The EJT is the name of special units of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba that in addition to their military training are assigned to agricultural work and other production. Since its founding in 1973, 345,000 young recruits in EJT units and 100,000 associated civilian workers have carried out a variety of productive labors—from the cultivation of sugar, citrus fruits, coffee, root vegetables, and tobacco, to cattle rearing and reforestation. As military units, they have set an example of discipline and efficiency, striving to maximize the use of scarce resources. By bringing substantial quantities of produce into the cities on a regular basis, they have helped hold down the prices of basic foods sold in agricultural markets.

Over the past year, the EJT has also been part of the nationwide anti-dengue campaign. Dengue fever reappeared in Cuba a few years ago, a product of the epidemic in surrounding Caribbean countries, where economic conditions created by the deepening capitalist crisis worsen the sanitary conditions in which the mosquito thrives. Cuba also became more vulnerable to a disease that had been eradicated years before. Dengue is particularly dangerous because the Aedes aegypti mosquito breeds in cities, laying its eggs in water storage tanks especially. But the outbreak was defeated by a sustained popular mobilization from the end of 2001 to the beginning of 2003.

During that period, thousands of “special detachments,” including students from the schools for revolutionary social workers, members of the Communist Party and Union of Young Communists, participants in voluntary construction contingents, municipal employees, and health-care workers combed neighborhoods, going house to house in a campaign to destroy eggs, fumigate the mosquitoes, and educate the population on how to eradicate breeding places and keep the mosquito at bay.

This campaign and the broad collaboration of the population in it was possible because of the social priorities established by Cuba’s workers and farmers and their revolutionary government. It was backed up by discussions in factory and workplace assemblies, educational TV programs, and articles in the press. Only two people in Havana died from this debilitating disease. By contrast, the epidemic has continued to have a severe impact in Central and South America. According to the World Health Organization, there were 609,000 cases reported throughout the Americas in 2001—a tenfold increase since 1980. “We’ve taken over from where the students at the schools for social workers and others left off. We’re continuing their work,” said Miguel Matos as he and Orlando Calvo proudly displayed the tools of their trade, including oil and other chemicals for destroying the eggs, and a chart for monitoring the door-to-door work. “Apart from our military training and educational work, the campaign against dengue is our sole activity,” he said.

Some 521 soldiers are part of their brigade, covering 75 blocks in the eastern Havana area surrounding the old Spanish colonial fort known as San Carlos de la Cabaña, where the Havana International Book Fair is held annually.

“We work in groups of 20-30 in 12-day cycles covering about 30 homes,” Calvo explained. “We fumigate, search for, and destroy eggs, and carry out house inspections and educational work.” One weekend a month, high school students join the EJT members in this activity. Altogether, thousands of EJT troops carry out their preventive campaigning in 10 municipalities of Havana covering more than 270,000 dwellings. “The work we do is very popular with residents,” Calvo said. “Most people welcome us into their homes, aware of the success of the campaign over recent years. Should an individual refuse us entry to their home, we have the power to report them to authorities. If reported, they would be visited by a health inspector. But such things happen only extremely rarely. The emphasis is on convincing by argument and example.”

The EJT arose from the Centenial Youth Column established in 1968, an initiative of the Union of Young Communists (UJC). Both Calvo and Matos are members of the UJC. Today about half of EJT members are UJC members, they reported.  
 
 
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