Cubans Protest Shortage of Power and Food

Op-Ed

The communist government of Cuba continues to fail to meet the needs of Cubans with increasingly severe power outages and food shortages. As usual, the government blames the trade embargo on the U.S., even though it trades freely with the rest of the world. 

In response for being blamed for the protests, the U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel stated, “Let me be quite unambiguous about this: The United States is not behind the protests in Cuba and the accusation of that is absurd. We are closely following these reports. Protests across several cities in Cuba yesterday called for electricity, food and fundamental freedoms. I think that what we are seeing is reflection of the dire situation on the island. We urge the Cuban government to refrain from violence and unjust detentions and are calling on the authorities to respect the Cuban citizens’ right to peaceful assembly.”

The U.S. most likely did encourage the protests, as it always does, but that doesn't mean that Cubans wouldn't be protesting without encouragement from the CIA. 

The dictatorship's usual response to protests is to call out the military and arrest the protesters. How many were arrested for yesterday's protests has not yet been reported. 

While Cuba has certainly been impacted by the climate crisis, the main real reason for the power and food shortages is the incompetence of the Cuban government. 

It could easily meet the electricity needs of the nation by installing more solar panels and wind generators, but the dictatorship continues to rely on an antiquated grid system with obsolete thermal power generation that it has not properly maintained in 40 years. It refuses to install resilient micro-grids because that would make it harder to cut off power in response to civil unrest. The government's national energy plan seems to always be just "blame America". 

As for food, that too is largely due to the ineffective central planning of the government and its unwillingness to shift Cubans to a more sustainable plant based diet and plan for climate change. It continues to import most of its food and rely heavily on pig and chicken flesh, even though it could be food self-sufficient and enjoy a far healthier population with a better locally grown organic diet. The situation is so dire that it has been asking the UN for food aid but has been asking for the wrong items. The dictatorship needs to study nutrition and read the books of Thomas M. Campbell II, the world's leading nutritionist. 

Since Cuba relies heavily on tourism and it shut down its tourism industry in response to covid, it is facing a severe financial shortfall and the return of tourists has not yet compensated for the years of little income. For some reason, Cuba fell deep for the Great Covid Conspiracy and irreparably damaged its economy and its people with a gross over-reaction and subservience to the Bill Gates and U.S. pharma funded World Health Organization (WHO) and Gavi (formerly Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization).   

While the Cuban government recognizes the need for change, it seems paralyzed and unable to actually implement change. Many Cubans are no longer buying the blame America excuses of its government and continue to flee the nation or stay and protest.

There are many around the globe who would like to help Cuba but aren't allowed to by the party bureaucracy. 

One way that Cuba could make some progress is by allowing some measure of local autonomy for problem solving. When the central dictatorship can't function, it is time to just get out of the way.