If Cubans have learned anything since the government began applying scheduled power cuts, it is that if they protest, the power comes back on. That’s how it was this Wednesday night, when they made their neighboring pans sound again from San Antonio de los Baños and Güira de Melena, both in Artemisa.
In San Antonio, local residents sent this newspaper a video in which the noise of the utensils can be seen, in the middle of the darkness, and the usual cries of “turn on the current”. The cacerolazo lasted half an hour, until they put on the light, around nine o’clock at night.
“The electricity should have come back at eight at night, but it was twenty past eight and they still hadn’t put it on. They put it on because of the protest,” says a neighbor in this city of Artemisa, which on July 11, 2021 was the first to take to the streets.
“In the Hospital area they gave candle, and then they don’t want to remove it from there,” explains the man, referring to the demonstration last night, when residents of that and other neighborhoods took to the streets. “But the hours that correspond to that cast they want to put on us, and it’s not fair,” he laments indignantly.
“The electricity should have come back at eight at night, but it was twenty past eight and they still hadn’t turned it on. They turned it on because of the protest”
In neighboring Güira de Melena, a resident confirmed to 14ymedio a similar demonstration this Wednesday night in the center of the city, the fourth in less than a week. “Today it has gone to extremes with the light; they put it on at half past eight after five hours, and up to now they have removed it four times,” lamented this source, who ironically calls it “removable current.”
To these places, which accumulate several days of protests, Sancti Spíritus was added this Wednesday, a city until now conformist, despite being one of the most affected by blackouts, among other things. for being one of the first where they were decreed these measures.
A collaborator of this newspaper heard the conversation of the policeman who guarded, on Wednesday night, the Sancti Spíritus visitor’s house destined for the Communist Party cadres. The agent told his interlocutor that there had been a cacerolazo and that they were sending him photos of some people “that they had detected” at the demonstration.
From this conversation it was inferred that State Security had been alerted that there would be a protest in front of that official building and that, thanks to the cacerolazo, they turned on the light immediately, before the scheduled time.
The agent told his interlocutor that there had been a cacerolazo and that they were sending him photos of some people “that they had detected” at the demonstration
These demonstrations join the already numerous ones that have taken place in recent days in various places on the island, such as Saint ClareBejucal, Holguin, Hundred fires, Santiago de Cuba or Pinar del Rio.
As a consequence of them, according to Justice 11J, have arrested a total of 57 people, 33 of them still in police custody. The legal platform, created to follow up on the hundreds of defendants after the demonstrations in July of last year, has registered nearly 60 protests on the island due to power cuts since June 14.
For this Wednesday, in addition, “all citizens tired of being trampled” in Holguín were ordered to demonstrate against “this abusive regime.” “When the authorities show up and try to stop us, let’s unite more than ever; no one falls during the march, no one rides a patrol, no one abandons anyone,” says an anonymous text spread through private messaging channels. It is not known, so far, if the call was successful.
In any case, the inhabitants of the Island are fed up with this situation and are outraged by the crazy solutions proposed by the official websites. The Electric Union of Havana requested, through its instant messaging information channels, that savings be made in all the “blocks” into which the blackout schedule is divided. “The rest of the clients of the other blocks would be very useful at this time for us to save and it will reduce the time of affectation of the clients of block 4,” they literally wrote via Telegram.
Faced with this, the Cubans sharpen their ingenuity. A resident of Luyanó, for example, told this newspaper that when the power goes out in her “block”, a neighbor of the adjacent building, which already belongs to another demarcation, “throws me an extension when she has electricity so that I can connect a fan”. When she is the one with electricity, she does the same with the neighbor in the next building. “Solidarity between the blocks,” jokes the woman.
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