A Sergeant Named Batista

Chapter 13

The process of growing up in Cuba, particularly for those who hope to acquire an education at the University of Havana, frequently creates serious problems for the youngster, the parents, the government, and, in fact, for the Cuban people in general. Admittedly a fine institution in many respects, the University of Havana has for many years been the central point for inexcusable, outrageous public disorders--disorders which would not be tolerated in any other university in the world.

There have been times when the two-hundred-year-old university's position as a center of culture and high learning has been jeopardized by the misdeeds of some of the students, who have tried to establish themselves as a special class, entirely immune to the laws of the university, the laws of the nation, and the laws of decent deportment.

Scholastic routine has, in many cases and on many occasions, been subordinated to the political finagling of immature youths who apparently have never beard of discipline and show no respect for constituted authority either in or out of the university. It is the unfortunate truth that in some sectors of the university life the activities of the students have been more anarchic than scholastic.

Certainly during the early nineteen-thirties the students at the university devoted more of their time and energy to political activities, which frequently were as violent as they were useless, than they did to learning their lessons, and they continued to contribute substantially to the political unrest in Cuba for the next twenty years. It is true, perhaps, that only a relatively small number of the more than fifteen thousand students enrolled at the university have been responsible for most of the trouble, but the responsibility for the traditionally bad conduct, practiced inside and outside the university, must be shared by the whole student body.

When students and faculty members, good or bad, allow their institution to become an asylum for known gangsters, when they permit huge arsenals to be assembled and stored in the university for revolutionary purposes, when they fail to prevent the fabrication of murderous bombs in their chemical laboratories, the whole university must take the responsibility.

For a long while the public was willing to pass over these student incidents with a sort of "boys-will-be-boys" attitude. But the people finally realized that it is one thing to eat live goldfish or participate in panty raids, but quite another to toss bombs, destroy public and private property, and shoot policemen.

The University of Havana, a government-supported institution, enjoys a greater freedom of action than any university I've ever heard of, and it is this freedom, or rather the abuse of it, which is responsible for most of the absurd maliciousness which has been identified with university life for so many years.

Since this freedom of action is responsible for the long, bad record of the university, it might be well, at this point, to explain this unique arrangement between government and university.

During the regime of Machado, in the years prior to 1933, the students were an important annoyance to the government. In the case of the student activities against Machado it might be said that these militant youngsters contributed a great deal toward the downfall of a tyrant. They did. A number of students were assassinated by Machado gun men, and there is no reason to believe these fighting youngsters were inspired by anything other than patriotism. University students earned and were given a substantial share of the credit for the ousting of Machado.

So violent was the anti-Machado campaign at the university that be suspended all scholastic activities at the institution for nearly three years. From Machado's standpoint, this was a mistake, of course, because it solidified and strengthened the student movement without achieving his purpose, which was to destroy an important segment of the Machado opposition.

But after Machado fell, on August 12, 1933, the students became a privileged class. They swaggered through the streets of Havana wearing special arm bands indicating that they were a kind of self-appointed police force, with the right to make, interpret, enforce, or break laws in accordance with their own whims. When Grau San Martin stepped into the Provisional Presidency in September, 1933, the students thought they bad inherited the earth. Grau, a university professor himself, welcomed los muchachos into the government, and he humored, pampered, and consulted with them on all his political moves. Perhaps this adulation on the part of Grau distorted the students' appraisal of their own political importance.

In October, 1933, less than two months after the deposition of Machado, the Grau government issued a decree-law recognizing the autonomy of the University of Havana. There can be no doubt that the government's action was well intentioned. Machado had interfered with even the simplest legitimate scholastic affairs at the university, and in suspending classes he denied the youth of Cuba the right to a university education. The Grau government's action in recognizing the institution's right to autonomy was an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the evils of a Machado. But from the day the university obtained its autonomy, certain small but powerful groups of students have violated the spirit of the whole arrangement. They have carried on campaigns of disorder and they have participated in acts of terrorism. The unlawful and frequently violent, if not actually traitorous, acts of these groups in 1935, hardly a year from the day the university got its autonomy, made it necessary to suspend the autonomy for a period of time. The Island of Cuba was passing through another of its frequent political crises at the time, and there was real danger of a general strike. The ruffian element among the university students became more disorderly than ever, thereby aggravating an already turbulent situation. When autonomy was suspended, and for months thereafter, only a few of the university's normal functions were carried out. University life was almost at a standstill.

In 1937, after a study of the university's problem, the Cuban Congress passed a law re-establishing autonomy and modifying some of the rules and regulations at the institution. The legislation established the rector as the head of the university and created a University Council of thirty-nine members which, with the rector, would serve as governing body. The same law set up a government subsidy for the university which was fixed at two-and-a-quarter per cent of the total amount of the nation's annual budget. The university was compelled to account to the Minister of Education for the administration of this fund. There have been a number of controversies over the budgetary appropriations to the university. The University Council has, at times, claimed it never received the full amount of the appropriation, while the Ministry of Education has stated that the university failed properly to account for its expenditures.

There have been several interpretations as to bow far the university's autonomy extends, some of the university leaders insisting that the university is a kind of separate state, with a status similar to that of the Vatican. The university's autonomy was guaranteed and secured in the Cuban Constitution of 1940, and a university police force was established. University police are responsible to the rector of the institution and they have no direct connection with the other law enforcement groups in Cuba. Some of the university leaders insist that no other law enforcement group has jurisdiction on university property, but the law, as passed by Congress, specifies that when serious alteration of public order occurs in the university, the autonomy can be suspended. Once autonomy is suspended, members of the regular law enforcement groups, such as the National Police and the Cuban Army, acquire jurisdiction over university property as as well as university students. The idea, then, that the university enjoys a status similar to that of the Vatican is a false one. It does not.

Another troublemaker in the university setup is the loose restrictions on matriculation. So inadequate are the entry requirements that it has been a simple matter for gangsters, political agitators, especially Communists, and all sorts of undesirable elements to enroll in the institution and get the benefits of the immunities inherent in the semi-autonomous status of the university. It has also allowed demagogic politicians to enroll and use the university as a platform from which they could attack governments and individuals without the danger of being called to account for what they said. The laxity in entry requirements has, over the years, resulted in the enrollment of a number of middle-aged "students" who have absolutely no interest in scholastic achievements. It has been said, facetiously but perhaps truthfully, that Havana University has the distinction of having more baldheaded students than any university in the world.

University officials have admitted that gangsters, Communists, and other varieties of troublemakers use the university as a base of operations, but the university people say, rather apathetically, that such activities only reflect the troubled times through which Cuba has been passing.

The situation at Havana University was best described in a series of articles in the Havana newspaper Diario de la Marina, a thoroughly objective publication, traditionally sympathetic to the university and its problems. The articles were written early in 1953, when university students were on one of their customary disorderly conduct sprees.

After crediting the university with real achievements in certain fields, the writer of the newspaper articles directed several questions to university authorities.

"What" he asked, "has the University of Havana done with its absolute autonomy? Who introduced the system of free matriculation which should never have replaced the system of competitive registration, by which an underprivileged student, who displayed outstanding ability, could enter the university? Who converted the university campus into a separate republic, with the right to stone omnibuses, annoy citizens, organize political meetings, and engage in other activities completely foreign to normal university functions?

"University autonomy," the writer warned, "cannot be utilized by anyone, whether professor or student leader, to do within the university what the citizens outside the university cannot do because such things are expressly forbidden by the nation's laws."

But regardless of the intent of the law which gave the university autonomy, it is true that the institution has been a source of great annoyance to the people of Cuba. The almost continuous bad conduct of its students, even though the number of ruffians among them may be small, has seriously, and perhaps permanently, damaged the prestige of Cuba's major institution of higher learning. Furthermore, the scandalous antics of university students have added to the woes of the Republic during one of the most difficult period of its young life.