The regime and its media apparatus insist on denying the university protest against ETECSA's price hike, yet videos continue to emerge featuring interventions from young people opposed to the rising costs of Internet access.
This is the case of the images shared by the user @SanMemero on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which capture the moment when a young woman, in the midst of what appears to be a meeting at the Salvador Allende Faculty of Medical Sciences, explains that her mother, an officer of the Ministry of the Interior (Minint), with the rank of Major, will not be able to pay her the more than 3,000 pesos for the ETECSA package she needs to study.
"My mom is a senior official at Minint, and her salary doesn’t allow her to pay me those 3,000 pesos and some. Her salary just isn’t enough, even though people think that those at Minint live well. But parents who want their child to succeed... I don’t know a mother who cleans floors and a father who picks tobacco; are they going to be able to pay that for their children? Not everyone here has Mipymes or businesses," the young woman remarked in a polite tone, but visibly dissatisfied.
Although the intervention is incomplete, background expressions of support from classmates can be heard, who adopt his argument and join in the applause, similar to what another student from the Medical Sciences received after reproaching the representatives of his Faculty and the University Student Federation (FEU) for their attempts to convince them of the benefits of ETECSA's price hike.
The video of the young medical student who criticized the dollarization of Internet and mobile data rates in Cuba, favoring those with family abroad, has spread like wildfire on social media and has become a symbol of the youth discontent that media affiliated with the Communist Party deny.
Another medical student also exposed the high rates charged by ETECSA. This happened on Thursday during an intervention that went viral on social media due to its strength and clarity in refuting the arguments of the Telecommunications Company and the regime itself, amidst a crisis caused by the increase in internet tariffs.
"They are restricting our internet as a company, as a monopoly, because this is the only company we have in Cuba. I would like them to explain to me again how I can have balance if I can't top up from abroad. Because I can have 10,000 pesos of balance and recharge all the 360 pesos packages I want, but... how do I get that balance?" he asked.
"How can I have a balance if they do not recharge internationally? It's a lie that Pepe or Armando will make transfers to me via Transfermóvil because they also need to have a balance to do so. So... If I can't have a balance without recharges from abroad, this measure is not socialist, comrades," he said, dismantling the argument of the Communist Party.
Another medical student recalled in a meeting that the purpose of ETECSA, when it was created in 1994, was to modernize and expand telecommunications services in the country, but quality has always been its Achilles' heel. “Where has all the money collected over this time been allocated, and why does the public have to take responsibility for its mismanagement, poor administration, and bad investments?” she asked during a meeting.
ETECSA has justified the new rates by citing operational difficulties and the need to maintain the network. However, many users and experts have called the validity of these justifications into question, accusing the company of incompetence and a lack of transparency. The official explanations have been seen as a strategy to justify an unpopular rate hike.
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