The measure, promoted by students at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science and the Faculty of Philosophy, History and Sociology at the University of Havana, was supported by the Faculty of Audiovisual Media Arts (FAMCA) at the University of the Arts (ISA).
Cuba’s one-party regime has come out to deny that there are any protests and that these are ‘foreign’ versions. But the reality is different.
In the last few hours, the Faculty of Communication and Literature of the University of Holguin has also spoken out and called for “an indefinite academic strike from June 7th and until the measures are revoked“. “We are not a privileged minority, we are the voice of a people tired of paying for inefficiency“, they argued in their statement.
At the same time, mathematics and computer science students reaffirmed their decision in an assembly to maintain the teachers’ strike in protest at ETECSA‘s measures, describing them as “a direct aggression against the Cuban people“. “We are mobilising for social justice, not for crumbs“, they wrote.
The Faculty of Biology publicly denied the authority of the national president of the FEU, Ricardo Rodríguez González, whom they accused of not representing the real opinions of the student body. The Faculty of Philosophy, History, Sociology and Social Work demanded his immediate resignation, describing his administration as “conformist, passive and uncritical“. (Quotes from CiberCuba editorial office, 5/6/2025)
The university students, as part of the Cuban working people, are fed up with the governments economic adjustments that talks about ‘socialism’ but has restored capitalism.
Many still believe that Cuba is a socialist country, but it is no longer the case any more. There is no socialism in Cuba. It is a repressive one-party regime which, like China, rules for the nouveau riche and their alliances with the multinationals. The economy is dominated by the so-called ‘mixed enterprises’, where the Cuban government is associated with the multinationals and allows people to work for wages of 20 to 100 dollars.
From the IWU-FI, we stand in solidarity with the student protest in Cuba, and defend the right to protest and strike and warn against any attempt of repression by the government.
Statement by the collective ‘Socialists in Struggle’
ETECSA went from offering a minimum Internet access at a price of 110 Cuban pesos, to offering the most demanding option, an extra bag of 11,760 pesos in national currency, which represents a difference of more than 10,000%, equivalent to multiplying the costs by a factor of 100 at its maximum. The company also reduces access to 6 gigabytes per month in the first bag of use, while it is promoting the expansion of extra bags priced from 3,360 Cuban pesos, equivalent to 1.6 times the minimum wage, or 2.2 basic pensions for a retired person.
This latest package adds to the concert of anti-popular measures with neoliberal overtones promoted by the highest leadership of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). The government ratifies its will to promote economic extractivism of a rentier nature, instead of strengthening the productive capacities of the national industry, in a way that leads to the valorisation of employment and its reflection in the wages of the workers. The popular revolutionary solution against an impoverishing and authoritarian regime is the road to the re-establishment of justice and the well-being of the Cuban people.
