Protests rattle Cuba's 'cradle' of the Revolution amid blackouts and food scarcity

Record ID: 1820021

  • Title: Protests rattle Cuba's 'cradle' of the Revolution amid blackouts and food scarcity
  • Date: 27th March 2024
  • Summary: SANTIAGO, CUBA (MARCH 20, 2024) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) VARIOUS OF STREETS DURING BLACKOUT SEEN FROM MOVING CAR (NIGHT SHOTS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE QUEUING AT STATE-RUN STORE TO BUY BASIC PRODUCTS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) LOCAL RESIDENT, MAURI MACIAS, SAYING: “Those who came after work went straightforward to the queue and others want to go because they have children and prefer t
  • Embargoed: 10th April 2024 12:18
  • Keywords: Blackout Cuba Electricity Food Fuel Protest Santiago Shortage
  • Location: SANTIAGO & HAVANA, CUBA
  • City: SANTIAGO & HAVANA, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: South America / Central America,Government/Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA001101727032024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: When the power fails, tensions in Cuba – even in areas sympathetic to Fidel Castro's 1959 communist Revolution – begin to soar.
    Reuters interviewed more than two dozen residents and local officials in the Santiago de Cuba neighborhoods of Veguita del Galo, Jose Marti, Micro 9 and Abel Santamaria. They shared their frustration with food shortages and electricity outages that sometimes top 10 hours daily.
    Several hundred protesters gathered on March 17 in Santiago's Carretera del Morro Park, chanting "power and food," according to first-hand accounts from local residents. Social media videos showed a smaller group shouting "freedom" as local Communist Party leader Beatriz Johnson prepared to speak with the crowd from a rooftop.
    Both the government and observers characterized the protests as largely peaceful.
    The Cuban government, once reticent to acknowledge protests, now calls for dialogue and has moved quickly to attend to grievances in areas where they have flared.
    In Santiago de Cuba, local officials and residents said the government has begun to distribute subsidized rations, including chicken, rice, sugar and milk.
    Power supply also became much more regular in the week following the protests, according to residents and Reuters observations.
    Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Santiago on Thursday. The president blames the United States and the "capitalist media" for stoking protests, and says his government is willing to have dialogue with upset citizens.
    Reuters, which did not witness a protest while in Santiago in the days following the March 17 rallies, requested an interview with Communist Party officials to discuss the earlier demonstrations but received no response.

    CRADLE OF THE REVOLUTION
    Santiago, a Caribbean outpost some 870 kilometers (540 miles) south and east of the capital Havana by rutted roads, dubs itself the "cradle" of the Cuban Revolution.
    The former Moncada military barracks downtown were the site of the revolution's first battle in 1953. Castro himself, who ruled the island for nearly five decades, once lived in a wooden home overlooking the bay. He is buried here, his tombstone marked simply "Fidel."
    A long-standing U.S. trade embargo and related sanctions, as well as an inefficient state-run economy, have led to shortages of food, fuel and medicine, while Cuba's obsolete power plants cannot meet demand.

    'WE HAVE TO SOLVE OUR OWN PROBLEMS'
    Cuba's 2019 constitution grants citizens the right to protest, but a law more specifically defining that right is stalled in the legislature, leaving those who take to the street in legal limbo.
    Others try to work with the system.
    Maria Antonia Figuera, a neighborhood block leader who represents 1,500 people in Abel Santamaria, said she attends often angry complaints day and night.
    Figuera said she organizes sporting events for children during blackouts and is constantly wrangling with local officials to assure water and food.
    Rights groups, the European Union and the United States say Cuba's heavy-handed response to anti-government rallies on July 11, 2021 - the largest in decades - have also led many to think twice before attending demonstrations.
    (Production: Alien Fernandez, Anna Portella)
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