In the dead of night during massive blackouts due to the collapse of the National Electric System (SEN), the grandson of the dictator Fidel Castro stirred outrage again with a new video recorded in his bar EFE, located in Vedado, Havana.
While much of Cuba remained in darkness, the venue of Sandro Castro was open, shining brightly and fully operational, symbolizing the stark contrast between the privileges of a few and the tragic precariousness of the vast majority.
In the video, Sandro pretends to be arrested as he leaves the bar, handcuffed and escorted by two men, in a supposedly humorous setup where he acts as if he is being taken into custody for not paying for his drinks. “Take it easy, life is short!”, he is heard saying in a joking tone masked by a feigned drunkenness.
Its mocking content is published at a time when thousands of Cubans spend entire days without electricity, with refrigerators turned off, food spoiling, and families enduring the sweltering heat without fans or water in the buildings.
The scene, which showed Sandro laughing and joking, seems deliberately staged to provoke outrage among the public towards the regime's clown and divert attention from those truly responsible for the collapse of the SEN, a supposed strategy that many believe was designed by Counterintelligence.
The contrast is striking: while in Holguín, Santiago de Cuba, or Camagüey the population protests with pots and pans, shouting “Freedom!” after power outages lasting more than 20 hours, in Vedado, the bar of Sandro remains open, offering parties and drinks at prices unattainable for most.
This is not the first time the dictator's grandson has appeared amid energy crises with attitudes deemed a mockery of the people.
In December 2024, he celebrated his birthday at the same EFE bar during a general blackout, with a white dress code, imported champagne and a minimum spend of several dozen dollars, while the rest of the country was left in darkness.
"I am celebrating like a young revolutionary", he said in a blatant mockery, which was received like a slap in the face by authorities, state-run media, and victims of the Cuban regime.
The controversy was so great that the organizer of the party himself had to come out to "clarify" that they did not intend to offend, cheering for Canel and the revolution, and even claiming that they had chosen "the most humble place you can have in Cuba": Sandro's bar EFE.
The latest staging, now under the guise of a fictitious arrest -not like those already practiced by State Security in Gibara-, reinforces the perception of an elite disconnected from the national reality and indifferent to the people's suffering.
While in places like Gibara the population protests against power outages, the grandson of the author of the so-called “energy revolution” turns his bar into a stage for private jokes that end up going viral as a reminder of the privileges inherited from his surname.
In a country where expressing discontent can lead to imprisonment, the dictator's grandson has the audacity to mock the power outage and the citizens' discontent, with a “Take it easy!” that, for many, sounds more like a provocation than advice.
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