With cries of “freedom, freedom!”, several groups of protesters staged a cacerolazo against the blackout this Saturday night in Jagüey Grande, Matanzas. The protest gained strength in the vicinity of the municipal government, in the center of town, according to videos posted on social networks.
“The government has heated up,” said one of the neighbors who recorded with his phone the moment in which the protesters shouted at the leaders “asking for answers, no more grind.”
In one of the videos, it can be seen how the neighbors demand loudly, in the municipal park, that the electrical service be restored. After several minutes, the street lights are turned on and the group, outraged, begins to shout “freedom!”.
“That’s to see people’s faces,” says one of those present, alluding to the use of the videos of the protests, by State Security, to locate and arrest the protesters.
“Fifteen minutes later they took it down again,” said journalist Suney San Román, so the residents decided to go to the municipal government to continue the protest.
The inhabitants of Jagüey Grande had already protested in several occasions during the summer of this year, and the response of the authorities was the same: turn on the power for a few hours and remove it the next day.
The energy crisis on the Island worsened with the passage of Hurricane Ian, when the Government alleged that the main transmission lines electricity between Matanzas and the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant had been damaged, causing the collapse of the National Electric System.
The discontent caused by the shortages, the blackouts and the mismanagement of the Government triggered a new wave of protests in late September and early October, especially in neighborhoods and municipalities of Havana.
The discontent caused by the shortages, the blackouts and the mismanagement of the Government sparked a new wave of protests at the end of September and the beginning of October
Initially, the demonstrations were not responded to violently by the Police, but later several paramilitary groups, armed with sticks, mobilized and attacked the population and proceeded to multiple arrests.
The president of the Provincial Defense Council of the capital, Luis Antonio Torres Iríbar, then stated that “protesting is a right”, although he qualified his statement by disqualifying “yesterday’s protests”, which “instead of helping, slow down the fulfillment of the mission and that desire that we have to have full recovery in the shortest possible time” .
The Electric Union predicted for this Sunday a generation deficit of 52% for the hours of greatest consumption. The generation capacity will be 1,951 megawatts (MW), with a maximum demand of 3,000 MW, for a deficit of 1,049 MW. The overcoming of 50% in the deficit for a few days represents new days of blackouts of up to twelve hours a day.
In recent months, two disasters have served the Government as an alibi to justify the national energy crisis: the explosion in the Matanzas Super Tanker Base and the damage caused by Cyclone Ian in the western provinces of the country.
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