The first day of the school year in Cuba left images that the opposition figure José Daniel Ferrer García reported as a display of institutional intimidation: Special Troops conducted hand-to-hand combat demonstrations in front of children and parents at a primary school in Havana.
According to a video shared by Ferrer on Facebook, the event took place at the primary school "Amistad Cuba-México," located in the El Fanguito community, Plaza de la Revolución municipality, Havana.
The official justification was that this military force "sponsors" the school, but the leader of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) rejected that version: "They went there to intimidate, to sow terror, to tell those children who go out, many of them with their mothers, to protest on the streets of Havana, on 23rd Street, in El Fanguito."
The demonstration included martial arts and hand-to-hand combat performed by the officers in front of the minors.
Ferrer interpreted the implicit message of the event as a direct warning to those who have taken to the streets to protest against blackouts: "This is how we will strike you if you continue to demonstrate against the blackouts, against hunger, against misery."
The Special Troops of the Ministry of the Interior are a shock force designed to suppress protests or civil uprisings.
For its part, Fanguito, a marginalized neighborhood where many families without resources reside, has been a center of protests against the regime in recent months.
On July 29, their neighbors blocked 23rd Street after more than 48 hours without electricity, water, or gas, and the next day, State Security detained at least two mothers in retaliation.
At the end of August, around 50 residents -mostly women- demonstrated again with a strong police presence in the area.
While this was happening in Havana, in Santiago de Cuba, a teacher welcomed her students with a speech on political resistance, an act that was also reported by Ferrer in a video.
At the welcome ceremony of the «Santiago Callejas» primary school in the Altamira neighborhood, a teacher delivered a politically charged speech to the children—ranging from preschool to sixth grade: "You are the lineage of Caguairán, and that is what our commander left us. We will resist and we will recover. Because if the war against us is a battle of ideas, we will win it with our thoughts."
Ferrer described the speech as "sickly ideological indoctrination" and pointed out the contradiction between that message and the reality faced by Cuban children: "Thus has begun the new school year across the Island, with hunger and a lack of basic necessities, without transportation, without properly functioning classrooms, without enough teachers, without snacks, and with numerous limitations regarding textbooks and school materials."
The opposition leader added that a school uniform for the small and medium enterprises in Santiago de Cuba costs 3,000 Cuban pesos, a price that "the majority of parents cannot afford."
Ferrer summarized what happened on the first day of classes: "Only a desperate tyranny, a sadistic, criminal tyranny would do this."
The political indoctrination in Cuban classrooms is not new: in April, it was reported that preschoolers in Havana were forced to chant slogans like "Fidel," "socialism," and "militiaman."
The regime declared 2026 as the "Year of Preparation for Defense" and incorporated military exercises in educational institutions, including shooting with AK rifles and laying mines at universities during the Student Bastion in March.
All of this happens while Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented educational crisis.
The minister, Naima Ariatne Trujillo Barreto, acknowledged that schools would open under "very difficult" conditions: the teacher shortage exceeds 24,000 teachers—12.5% of the positions—and only about 20% of the students have new uniforms, at a time when blackouts affect 70% of the country during peak hours.
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