The current black out: What happened.
“Authorities said the outage that began Thursday stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners — as many as 100,000 additional ones this year alone. They also blamed breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained because of a lack of hard currency due to U.S. sanctions, as well as insufficient fuel to operate some facilities.”
“The government says U.S. sanctions, which have for decades complicated financial transactions and the purchase of fuel by Cuba, have combined with an increasingly acute economic crisis to bring the fuel shortfall to a head. But a Reuters tally of fuel bought by the Caribbean island and delivered to its ports suggests that a lack of supplies may be less of a problem than internal infrastructure and logistics issues.Cuba’s economy demands about 125,000 barrels per day of fuels, including motor gasoline, diesel and fuel oil for electricity generation, according to the most recently available 2021 data from its Office of Statistical Information (ONEI).Cuba has a steady domestic oil production of about 40,000 bpd that is mostly burned for power generation, and receives 56,000 bpd of crude and finished fuel from Venezuela, according to LSEG vessel monitoring data and documents from state company PDVSA. Mexico, which last year became another source of oil and fuel for Cuba, supplies its ally with an estimated 23,000 bpd. As much as 10,000 bpd of diesel, cooking gas, gasoline and jet fuel have also arrived in recent months, mostly from Europe after spot market purchases, the data showed. In total, then, it is receiving some 129,000 bpd – more than enough to cover its stated needs.”
Regime excuses do not add up.
Jorge Piñon, a Cuban-born energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, highlighted that Cuba’s electricity grid relies on eight very large power plants that are close to 50 years old. “They have not received any operational maintenance, much less capital maintenance, in the last 12 to 15 years,” he said, adding that they have a lifetime of only 25 to 30 years. “So, No. 1, it’s a structural problem; they are breaking down all the time, and that has a domino effect,” he said.
Nora Gámez Torres of the Miami Herald cited Jorge Piñón, in her October 17, 2022 article “Cuba ramps up imports of Russian oil, helping Putin to evade sanctions” describing him as “a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island” in which the following revelation was made.
Amid economic and political turmoil, Cuba has received at least $322 million worth of oil from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine as authorities struggle to offset diminished shipments from close ally Venezuela, according to estimates by oil industry experts. The 4 million barrels of Urals crude oil received by Cuba “is the largest quantity since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Jorge Piñón, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island.
Moscow offered Havana $1.36 billion to repair build new generators, but Cuban officials had other priorities
In September 2022, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Tatiana Amarán Bogachova, stated that the Cuban regime had not been able to access the Russian credit of 1.2 billion euros for thermoelectric plants, as it had not managed to secure the 10% upfront payment (120 million) needed to access this credit. “The money from that loan was not used for anything. Simply put, we have not been able to resume the project. On the other hand, credits are not a gift, but a loan. There is no way for Cuba to use the money for anything other than this project,” Amarán expressed. The “project preparation work” was carried out by Russian and Cuban companies. It took three years, from 2016 to 2019. Amarán justified this delay by claiming it was a study of great “complexity,” but the situation worsened in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic and the deep crisis of the Cuban economy. “It was impossible for us to secure the advance amount that would allow the Russian party to have access to the credit for the project,” said Amarán, arguing that in recent years the government prioritized other issues. … “Between 2006 and 2019, the Russian government lent Cuba $2.3 billion to finance energy, metallurgical industry, and transportation projects. However, the regime did not guarantee the maintenance of the thermoelectric plants. In February 2022, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament ratified the regulation that extended until 2027 the payment of loans granted to the Cuban regime, which has almost completely stopped repaying loans since early 2020, which “increased its debts to Russian commercial banks and exporting entities,” according to the Efe agency. Last March, Russian President Vladimir Putin greenlit the modification of credit agreements between Russia and Cuba to restructure the island’s debt and grant it more favorable conditions for repayment.”
President Biden was right Cuba is a failed state
On July 15, 2021 President Joe Biden gave the following description of Cuba that some disputed at the time.
“Cuba is unfortunately a failed state and repressing their citizens. There are a number of things that we would consider doing to help the people of Cuba, but it would require a different circumstance or a guarantee that they would not be taken advantage of by the government. For example, the ability to send remittances back to Cuba. We would not do that now because the fact is it’s highly likely the regime would confiscate those remittances or big chunks of it.”
The past three years, three months, and six days have demonstrated that the assessment made by President Biden was accurate, but incomplete. The dictatorship in Cuba is a failed regime that maintains a repressive capacity, but it is also a kleptocracy.
Cuban dictatorship is also a kleptocracy: Officials use mules to smuggle millions of dollars out of the country
On August 15, 2024 Tampa resident Mirtza Ocana (age 39) pled “guilty to one count of bulk cash smuggling and one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling.” She was smuggling millions of dollars out of Cuba to the United States.
“According to court documents, Ocana returned to the United States on a flight from Cuba on February 5, 2024. Despite telling U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents that she had no cash to declare, Ocana concealed more than $31,000 in her luggage. After agents found this cash, Ocana admitted that she frequently smuggled cash into the United States from Cuba and that she had done so two to three times per month since June 2023. She also told agents that she was paid between $1,000 and $2,500 each time she smuggled cash. Agents searched Ocana and discovered an additional $71,300 in cash hidden in her clothes. In total, agents found approximately $102,700 in cash concealed both in Ocana’s clothes and in her luggage.”
“Corruption can be simple or complex. Officials fortunate enough to have control over scarce resources like fuel sell these on the black market and realize enormous profits. The preferred approach is more indirect, however. Following the outbreak of anti-regime protests in July 2021, the government allowed the establishment of private “micro, small, and medium enterprises,” theoretically as a way to open up the economy to market forces. But most if not all of the 9,000 private enterprises operating in Cuba today are owned by powerful regime figures who then funnel public works contracts to them.”
Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning until February 2, 2024, was detained on March 7, 2024. He has been linked to Mirtza Ocana and her “bulk cash smuggling” operation from Cuba to the United States by CubaNet. Ms. Ocana has denied the connection, but the timing and word of mouth indicate otherwise.
Money leaves Miami for Cuba and returns to Tampa for regime oligarchs, and their relatives
Nora Gámez Torres reported in the article “How Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses” published in the Miami Herald on June 23, 2023 that “the money that families have sent to their relatives in Cuba for decades is now fueling an explosion of capitalism on the communist island. Businesses that facilitate that flow of cash have created a clever but complex system that is helping Cuban private entrepreneurs sidestep U.S. financial sanctions and buy abroad the supplies they need for their businesses on the island.” Now we know that millions of those dollars ended up in the pockets of high ranking Cuban officials, and funneled back into the United States through Tampa.
Cubans warned not to protest.
Meanwhile, Cubans continue to live without water, electricity, and food as infrastructure collapses and the communist elite’s bank accounts increase, but there are dire consequences if they complain.
Miguel Diaz-Canel, dressed in a military uniform, told a news conference on Sunday [10/20/24] that some Cubans took to the streets on Saturday evening in an attempt to “disturb public order.” The perpetrators will be tried “with the severity that revolutionary laws provide,” he stated, adding that the protestors were acting “under the direction of the foreign operators of the Cuban counter-revolution,” reported AFP.
Cuba is in the midst of an existential crisis with a dictatorship that has failed the Cuban populace, while at the same time destabilizing democracies in the region, sponsoring terrorism, and sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine. They have resources, but their priority is not the well being of the Cuban people.
On August 11, 2022 the Center published a petition for the establishment of an emergency humanitarian corridor for Cubans which called on Havana and the world’s democracies to take concrete actions. The present moment calls to reissue this petition.
“The [Cuban] government would prefer to control all relief efforts, but they don’t have the capacity to,” Nodarse Venancio of WOLA said.
We call on the Cuban dictatorship to:
- Eliminate restrictions on the distribution of humanitarian aid from international organizations and from Cubans in the diaspora to Cubans in need on the island;
- Permit visits of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Cuba’s prisons.
In addition, we urge that world democracies call on the UN Security Council to respond to the situation by sending a delegation to Cuba, and by establishing a humanitarian corridor for direct emergency assistance to needy Cubans, without regime participation.
AFP, October 21, 2024
Cuban leader warns against unrest over nationwide blackout
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned Sunday that his government would not tolerate public disturbances during the nationwide power outage which the authorities are struggling to resolve.
The island’s 10 million people were spending their third night in the dark after the collapse on Friday of Cuba’s largest power plant crippled the whole national grid.
The government said power is expected to be restored to most of the country by Monday evening.
But the president issued a warning there would no room for unrest in a country already battling sky-high inflation and shortages of food, medicine, fuel and water.
Dressed in a military uniform, Diaz-Canel said during a news conference that some Cubans had taken to the streets on Saturday evening in an attempt to “disturb public order.”
Perpetrators will be prosecuted “with the severity that revolutionary laws provide,” he said, adding that the protesters were acting “under the direction of the foreign operators of the Cuban counter-revolution.”
Witnesses had reported that residents in several neighborhoods of Havana had taken to the streets on Sunday night to express their discontent.
There are people “making noise with pots and pans, shouting ‘Let us have the power back on,'” a resident of the Santo Suarez neighborhood told AFP.
In July 2021, blackouts sparked an unprecedented outpouring of public anger.
Thousands of Cubans took to the streets shouting, “We are hungry” and “Freedom!” in a rare challenge to the government.
One person was killed and dozens were injured in the protests. According to the Mexico-based human rights organization Justicia 11J, 600 people detained during the unrest remain in prison.
– Storm Oscar weakens –
Cuba was still plunged in darkness on Sunday when Hurricane Oscar made landfall in its eastern part at 5:50 pm local time (2150 GMT) as a Category 1 storm.
It weakened into a tropical storm as it moved inland, the US National Hurricane Center said, whipping up waves up to 13 feet (four meters) high along the eastern coast.
Roofs and the walls of houses were damaged, and electricity poles and trees felled, state television reported.
President Diaz-Canel acknowledged in his address that the situation of the grid remained “complex,” characterized by a high level of “instability.”
Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O Levy told reporters Sunday that electricity would be restored for most Cubans by Monday night, adding that “the last customer may receive service by Tuesday.”
The power grid failed in a chain reaction Friday due to the unexpected shutdown of the biggest of the island’s eight decrepit coal-fired power plants, according to the head of electricity supply at the energy ministry, Lazaro Guerra.
– ‘Cubans are tired’ –
Power was briefly restored Sunday to a few hundred thousand inhabitants before the grid failed again, according to the national electric utility UNE.
Authorities have suspended classes and business activities until Wednesday, with only hospitals and essential services remaining operational.
Cuba is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the collapse of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s — marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.
“Cubans are tired of so much… There’s no life here, (people) can’t take it anymore,” lamented Serguei Castillo, a 68-year-old bricklayer.
“My fridge hasn’t worked for three days now, and I’m afraid everything will be spoiled,” 56-year-old worker Adismary Cuza.
President Diaz-Canel blamed the situation on Cuba’s difficulties in acquiring fuel for its power plants, which he attributed to the tightening, during Donald Trump’s presidency, of a six-decade-long US trade embargo.
The island is also feeling the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic battering its critical tourism sector, and of economic mismanagement.
To bolster its grid, Cuba has leased seven floating power plants from Turkish companies and also added many small diesel-powered generators.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/cuban-leader-warns-against-unrest-072526681.html
The Washington Post, October 21, 2024
Cubans struggle with an extended power outage and a new tropical storm
By Andrea Rodriguez and Milexsy Duran | AP
HAVANA — Cuba’s capital was largely paralyzed on Monday and the rest of the island braced for the fourth night of a massive blackout that has generated a handful of small protests and a stern government warning that any unrest will be punished.
Hurricane Oscar was crossing the island’s eastern coast with winds and heavy rain after a night that saw protests of several dozen people in urban neighborhoods like Santos Suárez and central Havana.
Some banged pots and pans in the streets, while others demonstated from their balconies. Protesters who said they have no water blocked at least one street with garbage.
The Cuban government has a low tolerance for civil disobedience and President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned on national television Sunday that “we’re not going to allow any vandalism, or let anyone disturb people’s tranquility.”
The prolonged nationwide blackout followed a massive outage Thursday night, part of energy problems that led to the largest protests in Cuba in almost 30 years, in July 2021. Those were followed by smaller local protests in October 2022 and March 2024.
It’s all part of a deep economic crisis that has prompted the exodus of more than half a million Cubans to the U.S., with thousands more heading to Europe. That has led to a reduction in the availability of rationed food for those who do not leave.
Power remains relatively cheap but increasingly unavailable. The Cuban government has said that it’s producing 700 megawatts when peak demand can hit 3 gigawatts. About 50% of Havana has intermittent power.
Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy said in a news conference he hoped that more reliable electricity will be restored by Monday or Tuesday morning but classes remained closed through at least Thursday.
He said that Oscar, which made landfall on the eastern coast Sunday evening, will bring “an additional inconvenience” to Cuba’s recovery since it will touch a “region of strong (electricity) generation.” Key Cuban power plants, such as Felton in the city of Holguín, and Renté in Santiago de Cuba, are located in the area.
Oscar later weakened to a tropical storm but its effects were forecast to linger in the island through Monday.
Many of Havana’s 2 million people resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before their food went bad in refrigerators.
In tears, Ylenis de la Caridad Napoles, mother of a 7-year-old girl, said she is reaching a point of “desperation.”
The failure of the Antonio Guiteras plant on Friday was the latest problem with energy distribution in a country where electricity has been restricted and rotated among different regions at different times. The status of Cuba’s other power plants was unclear.
People lined up for hours on Sunday to buy bread in the few bakeries that could reopen.
Some Cubans like Rosa Rodríguez had been without electricity for four days.
“We have millions of problems, and none of them are solved,” said Rodríguez. “We must come to get bread, because the local bakery is closed, and they bring it from somewhere else.”
The blackout was considered to be Cuba’s worst since Hurricane Ian hit the island as a Category 3 storm in 2022 and damaged power installations. It took days for the government to fix them.
The Cuban government announced emergency measures to slash electricity demand, including suspending school and university classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling nonessential services.
Local authorities said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residential air conditioners. Later, the blackout got worse because of breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained, and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
Cuba’s energy minister said the country’s grid would be in better shape if there had not been two more partial blackouts as authorities tried to reconnect on Saturday. De la O Levy also said Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Russia, among other nations, had offered to help.
The Guardian, October 20, 2024
Scarce food and stifling homes: sputtering grid pushes Cuba nearer collapse
Four power cuts in a weekend born of the state’s penury have caused nationwide struggles and shortages
Dusk has become a particularly frenetic time in Havana, as Cuba prepared for a third night without electricity after repeated failed attempts to restart the national grid.
Long queues formed for bread in the capital earlier in the day. The previous night, people had emerged from humid homes to search for food, drink, news. “What’s the point of staying at home?” asked Alejandro Hernandez outside a bar in the neighbourhood of Vedado.
Throughout Sunday, much of the island started to receive electricity again, but in the late afternoon there was another collapse in power, as had been the case each night over the weekend.
Jokes, a staple of Cubans’ increasingly difficult lives, are growing more acid. “Turn the Morro back on,” people say of Havana’s lighthouse. “We haven’t all left yet.” The island has lost over 10% of its population in the last two years to emigration, well more than 1 million people.
It has become dangerous to walk the streets at night but not because of violence, rather the crumbling pavements and open drains.
The problem is that the Cuban government has run out of money. This has made power cuts of up to 20 hours a day a regular experience across the island, as the state struggles to buy enough fuel on the global markets for its five main thermoelectric power plants.
The lack of money has led to water shortages as pumps and pipes fail, rubbish piling up on street corners as collections are cut, and hunger as food prices soar.
Cuba blames its six-decade long embargo by the US for its penurious state, what Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s president, calls “ the cruellest blockade”. On Sunday night he said: “We have not had stable fuel supplies so that the system can operate at its full capacity and with all its stability.” Others, such as the respected economist Pedro Monreal, contest this, asserting that one of the world’s last centrally planned communist states has moved from sclerotic to moribund. “It is a bankruptcy caused by internal decisions,” he wrote online.
But it was a call made by the government on Thursday for all nonessential workers in its vast bureaucracy to go home and save energy that heralded this latest crisis, one unprecedented except in times when the island receives direct hit from hurricanes.
The move did not save the electrical grid, which collapsed just after 11am on Friday. The main generating station, in Matanzas, went offline. Only those who had personal generators had light.
Since then repeated attempts by Cuba’s Union Electrica to get the grid up and running have failed. Light would appear in certain neighbourhoods, often around hospitals. But then, on Saturday at 6am and again at 10pm, the electricity went out across swathes of the country with an unnerving thump.
At 4.30pm on Sunday, the system collapsed again.
As engineers try to restore the system, the hardest-hit area has been Cuba’s west, including Havana. This has come as a shock to residents as the city has traditionally been saved from the worst, the government fearing protests. In July 2021, Cuba suffered its worst protests in memory as a demonstration against power cuts in a town west of Havana spread.
In a Caribbean country struggling to feed itself, power cuts can be particularly terrible. Without fans, night-time temperatures can keep people from sleeping, and a lack of electricity means food goes off in refrigerators. People are phoning family and friends to ask them if they have anywhere to store the small rations of meat the state gives to the most vulnerable.
During this latest crisis, the government has tried to keep the population informed. Leading figures in the government announced the initial collapse of the electricity system on X. That led to worldwide headlines, confounding an already ailing tourism industry, one of the state’s main sources of foreign funds.
A photograph was released on a government media channel showing Díaz Canel and his team standing behind two technicians in the office of the National Electricity Office. To one side was Ramiro Valdés, a former vice-president, now 92.
All five of the country’s main plants are close to half a century old. According to Jorge Piñon, an expert on Cuba’s power system at the university of Texas, they are far beyond their planned lifespans.
Manuel Marrero, Cuba’s prime minister, has called for a shift to renewables and for the country’s growing private sector to pay more for the power it uses.
Despite the government’s messages that its technicians are working “incessantly”, comments under articles in CubaDebate, a state media outlet, show people’s anger. “This shouldn’t happen,” wrote a resident of Plaza, the neighbourhood of Havana named after the Plaza de la Revolucion. “Millions of people without electricity or water. What are all the explanations worth?”
On Saturday night, long after dusk, the streets of the Havana neighbourhood of Vedado were all but empty. The few people out were rushing home, only two members of an army patrol sauntering slowly.
What did the Cuban regime do with the 1,200 million euros granted by Russia to build thermoelectric plants?
According to the agreement approved in 2015 by both governments, the resources would be invested in the construction of four generation units of 200 MW for two thermal power plants. In 2022, the regime quietly admitted that it had not met the conditions to access the loan.
The question is being asked by all Cubans every time the blackouts intensify on the Island, whether due to the “situation,” the “contingency,” the “energy emergency,” or any of the euphemisms used by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel to justify the string of failures in his administration.
“What did the Cuban regime do with the 1.2 billion euros granted by Russia to build new thermoelectric plants?” Cubans who read and remember that news, announced with much fanfare by the official press in October 2015, are asking this again and again, exactly nine years ago now.
“Russia grantsCuba credit for the construction of thermoelectric plants,” headlined the official portal Cubadebate in a note stating that, according to the Russian agency RIA Novosti, “the island will have 1.2 billion euros for the construction of the energy blocks in two thermoelectric plants.”
The note explained that “according to the agreement approved by the government, the resources will be invested in the construction of four power generation units of 200 MW for the Máximo Gómez and Este Habana thermoelectric plants.”
“The Russian side will grant the Cuban side a state export credit of 1.2 billion euros to finance the construction of a 200 MW unit at the Máximo Gómez thermoelectric plant, and three 200 MW units at the Este Habana thermal power plant,” indicated the draft agreement published on an official Russian web portal.
In September 2022, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Tatiana Amarán Bogachova, stated that the Cuban regime had not been able to access the Russian credit of 1.2 billion euros for thermoelectric plants, as it had not managed to secure the 10% upfront payment (120 million) needed to access this credit.
“The money from that loan was not used for anything. Simply put, we have not been able to resume the project. On the other hand, credits are not a gift, but a loan. There is no way for Cuba to use the money for anything other than this project,” Amarán expressed.
The “project preparation work” was carried out by Russian and Cuban companies. It took three years, from 2016 to 2019. Amarán justified this delay by claiming it was a study of great “complexity,” but the situation worsened in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic and the deep crisis of the Cuban economy.
“It was impossible for us to secure the advance amount that would allow the Russian party to have access to the credit for the project,” said Amarán, arguing that in recent years the government prioritized other issues.
The deputy minister noted that, after the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, the “conflicts between Russia and Ukraine” came, which continued to delay “such an important project.”
“Those 1.2 billion euros are to finance the work of the Russian companies involved in the project, it is managed and administered by a Russian entity from that country,” he assured.
Between 2006 and 2019, the Russian government lent Cuba $2.3 billion to finance energy, metallurgical industry, and transportation projects. However, the regime did not guarantee the maintenance of the thermoelectric plants.
In February 2022, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament ratified the regulation that extended until 2027 the payment of loans granted to the Cuban regime, which has almost completely stopped repaying loans since early 2020, which “increased its debts to Russian commercial banks and exporting entities,” according to the Efe agency.
Last March, Russian President Vladimir Putin greenlit the modification of credit agreements between Russia and Cuba to restructure the island’s debt and grant it more favorable conditions for repayment.
The Russian government’s legal information portal published that the protocols were supported by the Russian president and pertained to the state credit agreements granted to
Cuba between 2009 and 2019 for the acquisition of hydrocarbons.
According to the Russian Deputy Minister of Finance, Alexéi Sazánov, the debt accumulated by Cuba under these agreements amounted to 277.2 million dollars.
In September, the Russian government declared that it was confident that Cuba would overcome the serious economic crisis the country is facing and announced its intention to grant new lines of credit.
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida, August 15, 2024
Tampa Woman Pleads Guilty To Smuggling Over $100,000 Into The United States From Cuba
Thursday, August 15, 2024
Tampa, Florida – United States Attorney Roger B. Handberg announces that Mirtza Ocana (39, Tampa) has pleaded guilty to one count of bulk cash smuggling and one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling. Ocana faces a maximum penalty of five years in federal prison. A sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to court documents, Ocana returned to the United States on a flight from Cuba on February 5, 2024. Despite telling U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents that she had no cash to declare, Ocana concealed more than $31,000 in her luggage. After agents found this cash, Ocana admitted that she frequently smuggled cash into the United States from Cuba and that she had done so two to three times per month since June 2023. She also told agents that she was paid between $1,000 and $2,500 each time she smuggled cash. Agents searched Ocana and discovered an additional $71,300 in cash hidden in her clothes. In total, agents found approximately $102,700 in cash concealed both in Ocana’s clothes and in her luggage.
This case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michael J. Buchanan.
In Cuba, the terminal stage of communism is a mafia
Regime corruption, economic collapse and public anger point to trouble ahead
By Martin Gurri
This essay was originally published in Discourse magazine.
On Feb. 5, Mirtza Ocana, an American citizen of Cuban origin, arrived at Tampa International Airport from Havana and was arrested for attempting to smuggle more than $100,000 into the country. When questioned, Ocana confessed to having carried out 45 similar assignments since May 2023. The smuggling operation involved millions of dollars.
Because Cuba has slipped beneath the attention horizon of the news media, this incident attracted zero interest. Yet it posed a perplexing riddle. Cuba’s communist regime currently faces the most disastrous economic collapse in its long history of such failures. The reasons are many, but most immediately it’s a lack of foreign currency with which to buy food and fuel for the population. The Cuban economy resembles those broken-down cars from the ’50s still found on the streets of Havana: It produces little for internal consumption and almost nothing that can be sold abroad for hard currency.
Why, then, is the island now exporting dollars to the United States
The search for an answer leads to two radical transformations that have taken place, largely unnoticed, in Cuba. The first concerns the regime, which has given up any revolutionary pretensions and become what ordinary Cubans call a “mafia.” Don’t think of the pushy American racketeers in the style of “Godfather II.” The mafia in Cuba is indistinguishable from the regime itself. The matter is naturally shrouded by fictions and smokescreens, but the godfather may well be the country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Outwardly, nothing has changed. The worn-out slogans are still piously intoned. The Communist Party, with its repressive apparatus, still dodders on. Raúl Castro, 92, remains a shadowy but frightening presence. But new people are in charge of ruling a society that, top to bottom, has lost all faith in the system – and, as often happens in moments of exhausted zealotry, those who command power and resources want nothing more than to enjoy the good life and protect themselves against an uncertain future.
The Mafia of Cienfuegos: A Case Study
The machinations of the mafia are transparent to most Cubans. In a remarkable 24-minute video titled “The Mafia of Cienfuegos,” digital dissident Yamil Cuéllar calls out mafia members by name, shows their photos, reveals addresses and exposes methods in detail, linking high officials in the provincial government of Cienfuegos, a city and province on the south-central coast of the island. Cuéllar’s targets include the province’s governor, local chiefs of the Ministry of Interior and Military Counterintelligence and, ultimately, the biggest fish in Cuba’s ruling structure, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz and Díaz-Canel himself.
Corruption can be simple or complex. Officials fortunate enough to have control over scarce resources like fuel sell these on the black market and realize enormous profits. The preferred approach is more indirect, however. Following the outbreak of anti-regime protests in July 2021, the government allowed the establishment of private “micro, small, and medium enterprises,” theoretically as a way to open up the economy to market forces. But most if not all of the 9,000 private enterprises operating in Cuba today are owned by powerful regime figures who then funnel public works contracts to them.
This is an old game in Latin America. The governor of Cienfuegos can invoke an urban preservation law to raze a city block and award the rebuilding contract to an enterprise he himself owns, netting two million pesos in the bargain. In his video, Cuéllar cites many such maneuvers. Even by Cuban standards, astonishing amounts of money are flowing to the peak of the political pyramid.
Where does the money go? Some of it buys what passes for the good life in Cuba. The vast majority of the island’s inhabitants, we must remember, subsist in conditions of abysmal poverty, enduring constant power blackouts and food shortages while stuck in housing that is literally crumbling into ruins. But a thin crust at the top can afford to live in modern comfort. Even minor members of the Cienfuegos mafia dwell in new suburban-looking homes with garages, sun panels for air-conditioning and water heating and generators to avoid those pesky blackouts on cloudy days.
Higher-ups like the governor own luxurious residences – according to Cuéllar, designed by the minister of interior’s favorite architect – as well as places of rest and recreation at the beach and in the countryside, a magnificent sailing ship and shiny BMWs. Two palatial buildings in the city and an extensive marina are said by Cuéllar to be controlled by the country’s prime minister, Marrero Cruz. Since another money trail leads directly to president Díaz-Canel’s brother-in-law, we can safely assume that the local rackets enjoy the benevolent protection of the regime. Life is truly good for the Cienfuegos mafia.
But most of the money is converted into dollars and sent illegally out of the country. In an economic distortion possible only under late-stage dementia communism, it is likely that Cuba’s dearth of foreign currency is due to the mafia syphoning all dollars in the island then smuggling them to safe havens overseas. Cuéllar maintains that the governor’s wife, a Chamber of Commerce representative who in her official capacity frequently travels abroad, acts as the “mule” or smuggler for the Cienfuegos gang. That may or may not be the case – but it’s plain that here, at this turn of the screw, the Cuban regime’s new criminal vocation connects with the arrest at the Tampa airport. Ocana was bringing millions into the U.S. on behalf of some member of the Cuban government. That person is probably known and, as we’ll see, the revelation could trigger a crisis within the regime.
The Fall From Grace of Alejandro Gil
On Feb. 2 – three days before Ocana’s arrest – Cuba’s minister of the economy, Alejandro Gil, was abruptly dismissed from his post. Gil was the author of the “paquetazo” – a package of economic measures designed to curb inflation and bring the economy out of its tailspin, which has had the effect of further enriching the mafia and pauperizing the population. The move seemed to be an acknowledgement that the policy had failed, but Gil was still inside the fold. Four days after the dismissal, Marrero Cruz and Díaz-Canel wished him a happy 60th birthday on X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’m at your service,” tweeted Gil in response.
On March 7, he was detained. The official announcement, made public under Díaz-Canel’s name, was an indecipherable bit of verbiage that mentioned “grave errors” but no specific crimes. Yet the word “corruption” hovered over the jargon like a thundercloud. Gil hadn’t been fired for failing at his job. This was the beginning of a mafia turf war – or a communist purge: The difference is merely rhetorical. The minister of economy cuts a large figure in Cuba. Underlings who facilitated Gil’s “corruption” are certain to fall – that process has already begun. But what about enablers above the former minister?
It defies probability to imagine that Díaz-Canel and Marrero Cruz, who probably run the mafia, aren’t sneaking lots of money abroad. Even in their dotage, the Cuban security services know exactly who in the regime is going where. Whatever Gil did, it was done with the full knowledge and tacit endorsement of the power structure. So who gets purged – and why?
Though neither the Cuban nor the U.S. government have confirmed it, the raging rumor in Cuba is that Ocana, the Tampa smuggler, worked for Gil. It may be that the latter isn’t being punished for corruption but for being caught at it. That doesn’t alter the awkward fact of Díaz-Canel’s and Marrero Cruz’s participation, however. Their fate, I would think, rests in Raúl Castro’s hands. The old totalitarian’s last ambition should be to die in bed – but one never knows with the Castros. Raúl may wish to take down the men who replaced him at the head of the government and party, in a sort of senile revolutionary Götterdämmerung.
Why are Cuba’s rulers intent on taking their wealth out of the country? The answer should be apparent. For all their power and luxury, these people are terrified of the future. To be a member of the Cuban ruling class is to perform, every day, a high-wire act over an active volcano. Since the courage provided by ideological fervor has dissipated, the only safe move is out.
The wreckage of the Cuban economy really can’t be exaggerated. The perpetual blackouts are an apt symbol of a country that is headed for the dark ages. For the first time since the revolution, Cuba is begging the United Nations for food aid. Nearly half a million persons have fled the island in despair during the last two years – that’s 4% of the population, the equivalent of more than 12 million Americans. Yet the failure cascade is moving faster than the capacity to emigrate. People feel trapped and hopeless. The volcano is growling. Despite the words we use, national economies never actually implode – but the regimes that exploit and mismanage them often do.
Rage and Despair on the Cuban Web
At the same time, the Cuban public has found its voice. That is the second radical transformation of Cuban society. Despite the blackouts and the poor connectivity, large numbers of Cubans are venting online. I have no idea how this happens, but the web in Cuba has turned into an immense chorus of anger and disgust.
The old digital dissidents have a more professional look. Yoani Sánchez, one-time blogmother to a tiny sect of online Cubans, presently runs “14ymedio,” a news site indispensable to anyone looking for reliable information about the country. The tone of the site is measured but unquestionably anti-regime.
Yamil Cuéllar, we have seen, can put together high-quality investigative documentaries, posted on YouTube, in which his contempt for the system is expressed in earthy Cubanisms. Cuéllar’s relentless attacks on the government and predictions of its imminent fall make one wonder: Why is this man not in prison? The most likely answer, once again, is a crisis of nerve at the top. Regime enforcers don’t want to be caught striking the wrong pose when the volcano blows.
Most moving are the expressions of little-known individuals trapped in the catastrophe of a failed utopia, trying to make sense of the nightmare of everyday life. Those unable to flee Cuba today escape to the web. They post on Facebook and X, they exchange links and opinions on WhatsApp, they complain of the dark and the heat and the mosquitos at night, they mock the regime, they pray to God for consolation. “How lucky we Cubans are that we can go to the web!” reads a Facebook post. “That’s the end of the state monopoly over information!” During a blackout, one poster asks, “Where can we protest?” Another answers: “Right here.”
Cynicism toward the authorities is absolute. “They’re trying to do damage control and offer Alejandro Gil’s head on a silver platter.” “This was a plan, this wasn’t about errors, this was a plan to destroy from within everything we had believed and built.” Amid a volley of emojis, one wag claimed on Facebook that the words of the communist anthem, the “Internationale,” had been written about Cubans: “Arise, wretched of the earth, stand up you slaves without bread …”
Once the jokes and the defiance stop, we are confronted with the awful spectacle of human existence in a state of pure desperation. “Of course I’m unwell with blackouts of 15 hours one day and eight hours the next. I feel dissociated, I’m not well. I think I’m entering into insanity,” a woman wrote. A poster warned: “This can’t continue indefinitely.”
If, for the moment, the internet in Cuba is a refuge, it takes little imagination to see how it can become a mustering-place for revolt as has transpired elsewhere. Spontaneous protests, captured and transmitted via cellphone video, recently erupted in Santiago de Cuba, Bayamo and other cities in the east of the country. Unrest still simmers as of this moment. All that’s needed is a single mobilizing incident: a spark sufficient to ignite the conflagration.
Meanwhile, dominos will continue to fall. In Tampa, there will be a verdict in the Ocana case and a public report from U.S. authorities, naming names. The purge will resume its erratic progress, snaring officials below, sideways and possibly above Alejandro Gil, as the regime proceeds to devour itself. Gil will be convicted out of his own mouth – probably of taking money from the CIA, so the historic monstrosity that is the Cuban economy can be blamed on “the enemy.” The constellation of political and economic forces that make possible Cuéllar’s Cienfuegos mafia will lose substance, wobble and fade like a hallucination.
Karl Marx taught that the final stage of socialism is communism. We have learned from the evidence of Cuba that the terminal stage of communism is a heedless gangsterism. After that, the deluge.
Cuba import data casts doubt on official ‘fuel crisis’ explanation
Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana and Marianna Parraga in Houston, additional reporting by Alien Fernandez, Anett Rios and Carlos Carrillo in Havana; Editing by Christian Plumb and Rosalba O’Brien
Miami Herald, October 17, 2022
Cuba ramps up imports of Russian oil, helping Putin to evade sanctions
By Nora Gámez Torres October 17, 2022 5:00 AM
Amid economic and political turmoil, Cuba has received at least $322 million worth of oil from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine as authorities struggle to offset diminished shipments from close ally Venezuela, according to estimates by oil industry experts.
The 4 million barrels of Urals crude oil received by Cuba “is the largest quantity since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Jorge Piñón, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island.
The figure marks a significant increase compared to recent years when Cuba received $35 million worth of Russian petroleum in 2017 and $55.5 million in 2018, but nothing in the following years, according to United Nations data on world trade. And it turns the Caribbean island into another market for oil from Russia, helping the country evade international sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine while keeping its industry afloat.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article267329272.html
The Washington Post, October 1, 2022
Cubans protest in Havana for 2nd night over lack of power
By Andrea RodrÍguez | AP
October 1, 2022 at 12:13 a.m. EDT
HAVANA — Groups of Cubans protested Friday night in the streets of Havana for a second night, decrying delays in fully restoring electricity three days after Hurricane Ian knocked out power across the island.
A foreign monitoring group reported that Cuba’s internet service shut down for the second time in two days, saying it appeared to be unrelated to problems from the storm but rather an attempt to keep information about the demonstrations from spreading.
Associated Press journalists saw people demonstrating in at least five spots in the city or on its outskirts, including the Barreras and La Gallega districts where residents blocked streets with burning tires and garbage.
Masiel Pereira, a housewife, said that “the only thing I ask is that they restore the current for my children.”
A neighbor, Yunior Velásquez, lamented that “all the food is about to be lost” because there was no power for refrigerators.
On Thursday night, people protested at two points in the city’s Cerro neighborhood. That area was mostly calm Friday with the power back on, although people were out on the important Villa Blanca Avenue chanting “We want light!” while banging pots with spoons. Police blocked access to the street, but there were no confrontations.
The country of 11 million people was plunged into darkness Tuesday night, a few hours after Ian roared over western Cuba and triggered problems in the power system that eventually cascaded over the whole island.
Power was restored in some parts of the country the next day, but other areas were left without service, including in the capital.
The government did not say what percentage of the overall population remained without electricity Friday, but electrical authorities said only 10% of Havana’s 2 million people had power as of late Thursday.
Internet and cellphone service also were out Thursday. Internet service returned Friday morning, at least in some areas, but in the evening it was interrupted again, groups monitoring access to the internet reported.
Alp Toker, director of London-based Netblocks, said the blackout in internet service on Thursday and Friday appeared different from an internet outage that occurred soon after Ian hit.
“Internet service has been interrupted once again in Cuba, at about the same time as yesterday (Thursday),” Toker said in an email to AP on Friday night. “The timing of the outages provides another indication that these are a measure to suppress coverage of the protests.”
Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik Inc., a network intelligence company, earlier described Thursday’s event as a “total internet blackout.”
Repeated blackouts on Cuba’s already fragile electric grid were among the causes of the island’s largest social protests in decades in July 2021. Thousands of people, weary of power failures and shortages of goods exacerbated by the pandemic and U.S. sanctions, turned out in cities across the island to vent their anger and some also lashed out at the government. Hundreds were arrested and prosecuted, prompting harsh criticism of the administration of President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Experts said the total blackout showed the vulnerability of Cuba’s power grid and warned that it will require time and sources — things the country doesn’t have — to fix the problem.
Cuba’s power grid “was already in a critical and immunocompromised state as a result of the deterioration of the thermoelectric plants. The patient is now on life support,” said Jorge Piñon, director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy’s Latin America and Caribbean program at the University of Texas.
Cuba has 13 power generation plants, eight of which are traditional thermoelectric plants, and five floating power plants rented from Turkey since 2019. There is also a group of small plants distributed throughout the country since an energy reform in 2006.
But the plants are poorly maintained, a phenomenon the government attributed to the lack of funds and U.S. sanctions. Complications in obtaining fuel is also a problem.
Cuba Standard, October 20, 2015
Russia grants $1.36 bin loan for power plants
by
October 20, 2015
CUBA STANDARD — The Russian government will provide Cuba a loan for the reconstruction and expansion of two thermoelectric power plants.
The €1.2 billion ($1.36 billion) loan, provided as export guarantee for Russian supplies, cover construction of one 200 mw generator at the Máximo Gómez power plant in Mariel, and three 200 mw generators at the Habana Este power plant in Santa Cruz del Norte. Both power plants will continue to use domestically produced heavy oil.
This is the biggest single loan for Cuba since the early 1990s.
The agreement for the power plant loan, which will be handled by foreign trade bank VEB, was signed in Moscow by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Vice President Ricardo Cabrisas, after a meeting of the Russian-Cuban commission on economic and scientific-technical cooperation. An additional agreement stipulates that Cuba pay the amount of savings from lower fuel use of the new technology back to Russia, according to TASS.
Cabrisas and Siluanov also signed an agreement for Russia to provide a $100 million state export credit to finance the modernization and expansion of the Antillana de Acero steel plant in Havana. Belonging to the Acinox state enterprise, the 56 year-old plant in the Cotorro suburb produces 200,000 tons of steel per year.
Finally, Russia’s Pharmeco agreed with Havana-based Heber Biotec to import Cuban pharmaceuticals including Heberprot-P.
Vice President Dmitri Rogozin pointed out that the loans are coming amid Russia’s difficulties to access financial markets, and hailed them as the biggest capital injection into the Cuban economy in the past two decades.
The immediate corporate beneficiary of the power plant loan is Russia’s RAO UES Group. Five years ago, the power generation and trading company said it would open offices in Havana, as a first step towards setting up a joint venture in Cuba. In 2009, company CEO Yevgeny Dod signed a memorandum of understanding with state utility Unión Eléctrica to form Generación Mariel S.A., a 50-50 joint venture.
The joint venture’s first project was to be the modernization and expansion of the Máximo Gómez thermoelectric plant in Mariel, a 40-year old facility that has been working at less than 60% capacity. The 600-mw, fuel-oil powered plant — built in the 1970s with Soviet technology — runs with four 100-mw generators.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who visited Cuba at least four times, is chairman of Inter RAO. State nuclear power utilities Rosatom and Rosenergoatom control 57.3% of Inter RAO shares.
Last year, the Russian parliament ratified a write-off of $35 billion of Cuba’s $38.5 billion debt with the defunct Soviet Union. Russia agreed to let Cuba spend the remaining $3.5 billion of the Soviet debt “on significant investment projects, which Russia is going to select and negotiate together with the Cuban side,” President Vladimir Putin said last year during a visit to Cuba. Cuba agreed to pay the $3.5 billion over 10 years in equal installments every six months.