Residents of La Güinera, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality of Havana, held a pot-banging protest tonight during a new blackout.
The independent journalist Camila Acosta, correspondent for ABC in Cuba, shared a video on her Facebook account with the message: "NOW Cacerolazo in La Güinera, Havana, Cuba. 26/3/2026".
The recording, captured in the darkness of the blackout, showcases the distinctive sound of pots and pans being struck in the Havana neighborhood, which carries a special symbolic weight in the recent history of Cuban protests.
La Güinera was one of the epicenters of the July 11, 2021 —known as 11J— the largest antigovernmental protests since 1959, when its residents took to the streets shouting "Freedom" and "Homeland and Life."
During those days, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36 years old, was shot and killed by a sub-lieutenant of the MININT. Hundreds of protesters were detained and prosecuted, and many remain imprisoned.
The pot-banging protest tonight is part of a wave of protests that has been shaking Cuba for weeks.
Since March 6, nightly pots and pans protests have been reported in dozens of neighborhoods in Havana — Vedado, Lawton, Alamar, Santos Suárez, Playa, El Cerro — and in provinces such as Santiago de Cuba and Ciego de Ávila. The direct cause is the most severe energy crisis the island has faced in decades.
The electricity deficit this Thursday reached 1,885 MW. So far in March, Cuba has experienced at least three nationwide blackouts: the longest lasted 29 hours and 29 minutes on March 16.
The nightly noise protests have become the predominant form of protest: loud, collective, and relatively anonymous in the darkness of power outages. That La Güinera makes its pots sound again, the neighborhood that paid one of the highest prices for 11J, is a sign that the regime cannot ignore.
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