Fundamentals

According to Reuters, Cuba’s national power grid collapsed four times between October 18 and 20. On November 6, Hurricane Rafael triggered another nationwide outage in Cuba. The latest in a series of partial or total blackouts Cuba has endured since early 2024, these have further disrupted daily life for Cubans, who are already grappling with an economic crisis: the Associated Press reveals monthly salaries in Cuba can be as low as $10, making it impossible for many to afford basic necessities. The outages’ intensifying pattern further signals the Díaz-Canel administration’s increasing inability to address their root causes.

Cuban officials have often blamed the decades-long US embargo for difficulties in supplying fuel to the country’s dwindling power facilities. Statistics from the International Energy Agency showed that 83.5% of Cuba’s electricity generation depended on oil in 2022, but the percentage of crude oil produced domestically stood at only 41.9%, forcing Cuba to seek assistance from its political allies. However, in 2023, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found over a 30% decrease in oil exports from Venezuela – one of Cuba’s major oil providers, while Mexico’s oil transfers remained subject to US scrutiny, owing to its sanctions policy.

According to CNN, the US has likewise monitored Russian activities in the Atlantic and the Carribbean. Their ongoing tensions may further complicate Russia’s shipments to its historical partner. Although the US Department of State claims to protect the Cuban people’s rights by ‘restricting economic practices that disproportionately benefit the Cuban government or its military, intelligence, or security agencies’, the cost on human welfare – as reflected in the island’s acute shortage of fuel, electricity, food, and medicine – outweighs any benefits the US may have intended with its economic strategy.

Nonetheless, several experts and academics believe the Cuban government is responsible for its ongoing energy and humanitarian crisis. Speaking to El País, Cuban energy expert Jorge Piñón contends the country’s scarce assets are overstretched by the government’s reliance on fuel-run generators and Turkish-lent power ships as backups for its outdated power plants. Economist Ricardo Torres concurs on the deterioration of Cuba’s infrastructure, citing the country’s poor economic planning and performance as underlying factors. Dr Emily Morris and Professor Nicolas Forsans support Torres’s perspective, highlighting the government’s insufficient and inefficient economic restructuring. In October, the suspension of all non-essential services and schools to conserve energy, as Al Jazeera reported, underscores the government’s propensity for ad hoc measures, which risk aggravating Cuba’s fragile economy and its population’s vulnerability to the critical lack of essentials.

Meanwhile, governmental recovery, relief, and rescue efforts during the blackouts have coincided with attempts to suppress public criticism. Between March and May, Translating Cuba documented numerous arrests related to protests for electricity, food, and freedom. In October, Justicia 11J confirmed 51 protests to have broken out in response to the blackouts, with an undetermined number arbitrarily arrested. Several more were detained in November after Havana and Encrucijada citizens banged pots and pans to demand power be restored, according to Havana Times. The April sentencing of thirteen peaceful protesters to prison terms ranging from 4 to 15 years for participating in a 2022 demonstration against power cuts in Nuevitas is particularly evident of the disproportionate punishments Cubans must face for exercising their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. With a new Penal Code implemented in 2022, the ambiguous articles of which have been warned by Amnesty International as facilitating repression and arbitrary application, dissent in Cuba is in a more precarious situation than ever.

Beyond substandard socioeconomic conditions exacerbated by mismanagement and the criminalization of civil liberties, the blackouts expose a shared trait between the US and Cuban governments: decades of hard-line yet ineffective policies, leaving the populace in a predicament where external pressures compel reforms, yet internal calls for change are resisted. Given how Trump’s sanctions and redesignation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism have further isolated the island, the future of Cuba’s human rights appears more uncertain in the wake of his re-election. It is imperative, therefore, that the international community stand with Cubans in their fight for fundamental freedoms while pressuring the US to abandon its hostility towards Cuba.

Editor: Leah Russon Watkins