Read Part 1

Indeed, the spirit of the leftist pedagogue Paulo Freire permeates the state-run curriculum in Cuban educational centers. And, of course, it also permeates the academic gatherings held there. Furthermore, according to Werlau, regime agents focus on recruiting attendees at academic events and exchange programs in Cuba.

The same applies to entities that operate under the names — and the cover — of ostensibly educational institutions. A clear example is the Autonomous University of Social Movements (AUSM), which, until the COVID-19 pandemic, organized and promoted trips for students to “study” in Cuba for 12 weeks. It did so through the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, an affiliate of the state-run University of Havana.

“You will encounter a reality in Cuba unlike anything you have experienced. The total absence of commercial advertisements, the existence of mass organizations structured by the State, a continually evolving socialist revolution that includes free health care and education (imagine no student loans!)” — this is what the website promised young Americans.

The program was to be guided by a “social justice framework.” It included academic credits for studying the island’s history, politics, and current affairs.

What was not included — one can easily imagine — were the mass executions that marked the beginning of the Revolution, the violations of due process that persist to this day, and the repression directed against dissident voices.

The program sought to “deconstruct” the reality on the island, only to reconstruct it in the image and likeness of Havana’s propaganda.

“In the mainstream US media, Cuba is a dictatorship, plain and simple. But the reality on the ground is much more complicated,” the website asserted.

It also spoke of “the Cuban dream of an egalitarian society that includes subsidized food, free health care and education, free day care, and guaranteed jobs,” and described the regime as “grounded in nationalism, built on the foundations of sovereignty, equity, solidarity and Cuba’s particular brand of Marxism.”

The AUSM required interested students to be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at an accredited U.S. institution. And its program director was Ernesto Fidel Domínguez Mederos — a former Castro-era diplomat in Ethiopia and intelligence agent, according to the dissident website Cuba Independiente y Democrática.

Even today, these types of courses in Cuba — presented as structured educational programs — are permitted under the travel restrictions of the U.S. embargo, pursuant to General License 515.565 (a)(1)-(3).

How many other programs like the AUSM’s remain active, targeting new generations of Americans?

In alignment with President Trump’s executive order from last January — which declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security — the continued existence of this category of travel to the island should be reconsidered.

There is a recent precedent.

In January 2021, the U.S. Department of State — under the first Trump administration — reinstated Cuba to its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism.

Consequently — and as was the case before Cuba was removed from that list by the Obama administration in 2014 — pursuant to Florida Statute 112.061.3(e), no state funds may be used to travel to Cuba.

The statute emphasizes: “Travel expenses of public officers or employees for the purpose of implementing, organizing, directing, coordinating, or administering, or supporting the implementation, organization, direction, coordination, or administration of, activities related to or involving travel to a terrorist state shall not be allowed under any circumstances.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) is right. Little to no good could come from an academic “exchange” with a criminal enterprise — one that invests in undermining American democracy just as the Cuban totalitarianism does.

Academic networks that function inside the U.S., also represent a platform for Castroist spies and propaganda.

Republican political operative Roger Stone considers, for example, that the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) “has long functioned as a platform for Cuban intelligence — hosting regime operatives, organizing solidarity events for the ‘Cuban Five’ spies from the Wasp Spy Network, and even honoring expelled Cuban spies who had operated under diplomatic cover.”

The association, he says, has been thoroughly penetrated by Castro-aligned academics and intelligence assets.

“On multiple occasions, the U.S. State Department itself has denied visas to Cuban ‘academics,’ deeming their presence detrimental to national interests,” mentioned Stone. “In short, LASA has become a fertile ground for Havana’s intelligence services — a forum designed to identify, cultivate, and ultimately recruit agents of diverse backgrounds.”