Operation ETECSA: University Protests In Cuba Are Orchestrated By Cuban Intelligence

The recent public protests of discontent taking place in Cuba against the state-owned telecommunications company ETECSA, as an apparent result of the rising prices and dollarization of internet services, are actually creations and designs by the Cuban Directorate of Intelligence (D.G.I.), which are aimed at reinventing, both within and outside of Cuba, the image of the military junta that “governs” the country.

The strategy of the D.G.I. is to provoke and condition these demonstrations in order to foster the artificial perception of an apparently “spontaneous” citizen mobilization that—“to the surprise” of the naïve—they are “allowing,” since, according to them, the Cuban state is indeed “democratic.”

In this case, it is a priority of Cuban intelligence to minimize the possibility of employing brute force while, at the same time, dominating and orchestrating the characterization, flow, and development of these “demonstrations” to prevent them from getting out of hand—a precision operation. It is no coincidence that the most vocal discontent emerges from Cuban universities, which are the equivalent of a playground for the Cuban political police services.

I clarify that I am not saying that the Cuban students who are raising their voices are secret agents. Rather, in this instance, most of them, albeit unconsciously, are providing the tactics necessary to follow the blueprint laid out by Cuban intelligence and the Communist Party of Cuba.

Another key element in the success of Operation ETECSA is relying on the repudiation by us —Cubans from the other shore—toward the Cuban system. But that comes naturally; it’s automatic. Indeed, that is the easiest part and the one that brings the most satisfaction to Cuban intelligence. It is we, the Cubans outside the island, who amplify their plan and provide the international momentum it needs: we are their megaphone. I repeat: without the unconscious support of us—Cubans from the other shore—the strategy of the D.G.I. falls flat.

In this episode of whitewashing, the “Cuban state”—both within and especially outside of Cuba—attempts to project itself as a government that, at present, “does indeed allow” demonstrations, “as long as they are peaceful and aim for dialogue from a humanistic and onehundred- percent Cuban perspective”… and then, well, everyone goes home.

Their plan will have succeeded when, at the moment of controlled “climax,” the Cuban government tells the people that it has “heard” their democratic demands and then follows up with a superficial “easing” of some measures related to ETECSA (not without “blaming the Yankees”).

It is not difficult to understand that if, in Cuba, the majority of the population earns no more than $10 USD per month (which is not even enough to eat), then the vast majority of those Cubans who can pay ETECSA for mobile data depend on economic top-ups made by none other than Cubans from abroad. They are the ones who, on their shoulders, will continue to bear the responsibility of covering in dollars the hours of connectivity for their relatives on the island—a lifeline that the Cuban nomenklatura seeks in the face of the total and growing deterioration of its economy.

This is just one in a series of exercises engineered by Cuban intelligence and the Communist Party of Cuba to launder their reputation through manufactured protests within the island— protests that will enjoy the support of Cubans abroad—in order to promote the erroneous idea that the Cuban people are, “in a democratic fashion,” publicly and vocally exercising their rights in a “free Cuba.”

Objective achieved: an exercise of reputation laundering and, at the same time, a new influx of greenbacks—yet another chapter in the Cuban military junta’s push toward state capitalism. Communism is the best business for the capitalist elite.

Enrique Alejandro is a political analyst