Hundreds of Cubans took to the streets in various places in Havana on Thursday night to demand that the authorities restore the electrical service that was still cut off in many homes on Friday, after a total blackout of the national energy system caused by the passage of the cyclone. Ian.
Neighbors banged pots and pans and spoons shouting “We want light” in at least five places in the capital, The Associated Press found. Internet was cut off and cell phones were limited. In a tour on Friday through the areas of the protests, no crowds were observed, but the tension was notable among the neighbors.
“What situation is this country going through? I’m Cuban, I’m a revolutionary, but I don’t understand,” Valentín Gómez, a 51-year-old bricklayer, told The Associated Press. “They who rule here are not giving the front (the face)”.
Gómez explained that he did not see a solution from the authorities to the power outage, while time passed and his food spoiled in the refrigerator.
These protests are the first since July 2021, when thousands took to the streets due to blackouts and to protest the shortage of basic goods exacerbated by the pandemic and US sanctions.
Ian, a monstrous hurricane that crossed Cuba to the west, left three dead and an as yet unquantified amount of material damage while causing an electrical fault that – for the first time in living memory – left the island completely in the dark.
The Electric Union reported that the national energy system is already interconnected, but that there are damages caused by the hurricane to the infrastructure -poles, power lines, transformers- that will take time to be repaired. On Thursday it was reported that only 10% of the capital’s population had power.
“This is a peaceful protest, we want them to give us electricity and water. What is this, people have lost their food, the only food there is!” Complained 21-year-old Natali Manso, mother of a month-old girl, during a demonstration that lasted until early Friday morning in Bacuranao Campo, in the outskirts of the capital.
More or less similar scenes were experienced in three places in the Cerro Municipality. In other places more isolated saucepans were felt, as in Cojimar.
Groups that monitor Internet access confirmed to AP the interruption of service.
“We can confirm the almost total blackout of the internet in Cuba,” said Alp Toker, director of Netblocks, a London-based firm. “We believe the incident is likely to have a significant impact on the free flow of information amid the protests,” he added.
Doug Madory, director of internet analytics for the network management company Kentik, described what happened as a “total blackout” that started at 00:30 GMT and gradually returned more than six hours later.
In the places where there were protests, a strong police presence was verified during the night of Thursday, but on Friday the troops had been withdrawn. In a street the uniformed men made a cordon to prevent the passage of vehicles and pedestrians who were not locals.
During the claims there were no acts of violence or vandalism, although neighbors indicated that there were arrests by the police.
The US embassy in the capital posted on social media its solidarity with the protests and demanded that the government “respect the constitutional rights of its citizens to assemble peacefully.”
Experts assured that Cuba must now deal with the vulnerability of its energy sector and the generation difficulties that it already had due to the lack of maintenance and resources to modernize it.
“The structural problem with the Cuban electricity sector already existed before the hurricane. They will be able to take measures to improve their behavior in the short term… but the leak in the boiler will occur again, sooner or later. There is no short-term solution,” Jorge Piñon, director of the Energy and Environment Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Texas, told the AP. “In the long run… a lot of money.”