HAVANA, Cuba. – With a view to giving continuity to the spirit of that tremendous phrase from the 60s and 70s ―“The University is for revolutionaries”―, which left hundreds of students who did not classify within the parameters accepted by Castroism out of the classrooms , the regime’s leaders decided that the best thing was to militarize the university environment.
Thus, in many of the university courses, the Military Chair was created, through which male students had to dedicate one day a week to prepare in a certain military specialty. And then, at the end of their studies, they had to serve for six months in a military unit, with the ranks of lieutenant. After that period they were demobilized, but they would be controlled as reservists, which meant that they could be called to active duty at any time. Something that happened with certain frequency, especially during the times of Cuba’s military presence in Africa, when many times the staff of military units was not covered.
Later, in the context of the so-called “War of all the people”, the machinery of power chose to transfer university students, men and women, to the Militias of Territorial Troops (MTT), which included monthly days of military preparation. Needless to say, not belonging to the MTT implied the separation of the student from the university classrooms.
Another of the modalities that has been applied is to make the student, once graduated from pre-university education, and with the university degree awarded, must spend 14 months of Active Military Service (SMA), to then be able to access the university.
Even some highly sought-after university courses, such as International Relations, where Castro’s diplomats are trained, require that students of both genders spend a year as members of the Border Brigade, very close to the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo, as a preliminary step to studying that specialty.
Also, as part of encouraging the incorporation of girls into female military service, the regime offers the possibility of entering universities, in the careers of their choice, to young women who agree to belong to the Armed Forces for a certain period of time.
If we take into account the service that, in one way or another, the university student must provide in the Armed Forces, and the fact that during his transit through the Alma Mater he is obliged to hide his true way of thinking – the much mentioned double moral – in order to be accepted into such an ideologically exclusivist university, we come to the conclusion that the much-vaunted free higher education in Cuba is a fallacy. In reality, there is a lot of price to pay for being a university student on this Island.
Thus, last Tuesday the University Bastion was held in all higher education centers in the country. Occasion in which the students received military training, in addition to an ideological harangue in favor of the regime.
It is striking that this University Bastion took place one day after the funeral honors of those killed in the explosion of a military warehouse in the province of Holguín. Nine soldiers who passed the SMA are among those declared dead, which has unleashed a wave of opinions against the mandatory enrollment of young people in the Armed Forces.
But the Castro regime ignores these requests. The most important thing for power is to continue militarizing youth, and especially university students.
