Cuba in the Dark
Garcia | CLMI
Cuba returns to the national and international spotlight at it faces both a severe national energy crisis and the potential of another large-scale U.S. military incursion in the Western Hemisphere. This is in the wake of a U.S.-driven and historic armed regime change in Venezuela, followed by a massive multi-front war led by U.S.-Israeli forces against Iran. Oil is at the center of it: with the Strait of Hormuz virtually cut of due to the month-long Iran War, 20% of the world’s oil supply is currently wedged in the Middle East. A convergence of two crises in two hemispheres across the world now leads to another controversial national state long viewed as a U.S. regional rival and target, Cuba, finding itself faced with enormous widespread blackouts. Millions are without electricity, and the frequent outages have developed into the collapse of the country’s electrical grid that impacts the large island nation’s daily life.
As of March, nearly 11 million Cubans remain without power as grid failures intensify. That’s started with the U.S. military halting the supply of oil from Venezuela following its overnight ouster of Nicolas Marduro in January. The rapid collapse of their grid was unexpected. Reportedly, some crews have been able to restore 5% of Havana’s power to its residents, which isn’t nearly enough as outages can last from hours to days. As the government says they have tried to restore the power by restarting plants and creating smaller grids, it is still a process and it will be a slow one at that.
The Cuban energy crisis stems from a variety of factors, from decades long Cold War-stoked tensions with its U.S. neighbor to its relationship with the rest of the world as it always struggled to cement ties with geopolitical allies. But one notable problem that has been rarely highlighted up until now is its energy infrastructure. It was already outdated for some time before the current crisis, as Cuba’s government appeared to put little effort or energy resources into modernizing it. Multiple outages were, in fact, a feature of daily Cuban life - current blackouts are actually an accentuated version of what’s happened for years prior to the big collapse the island experiences now.
Fuel shortages in Cuba were normal as the country only produces 40% of the fuel if needs. Remaining imports have, clearly, declined instantly as the U.S. military blockade holds the nation’s fate in their hands right now. Venezuelan supplies were already dwindling due to sanctions and by 2026, Mexico was the only supplier. That was forced to a grinding halt by the U.S. invasion …
Blackouts don’t just include lost electricity and the loss of home and street lighting. Women can’t deliver babies in hospitals. Food goes bad from lack of refrigeration. Transportation stops due to limited fuel. Income is lost. Basic services stop: Schools close, government offices are shutdown, and running water is either minimal or altogether absent from lack of power. All while Cuba’s economy has been in freefall since Marduro’s outster - growth has dropped 10% (and nearly 90% of the population already lives in extreme poverty, according to the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights). It was already under severe strain …
These conditions are already causing an internal uproar, with local frustrations growing by the day and protests becoming more pronounced. Hundreds have taken to the streets of Havana demanding action. Protests are intensifying and becoming increasingly violent. Footage recently released from outside a hotel in Cuba showed the flotilla Pablo Iglesias, Hasan Piker and Kode Pink lounged in comfort meanwhile the rest of Cuba was in the dark. Soon, civilians were attacking government buildings during the blackout.
Meanwhile, there are renewed fears the U.S. military may strike the island while it’s in its most vulnerable state, similar to the January action against Venezuela. The country’s deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Cassio told Meet the Press warned that Cuba “ … has historically been ready to mobilize, as a nation as a whole, for military aggression. We truly always see it as something far from us. We don’t believe it is something that is probable. But we would be naive if we do not prepare.” Meanwhile, talks between the Cuban government and the United States are ongoing with regime change “off the table.”
As the situation worsens, with further instability in the Western Hemisphere imminent, analysts familiar with U.S.-Cuba relations can only speculate. And with the island nation isolating itself for so many years from foreign investment, interference and flow of information, there is no real clarity on how bad the situation really is and how bad it will get. If Cuba does survive the current crisis with its government intact, it will need to rethink not just its relationship with the U.S., but the overall state of its cripplied infrastructure and the ability to provide crucial energy to millions of residents.
LUPITA GARCIA is a Fellow at the Civic Literacy and Media Influence Institute at Learn4Life
