because it was the end of the year.” Then, the young man told her that he only had four or five days left in the military unit, before finishing his service.
Upon returning home, four hours after the visit, the officers contacted the mother to reveal that her son had died in an accident.
Adrian was run over outside the military unit after his superiors authorized him to leave. A drunk driver without a driver’s license hit him with his car and fled the scene.
No culprits or investigations
A week later, according to the independent media, the driver was arrested when he tried to leave the country.
So far, the authorities have not claimed responsibility for the young man’s death nor have they offered explanations for the delays in the process of his release from the Service.
“I complain to the military because they let him out and they say that he wanted to leave,” said the source, adding that the young man would be alive if he had obtained his discharge in time and had they not let him out on the night of his death, when he should have been at home with his family.
“They cleaned themselves up,” said his friend. “We were counting on him being in the Las Minas penitentiary, going through the service, and they let him out and now he is dead,” he lamented. “He was a cute child, full of dreams.” According to the person who offered the testimony, the young man had to undergo emergency surgery for appendicitis and “four months after the operation, the officers sat on him and made him do push-ups.”
“We thought we had only four or five days left to finish this horror movie. Now we are useless,” he concluded.
Mandatory service
According to the National Defense Actservice is compulsory for men between 17 and 28 years of age for a period of 24 months. In the case of those who have obtained university places, this period is reduced by half.
Despite A Cuban official assured the UN that this recruitment was voluntary.the compulsory nature of Cuban Military Service has never been questioned.
This was reinforced by the 2019 Constitution, which prohibited the use of conscientious objection to avoid compliance. Young people who refuse to join, arguing, for example, that taking up arms is not compatible with their religion, are prosecuted.
According to the new Military Penal Code Published last June 2023, those who evade the Service can suffer up to five years in prison.
Deaths in Military Service
Teenagers or young people who experience SMA face an adverse environment that not everyone can bear. In addition, they are left with firearms that they have sometimes used against themselves or others.
In a database built by CubaNet, At least 31 deaths have been confirmed in a survey seeking to gather information on SMA-related deaths hidden by the Government.
The main cause of death in the Service is suicide (10 cases). All the young people included in the database used their weapons to take their own lives.
Some of them, like Maikol Arcia, who had an intellectual disability, had expressed desires to self-harm. This teenager should have received psychological help and been kept away from weapons, but the military assured the boy’s family that his suicidal thoughts were “bad manners.”
Suicide constitutes the third cause of death for this age group in CubaAcademic research on the subject places bullying among the main causes (bullying), depression, among other factors that emerge during recruitment and have caused increased reports of self-inflicted injuries.
The data from the database constructed by this medium show that the second cause of death is accidents (7), followed by murders (6). Regarding accidents, the case of Ernesto Miranda stands out, who allegedly shot himself unintentionally.
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