Cuba flag. Photo: Resumen Latinoamericano - English/File photo.
By La Jornada Editorial â Oct 21, 2024
Cuba is going through its greatest energy crisis, with practically the entire island and almost ten million out of its 11 million inhabitants deprived of electricity. The blackoutsâwhich have been occurring with increasing frequency and duration for some time nowâturned 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, programs, and the closure of almost all economic activity while the authorities and technicians worked 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 islandâs 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 recognized 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, Cubaâs natural economic vocation lies in tourism, and its location only 144 kilometers from the US imperial entity makes their citizens its logical and simplest market. But Washingtonâs 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 objectâbe it an onion, a cancer drug, or a notebook for children to studyâto 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 international payment systems, one of the many tentacles of US imperialism.
Since Hugo ChĂĄvez 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 NicolĂĄs Maduro has been forced to cut down on 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 Washingtonâs boot suffocates the island. Cuba is also not allowed access to the technologies needed to undertake transitions in energy production, 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 the Israeli settler entity over the Palestinian people, no state has been as systematically and enduringly sadistic with a civilian population as the US colonial entity 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 US imperial political class for the welfare of the people and the freedom in the name of which they speak.
