Power outages in Cuba have been a constant in recent years, the lack of fuel that powers the plants and their obsolescence has caused major problems, but none comparable to what the island is suffering these days. A major blackout that the Cuban Government has not been able to resolve, and that has already triggered protests in some parts of the island, which will cause a new escalation of repression by the regime. “A repressive wave that had already been happening – especially against journalists – and that we have been documenting in recent weeks,” Johanna Cilano Pelaez, Regional Researcher for the Caribbean at Amnesty International, who is currently in Madrid, tells ABC. For Cilano, the blackout in the Caribbean country represents “one more step of a total deterioration of living conditions on the island, which has to do with a systematic lack of attention, maintenance, care of the energy system, and with access to fuel that the energy system needs. It is a combination of two things, an overwhelmed and obsolete infrastructure, due to the lack of investment, and also the lack of fuel to generate electricity. Related News report If Cuba, a blackout of repression and extreme misery Camila Acosta | Correspondent in HavanaAdded to this is also the lack of transparency and information that exists in Cuba to be able to have independent evaluations “of how the electrical service is. What the authorities tell us is that there is no certainty as to when the electricity supply can be recovered with some stability. “What the authorities tell us is that there is no certainty as to when the electricity supply can be recovered with some stability.” Johanna Cilao Pelaez, Regional Researcher for the Caribbean at Amnesty International, also points out that this problem is not new: «This summer there have already been major blackouts; “The province of Camaguey had an average of 15 hours of blackout per day throughout the summer.” A time in which the Caribbean climate causes an overdemand for electrical supplies, “which caused some alarm signals already at that time.” Cilao insists that the collapse of the system has not come from nowhere, he had already given warnings. “Its lifespan is limited,” he emphasizes. Turkish Patanas During the last decade, Cuba has signed some agreements with countries such as China and Turkey for the supply of energy to the island, which consumes eight million tons of fuel each year, of which which produces three million, while the rest has to acquire them on the international market, mainly from Venezuela. However, the energy patches implemented by the Cuban Government have not covered the country’s needs. In 2018, the Turkish company Karpowership signed the first agreements with Raúl Castro’s regime to deploy the first floating energy plants, known as patanas. A contract that Miguel Díaz-Canel renewed in 2021, for a period of 18 years. But this short-term solution is not proving effective due to fuel shortages and infrastructure and logistics problems, which caused five of the six mobile platforms in the country to be paralyzed in February 2024, as reported in its day the independent media ‘Diario de Cuba’.One of the Turkish ‘patanas’ hired by the Díaz-Canel Government to supply energyHospitals paralyzedAccording to Cilano, this blackout is already affecting hospitals and medicine supplies, “there are people who need insulin – the rate of diabetes is quite high in Cuba – which needs refrigeration. “We have also seen reports of hospitals completely shut down, with what this may mean for healthcare services.” This generates a level of anguish that is added to that caused by not being able to preserve food. “In recent years, the rise of small stores has meant that many people (abroad) instead of sending money, are sending food to Cuba. They shop for the month to their relatives on the island. And if that goes bad, all the food for the month is lost. “For the researcher, the big underlying problem of this energy crisis has been that the Cuban Government has preferred to invest in the tourism sector, in hotels, “something that It turned out very badly for them because it has fallen a lot during and after the pandemic” instead of in infrastructure.
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