Training of active military units, shooting of segments of the population including students, fire extinguishing practices and how to respond in the economy to natural disasters, were part of the actions of Cubans in recent days.

By Roberto Morejón

Training of active military units, shooting of segments of the population including students, fire extinguishing practices and how to respond in the economy to natural disasters, were part of the actions of Cubans in recent days.

It was not a show of force or the squandering of the limited material resources available, as exposed in social networks and the so-called independent journalism, financed mainly from the United States.

Nor is Cuba flirting with imagining a war, as one newspaper headline perfidiously claimed, because the residents of this country work every day to maintain peace and create the conditions for the improvement of the general welfare.

The eventuality of external aggression is NOT a mirage but a latent danger, given 60 years of persistent hostility from a nearby power.

Precisely, even in the midst of the pandemic due to the new coronavirus, the US administration maintained the tightening of the blockade dictated by Donald Trump, in contrast with an oratory protected, he says, in the control of human rights guarantees.

The above is coupled with plans to foment subversion, with the use of internal agents for regime change, hence the Cubans choose to preserve the nation's safeguard schemes.

But Cuba's defense training also contemplates initiatives for the economy to be ready to preserve its assets in case of natural disasters or accidents.

All the springs of society must also be ready for such an eventuality, hence the test to mitigate an alleged contingency at Havana's Jose Marti airport.

And this is not the time to neglect internal order and political work, when Cuba is resisting a huge media crusade, supported by the networks and the corporate press.

The Moncada 2021 Strategic Exercise and the National Defense Day have been left behind, but the lessons learned are very useful to express oneself effectively in the face of hurricanes, fires, epidemics and the not at all discarded intervention plans, as well-known terrorist agents usually remind us from Miami.