Cuba’s communist Castro regime on Wednesday launched military exercises to “increase the country’s readiness for defense” following the start of President Donald Trump’s new administration.
According to the communist regime, the military exercises seek to raise the country’s defense readiness and troop preparation to face the “different actions of the enemy” — namely, the United States.
The military exercises, titled “Bastion 2024,” are being led by nonagenarian communist dictator Raúl Castro and his figurehead president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. The exercises will run through Saturday, January 25, the day the Castro regime celebrates its “National Day of Defense.”
“Compatriots, during the next three days we will carry out the Bastion 2024 strategic exercise to continue raising the level of preparation and cohesion of the leadership and command bodies,” Díaz-Canel said to Castro and his fellow communist officials, ”the troops and the territorial defense system at all levels and thus, together with the people, confront any variant of aggression against our homeland.”
Díaz-Canel and Castro appeared in propaganda photos wearing military garb.
Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, described the military exercises as an “essential element in the materialization of our doctrine of the war of the whole people.” Díaz-Canel reportedly stressed the importance of continuing to strengthen the country’s “military invulnerability.”
“Bastion 2024,” Granma explained, calls for various types of tactical maneuvers that Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces, Interior Ministry, and other defense-related institutions will carry out through Saturday. According to the communist newspaper, Castro and the regime officials described the goals of the operation as “combating irregular migration activity, crime, crime control, and actions to address challenges on social media.”
Granma did not specify if “irregular migration” meant the hundreds of thousands of Cubans that have fled from communism in recent years in what is now widely considered Cuba’s worst migrant crisis in its history — the direct result of more than six decades of disastrous communist policies that have pushed the nation to the brink of complete ruin.
Díaz-Canel stated on Wednesday that the Castro regime is carrying out the military exercises while being subject to the allegedly “totally hegemonic, interventionist” policy of President Donald Trump’s new administration — which, the figurehead president claimed, “treats Cuba with tremendous contempt.” The regime is especially irritated by Cuba’s reintroduction to the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism, approved by President Trump in the first hours of his administration on Monday.
The Cuban figurehead president also said the “battle” against America must be carried out on social media” for the “vindication of Cuba,” which, he explained, must start with the “participation of all revolutionaries with the means to work on social media, not only to be present, but also to generate content in defense of the Revolution.”
According to the Cuban presidency, the “Bastion 2024” military exercises also include the participation of a “Student Bastion.” Cuban state news channel Canal Caribe reported on Wednesday that Cuban youth residing in the municipality of Sancti Spiritus were taught “political-ideological preparation, confrontation with the unconventional war and theoretical and practical classes” and the use of the AKM assault rifle.
Cuba imposes two years of compulsory military service for young men sometime between the ages of 18 and 28. Nine young Cuban men subject to compulsory conscription died after two explosions occurred at an ammunition depot in the eastern municipality of Melones, Holguín, this month – a facility the regime uses for “war material.” The explosion killed 13 Cuban military officials.
Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz reportedly stressed the determination of the Cuban people “in the face of the arms capabilities of the United States.”
“It serves to send a message to the U.S. government that, as has always been said, they are prepared, they have the most modern equipment and weapons, but they lack what we have in abundance, which is the willingness to fight and die to defend the homeland,” Marrero Cruz said.
Immediately after President Trump took office on Monday, the communist Castro regime launched a “military preparations” campaign to prepare against “U.S. imperialism.” On Tuesday, Díaz-Canel participated in a shooting practice session with Cuban university students
“He [late dictator Fidel Castro] said: ‘As long as imperialism exists, the Party, the State and the People will pay the utmost attention to the services of defense.’ It is an inviolable principle,” Díaz-Canel wrote on social media on Tuesday.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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