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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 HAVANA 000168 

SIPDIS 

SIPDIS 

DEPT FOR WHA/CCA 

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/18/2017 
TAGS: CU PGOV PHUM PINR PREL
SUBJECT: CUBAN YOUTH CAUGHT BETWEEN HOPE AND FEAR 

Classified By: COM: M.E. Parmly : For reasons 1.4 b/d 

¶1. (C) Summary: In two meetings Cuban youth groups said 
young people see that they have a historic opportunity to 
create a change in their country. However, they report 
widespread fear among the population. They state that Cuban 
youth want change but are unclear as to what exactly these 
changes would entail. After the government has subjected them 
to intense indoctrination for years, the young people have 
only a vaguest ideas about how the various forms of 
democratic government work and how market economies function. 
The idea that unites most of Cuban youth is the desire to be 
able to make choices. Youth report massive and increasing 
police harassment of Cuban youth, whether political involved 
or not. There are significant differences in opinion on how 
strong the opposition is based on whether the young people 
are affiliated or not with specific opposition groups. Youth 
groups report that their biggest problem is the ability to 
distribute information. Many of the young people do not 
support the US embargo, but this policy does have some strong 
defenders. End Summary. 

¶2. (C) Pol off held a meeting of young people at his house 
on XXXXXXXXXXXX attended by 29 people, mostly between
the ages  of 17 and 25 with a few older members of some
organizations.  Some belonged to civil society organizations but
several were  not members of any specific organization. On
XXXXXXXXXXXX  hosted at his residence a group of 19 members
Of XXXXXXXXXXXX This group included several active university
students. It  is especially notable that XXXXXXXXXXXX has more
success engaging in  dialogue university students from the eastern
part of the  country than from any other region. XXXXXXXXXXXX
has recently  gathered more than 5000 signatures to demand autonomy
in the higher educational system and the reopening of the Villanueva 
Catholic University. The students stated that their interest  was not
specifically for the restoration of Catholic  education but rather for a
return to Cuba's rich cultural  tradition of private universities. 

¶3. (C) Both groups discussed a recent incident where a 
student at a College of Computer Science sharply questioned 
Ricardo De Alarcon, President of the Cuban National Assembly. 
Some members of XXXXXXXXXXXX expressed that this
episode indicates  that students were more willing to speak up. 
On the other  hand, everyone of the other group of 29 young
people thought  that this was a staged incident put on by some
members of the government to embarrass Alarcon. No one in
this group could  answer why the government would want to
publicize the very  issues that the group had already listed as
the things that  most anger ordinary Cubans, namely, the lack
of basic goods  and the preferential treatment given to foreigners.
However,  this consideration did not dissuade any of the young
people  from their conspiracy theories. 

¶4. (C) Another split between the groups was that the 
XXXXXXXXXXXX  students represent that practically no
one in Cuba supports  the government, while the unaffiliated
youth maintain that many people support the regime, beginning
with their own  parents. This group stated that the government
operates a  very effective propaganda apparatus and many people
simply  have no other source of information. One person
described  the process of disenchantment with the government
as "the  slow lifting of a veil." All of the youth believed that they 
had a historic opportunity to institute change because of the 
passing of authority from Fidel Castro and due to what they 
perceive as confusion within the government. However, the 
group at the meeting of XXXXXXXXXXXX told Pol off that
Cuban young people in general don't have a clear picture of
what a change would mean. They said that they have only the
most  rudimentary idea of how various democratic governments
are  structured and how market economies work. They said that 
even above all Cuban youth want choice and the ability to end 
government control over every aspect of their lives. 

¶5. (C) Many of those present expressed that young people are 
the number one target of increased repression by police and 
state security officials. They said that youth are harassed 
for a whole host of reasons, most of them unrelated to 

HAVANA 00000168 002 OF 003 

politics. They said young adults are constantly stopped in 
the streets and when their ID card shows an address other 
than Havana, they are forcibly shipped back to their 
hometowns with a warning never to return. Several black 
youths stated that there are many neighborhoods where the 
police practice racial profiling and threaten with arrest any 
Afro Cuban youth hanging out in the street. XXXXXXXXXXXX
aid that they recorded  during 2007 in Havana 3000 incidents of
young homosexuals  fined or detained for simply congregating in
the street and  12 cases of young homosexuals sentenced to prison
for two to  four years under the law of "dangerousness" simply
because  they returned to a park that they were told to stay away 
from. Nearly everyone in the room had a story about being 
threatened recently by the police. The group said police 
harassment occurs at all times of the day in every part of 
the country. 

¶6. (C) The XXXXXXXXXXXX did feel that despite a lot of
fear  there is potential for a large scale student movement in 
favor of autonomy for the universities and academic freedom. 
The other group stated because of fear of expulsion, and the 
present of a large number of willing government 
collaborators, the universities were the last place to expect 
the emergence of a large scale, activist youth movement. 
XXXXXXXXXXXX, expelled from university for refusing
to  participate in a demonstration against a dissident, said that 
despite many problems with poor physical facilities and bad 
food, conditions at the universities have improved recently 
due to large scale Venezuelan investment. Many of the 
unaffiliated youths stated that the potential for explosion 
is in the high schools, where senior students not placed on a 
university track see themselves with little to lose. Citing 
an incident on February 1 where a 17 year old novice teacher 
threw a chair and killed a 12 year old, members of this group 
told numerous stories of the lack of teachers and the 
assignment of young, barely trained teachers, with neither 
the knowledge nor temperament for dealing with students, who 
are close enough in age to be their peers. They said that 
there are numerous instances of physical abuse of students, 
pedophilia, sexual harassment, and solicitations of bribes to 
change grades. In many instances teachers play an 
educational program on television for the classes and do not 
attempt otherwise to instruct the students. XXXXXXXXXXXX
l stated that she goes to many  schools where the walls are
crumbling, the building is  infested with insects, the furniture is
broken and there is no food to feed the children. Many of the
youths stated that parents are very frustrated with the lack of
response from  the school authorities. As part of the "lifting
of the veil" phenomenon, many parents are now questioning the
value of  much of the education system such as mandatory
participation  in "patriotic" activities and military training
over the  weekends and forced labor picking coffee or fruit
in the  countryside for a month and a half during the school year. 

¶7. (C) Youth groups agree that their biggest problem is 
getting out information which is now largely word-of-mouth. 
There were several complaints that the outlets devoted to 
Cuba news are nearly completely focused on the traditional 
dissident movements. Many participants in the meetings 
expressed admiration for several long standing opposition 
leaders but clearly said that neither they nor the Cuban 
exile community represent the thoughts of Cuban youth. 

¶8. (C) On 13 February there was a vigorous discussion of 
the US embargo. The vast majority thought that the embargo 
was a bad idea. Many had stories about how meetings with 
actual Americans had positively changed their opinions about 
the US. Several thought that the ending of the embargo would 
mean that the GOC could not continue to blame all of the 
problems with the economy on the embargo. Five others 
vigorously defended the embargo stating that the lifting of 
it would be a huge propaganda victory that the GOC did not 
earn by any action. 

¶9. (C) Comment: Cuban youth is probably the most difficult 
group for XXXXXXXXXXXX to contact because of a high
level of fear.  It is plain from the sheer number of repressive
incidents  reported that this is the group that the government
 fears the most and subjects to the most harassment

HAVANA 00000168 003 OF 003 


.There are differences in the opinions of youth about the
possibility of change based on geography and whether the
youths are  affiliated with opposition groups. By and large
young people  do not know what type of change they are looking
for. Their common desire is for choice, and a release from the
control  of the government over every aspect of their lives. 
XXXXXXXXXXXX continues to work to expand contact
with youths at every  level of Cuban society. 
PARMLY