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Cubans stage rare protests demanding electricity, food

Cubans staged rare street protests on Sunday, March 17, over food and electricity shortages as the island suffered long outages that left some areas without power for up to 14 hours a day.

Social media platforms were filled with images of protests in Santiago de Cuba, the island’s second-largest city, with 510,000 inhabitants. There were also images of protests in another large city, Bayamo.

Unprecedented mass anti-government protests by citizens clamoring for food and greater freedoms amid deep economic and social woes in communist Cuba in July 2021 were forcefully put down. Nearly 500 protesters were sentenced to prison terms of up to 25 years, according to the authorities, on charges including sedition.

President urges ‘dialogue’

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel responded to Sunday’s protests by urging “dialogue” with the people in an “atmosphere of tranquility.”

“Several people have expressed their dissatisfaction with the electricity situation and food distribution,” Diaz-Canel said on X, warning that “enemies of the Revolution” aimed to exploit the situation. “The disposition of the authorities of the Party (…) and the Government is to attend to the complaints of our people, to listen, to dialogue, to explain the numerous steps being taken to improve the situation, always in an atmosphere of tranquility,” he said.

Diaz-Canel also denounced “terrorists based in the United States (…) who are encouraging actions that go against the internal order of the country.”

The US embassy in Havana said on X it was aware of reports of “peaceful protests” in Santiago, Bayamo and other parts of Cuba. It urges the Cuban government to “respect the human rights of the protestors and address the legitimate needs of the Cuban people.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez responded on X, urging Washington not to “interfere in the country’s internal affairs.”

‘Very difficult’ situation

Cuba has been experiencing a wave of blackouts since the start of March due to maintenance works on the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the island’s largest. The situation was worsened at the weekend by a shortage of fuel needed to generate electricity. The outages left areas such as Santiago de Cuba without power for up to 14 hours a day.

Cuba’s power comes from eight old thermoelectric power plants, generators and eight floating electricity plants leased from Turkey, which were also affected by the fuel shortage. The cash-strapped island nation imposed a more than 400% fuel price hike this month as part of an economic recovery plan.

The nation of 11 million is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s due to fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the recent tightening of US sanctions and structural weaknesses in the economy.

According to official estimates, the Cuban economy will shrink by 2% in 2023, while inflation reaches 30%. Independent experts say this is likely an underestimation. There are chronic shortages of fuel and other necessities and the government subsidizes almost all of the goods and services consumed by Cubans.

Le Monde with AFP