On the night of Friday, May 30, the same day that the Cubac Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) announced new restrictions and exorbitant prices for mobile phone access, the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) launched a national surveillance exercise in communities across the island under the name "Popular Exercise for Safety and Order." The coincidence between these two actions is not coincidental and has certainly not gone unnoticed.
With a country plunged into a deep economic crisis, and following the immediate impact of ETECSA's new policies, which restrict recharges in Cuban pesos to only 360 CUP per month and promote data packages in dollars, the prevailing sentiment among citizens is not one of safety, but of control.
The MININT mobilized grassroots militants, active officers, retired military personnel, and community leaders. The official justification: to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the Ministry of the Interior and to strengthen security at health centers, schools, and strategic facilities.
However, the timing coinciding with one of the year's most unpopular economic measures has raised strong suspicions. For many observers, the exercise is not coincidental, but rather a staged act of preventive social control, a way of reminding the population that the State is vigilant, even before they can organize.
The new policy from ETECSA was met with widespread outrage. But what was truly unprecedented was the outburst of criticism on social media and even on Cubadebate, the flagship portal of the Cuban government.
In just a few hours, more than 1,300 comments flooded the site, most filled with sarcasm, fury, and frustration. One reader summarized it sharply: “Let’s be serious. This is not an offer; this is armed robbery. Another attack on those who already have very little”.
The new price scale speaks for itself:
15 GB for 11,760 CUP: nearly six times the Cuban minimum wage.
4 GB for 10 USD: available only for those who receive remittances or access foreign currency through MiTransfer.
One of the most shared comments sarcastically remarked: “The supply booklet has arrived at ETECSA. An extra plan exceeds the minimum wage. Now this is truly an achievement of the Revolution.”
In this context of increasing digital exclusion, the nighttime deployment of MININT is not perceived as a festive or commemorative activity, but rather as a symbolic and preventive warning aimed at reaffirming territorial control in the face of a possible social outbreak.
The photographs published by MININT depict a tense atmosphere: agents trained in silence, official speeches in front of uniformed lines, and mobilization in several provinces until midnight. The scene evokes not so much a celebration, but rather a preemptive response to an increasingly frustrated citizenry.
The most significant aspect of this day is not just the brutality of the economic measure, nor the nighttime police show, but rather the fracture that begins to open within the official narrative. The criticism did not come from opponents, exiles, or influencers, but rather emerged from within, in the spaces where there was previously only silence or applause.
This time, neither the technocratic speech from ETECSA nor the territorial surveillance by MININT could contain the outcry of hundreds of Cubans who feel that each decision pushes them further away from their right to connect, to express themselves, and to simply live.
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