Residents of a town in western Cuba demonstrated by banging saucepans to protest against a power outage, an unusual mobilization on the island, a local authority reported Friday.
Videos circulated on social networks this Friday showing the anger of dozens of residents of Los Palacios, a small town in the province of Pinar del Río (west). Some bang pots and pans and complain to an official who tries to defuse the situation.
Storm Related Power Outage
José Ramón Cabrera, president of the city council, explained in a video broadcast by the state media Cubadebate that a storm had caused a power outage.
“A group of comrades from our territory took to the streets showing their discontent, several people got together, banged pots and pans,” explained José Ramón Cabrera, specifying that the outage had occurred “due to inclement weather.”
The official added that the local authorities of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, unique) took to the streets to reassure the population. “We were in the middle of them to exchange, we kissed each other, we tapped them on the shoulder, to give them confidence and we explained the situation to them,” he said.
He said there was no violence by protesters or police and that calm had returned.
“Down with the dictatorship”
Some videos posted on social networks were only visible in the morning due to an internet outage. According to the independent media outlet Inventario, there was an internet outage for several hours, between “12:50 p.m. and 1:40 a.m.,” local time, in four districts of Havana and five provinces of the country.
“Give us power!”, “We don’t want blabla”, “Down with the dictatorship”, shout some protesters in the videos.
Cuba has faced difficulties in supplying electricity since May, with load cuts taking place daily. Several power plants are out of service or undergoing maintenance.
The worst economic crisis in thirty years
A video uploaded a few weeks ago to social networks also showed students from a university in the province of Camagüey (east) protesting against the cuts. The island is experiencing its worst economic crisis in three decades, with growing shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Demonstrations of discontent with the authorities are very rare in Cuba, and more so since the historic protests of July 11 and 12, 2021 when thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting “We are hungry”, “Freedom”.
Almost 500 people, of the 700 prosecuted, have already been sentenced for their participation in the protests, sometimes up to 25 years in prison, according to the Miami-based NGO Cubalex.
Source: BFM TV
