By Charles Makakala Amonth or so ago, I was invited to speak at a forum where one of my fellow panellists was Prof Elgidius Ichumbaki, the current chairman of the University of Dar es Salaam Academic Staff Assembly (Udasa). After the session, we connected over his academic work on Kilwa–a place of deep personal interest to me.
I promised to follow up for more materials on its rich history. I will, for Kilwa, I believe, deserves a far greater place in our cultural and intellectual conversations.
Last week, however, it was not Kilwa that brought Prof Ichumbaki back to my attention, but an Udasa communique titled “Cuba Shall Never Die”. It was an interesting document.
For starters, it read like a script pulled straight from a 1970s politburo meeting. It was full of phrases such as: “US fascist puppet dictator”, “warmongering” and “Long live the Cuban Revolution”.
This is an ideological dialect that I am familiar with–and I was hoping it died with the USSR. But here we are–courtesy of our own “UD” scholars.
In the statement, Udasa expresses unreserved solidarity with Cuba, condemns US sanctions, and demands their removal. The authors wax lyrical about Cuba’s anti-colonial and humanitarian in Africa.
In their eyes, Cuba is a vanguard of resistance against imperialism and a symbol of humanity’s finest values. That last bit left me uneasy.
Initially, I hesitated to respond. Not having spoken to Prof Ichumbaki since our panel discussion, I wondered whether writing this article was prudent.
But my hesitation evaporated after reading a reaction from a former senior government official who celebrated the communique as a revival of the “golden era” of intellectual activism at “UD”: the age of Cheche, Walter Rodney, revolutionary politics, etc. I had heard enough.
After all, the Cold War rhetoric was only a small part of the issues I saw in Udasa’s statement. Firstly, the text presents Cuba’s economic struggles as though they were caused exclusively by American sanctions.
Certainly, sanctions have imposed costs, but to attribute Cuba’s predicament solely to Washington ignores decades of economic mismanagement and the suppression of the private sector in Cuba, leading to queuing in agonising breadlines. Secondly, while Cuban doctors have undoubtedly delivered valuable services across Africa and beyond, Udasa ignores the fact that the Cuban government reportedly retains up to 90 percent of the salaries paid by host countries while severely restricting the doctors’ freedom of movement.
To portray the entire system as purely “selfless humanitarianism” is a slap in the face to healthcare workers being financially exploited by Havana. Thirdly, the statement suffers from absolute silence about political oppression under the Cuban regime.
How can members of an academic assembly blindly cheer for a one-party state where independent academics, journalists, and protesters are routinely jailed or exiled for dissenting? Let us be clear: Cuba was good to Africa, and we should never forget that history. But historical solidarity does not grant an eternal licence to oppress one’s own people without scrutiny.
We should oppose any oppression that harms Cubans, whether it comes from within or without. The two positions are not contradictory.
Indeed, Cubans themselves make that very argument. Statistics suggest that even without sanctions, the revolution took Cuba backwards.
On the eve of the 1959 revolution, Cuba was a prosperous middle-income country with a GDP per capita equivalent to Spain’s and higher than Portugal’s. Over the decades that followed, much of Latin America moved forward while Cuba stagnated.
Today, Cuba imports 80 percent of its food, its once-vibrant independent media has been extinguished, and its historical GDP per capita growth ranks among the worst in the world. Little wonder so many Cubans vote with their feet: between 2022 and 2024 alone, roughly 500,000 migrated to the US, many hoping external pressure will force their government to change course.
This raises an obvious question: why is Udasa spending its limited institutional capital on geopolitical declarations about a Caribbean island while ignoring the views of many ordinary Cubans themselves? Critics might call it virtue signalling–projecting radicalism abroad while overlooking pressing realities at home. Tanzania is currently navigating an unprecedented political and social moment.
Udasa has the opportunity to issue fiery statements every week if it wishes. Why, then, is its voice so rarely heard on matters at home? And before anyone cites the October 2025 communique, that statement was issued six months ago.
I do not wish to be disingenuous: it is not safe for Udasa to speak freely on domestic matters, and I do not expect them to do so. However, one can still expect nuance, balance, and intellectual restraint rather than rhetoric that reads like pamphlets from another era.
Finally, what about the American blockade? I answered this question in January when the Americans unseated Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela: when you kill thousands of your people, I do not care how justice finds you, as long as it does. The Americans may often overreach, but they serve as a blunt instrument of pressure for millions trapped under repressive systems.
I think our friends at Udasa have forgotten who they speak for–not regimes, but citizens whose freedoms and dignity are trampled upon. Charles Makakala is a Technology and Management Consultant based in Dar es Salaam .