By Silvio Rodriguez on October 21, 2024
Cuba is going through its greatest energy crisis, with practically the entire island and 10 out of 11 million inhabitants deprived of electricity. The blackouts that have been occurring with increasing frequency and duration for some time now, turned into a total collapse of the electrical system as a result of the shutdown of its main thermoelectric plant on Thursday 17, which forced the suspension of classes and the closure of almost all economic activity while the authorities and technicians work to reestablish the power supply. The population fears that this situation could lead to an imminent famine due to food putrefaction.
The immediate cause of the crisis lies in the lack of fuel to feed their thermoelectric power plants, worsened by a climatic situation that delayed the arrival of a ship with fuel oil. However, the ultimate cause is the same as the one shared by the island’s major and minor problems: the commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington more than six decades ago with the declared purpose of starving the Cuban population and forcing it to rise up against its authorities. Although that sinister objective has been frustrated, the endless difficulties Havana has to face to raise foreign currency and acquire essential supplies have indeed led the country to a severe shortage of everything necessary for daily life.
It is often thought that the argument of the blockade is a mere pretext and the criminal nature of the dozens of laws and decrees that make up the most dense network of unarmed aggressions directed against a sovereign nation is forgotten. As an island located in the Caribbean Sea, Cuba’s natural economic vocation lies in tourism, and its location only 144 kilometers from the United States makes Americans its logical and elementary market. But Washington’s illegal regulations prohibit its citizens from traveling to the island. The illegal application of sanctions not only affects the inhabitants of the superpower, but any company, from anywhere on the planet, that buys or sells any object – be it an onion, a cancer drug or a notebook for children to study – to Havana is subject to prosecution and crushing by the country that dictatorially controls the global financial system. One of the most important sources of income for practically all Latin American and Caribbean states, the remittances sent by their nationals working abroad, is also closed to Cuba because it is not allowed to access the international payment system, one of the many tentacles of U.S. imperialism.
Since Hugo Chavez democratically came to power in Venezuela at the head of the Bolivarian Revolution, Caracas has provided invaluable assistance to the Cuban people with its shipments of hydrocarbons. But as Washington has made Venezuelans victims of the same atrocities it perpetrates against Cubans, the government of Nicolás Maduro has had to cut its aid to Cuba, which has ended up overwhelming an extremely precarious situation. Likewise, Havana is prevented from buying machinery, tools and spare parts to reverse the deterioration of the electric power infrastructure, so the failures will continue to be structural as long as Washington’s boot suffocates the island. Cuba is also not allowed access to the technologies needed to undertake the energy transition, despite the fact that, in their discourse, the current occupant of the White House and other Western leaders proclaim themselves to be promoters of the fight against climate change.
In this century, with the exception of Israel over the Palestinian people, no country has been as systematically and enduringly sadistic with the civilian population as the United States in its onslaught against the Cubans. The human suffering and the stripping of any prospect of a dignified life in their own land are testimony to the total disregard of the U.S. political class for the welfare of the people and the freedom in the name of which they speak.
Silvio Rodriguez is a singer-songwriter and a patriot of Cuba
Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English