Manzanillo (Granma)/When the official information on the death of nine young men from the Military Service—in addition to four officers—in the explosions on January 7 in the Melones military unit, in Holguín, had not yet been issued, other parents, this time in Manzanillo, said goodbye to their children on a forced march to the Army. Starting on Monday the 13th and for a week, the headquarters of the Combatants Association in Gulf City became a launching pad for more than a hundred boys who left to carry out their controversial Active Military Service.
For Yanaisa, saying goodbye to her son reminds her of her father’s stories about the Army. “He was not an internationalist but he was frequently mobilized when I was a child. I told my brother that the Army would make him a real man. Now, with everything that has happened, he barely talks about it, he just says that you have to know how to take care of yourself. “I don’t want my son to become a ‘man’, I just want him to get out of there soon,” he explains to 14ymedio.
For 45 days, young recruits undergo basic training known as “previa” and are then transferred to the scheduled regular units, which vary according to the needs of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. In Granma, after the initial stay in Jiguaní, they are transferred to units such as Managua, in the west, or Los Guineos, in the municipality of Guisa, in the province itself. However, the families’ greatest fear is not in the distances.
“He green It’s not like scholarships. There are people who think it is almost the same but it is not like that. Nobody knows what really happens there. Now everyone is surprised by the explosions in the tunnels, but there are those all over Cuba. In addition to the bad treatment of most of the officers, there are also bad nights, there is hunger… If someone likes it and wants to dedicate themselves to the military, there is no problem, but for the rest of us it gives us more work and to a large extent, Except for me, it was a waste of time,” admits Rody, who accompanied his family to say goodbye to his cousin.
The resistance of family members and young people themselves to joining military service, despite the perks with which they try to encourage them, is increasingly evident. “It’s already on board, but the bad things go away quickly. I encourage my sister… but it’s hell,” Rubén, 53, comments angrily to another man sitting next to him in the park while they wait for the bus on which his nephew will depart.
“I myself know a boy who came out somewhat upset. It was in the early 90s. We were cleaning the rifles on one of those long tables and one of them missed a shot because he didn’t check the chamber. At the tables we were not facing each other, but in a zigzag, but the bullet buzzed close to his head. To make a long story short: it affected his ear for a while, but the worst thing was his mind. He started thinking about what had happened and almost went crazy. Although we were almost discharged, they did not discharge him, they just changed his position,” the man recalls.
In the past, one of the most attractive options for serving years of military service was to be selected as a firefighter. However, after the catastrophe at the Matanzas Supertanker Base and a fire shortly after at the local Fishing Combine, the dangers of that work were exposed.
Rebeca, who does not hide her anger, says in front of the group of parents and recruits waiting for the buses: “I don’t care what others say and I told them so. Let them talk what they want, let them call him soft, a criminal… What matters to me is that he takes care of himself. This is mandatory, but if they tell you to do something strange, do nothing. As if he sits on the floor and they put him in prison. I prefer him imprisoned and alive than in a little box. I don’t even want to think about that. Look at those mothers from Holguín, who have not even been able to bury their children. Wow, I’ll die if something like that happens to me!”
In 2022, a year after the 9/11 protests, the regime declared before the United Nations that “children are not and will not be recruited in Cuba.” The words of the Foreign Ministry official resonated in the heads of many parents, who know that the statement and the replacement of the name of Compulsory Military Service (SMO) with General Military Service (SMG) or Active Military Service (SMA), are just euphemisms. Under the acronym hides the forced incorporation into a military entity that increasingly has greater popular rejection.