A command of black berets armed with rifles is patrolling the Chicharrones neighborhood this Sunday in Santiago de Cuba, in response to a protest featuring pot-banging by local youths, according to journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada.
Eyewitnesses claim that the arrival of the armed forces, carrying long guns, aimed to intimidate the protesters who were banging pots and pans from the street and from their homes.
The nighttime images, captured from a high vantage point, show several individuals in uniform on the public street, with at least one of them holding what appears to be a long weapon.
The protest in Chicharrones is part of a series of massive noise demonstrations that shook Santiago de Cuba on June 18, when residents of the neighborhoods Sueño, Santa Bárbara, Antonio Maceo, Veguita de Galo, Mármol, and Altamira took to the streets to protest against the power outages.
The next day, June 19, protests reached just a few blocks from the provincial headquarters of the Communist Party of Cuba in Santiago, in an unprecedented escalation.
The trigger for discontent is the energy crisis: power outages that in some neighborhoods exceed 22 hours a day, worsened by the breakdown of the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant and a national deficit that hovered around 2,000 MW in June 2026.
Since March of this year, various neighborhoods in the city—Sueño, Micro 9, Micro 3, El Salao, Los Pinos, Portuondo, Centro Histórico, Altamira, and Chicharrones, among others—have experienced repeated protests triggered by extended power outages.
On May 30 and 31, the first deployment of black berets in Santiago de Cuba in 2026 had already been documented, along with tire burning in the Los Pinos neighborhood.
The so-called "black berets" are the popular name for the National Special Brigade (BEN), a special forces unit that operates under the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). Its official mission is counterterrorism, but the regime systematically uses it to dissolve protests.
Their repressive history was documented during the protests on July 11, 2021, when members of the BEN beat and arrested citizens in various cities across the country.
As a result of those abuses, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned the brigade in July 2021.
Mayeta Labrada pointed out that "the protests are occurring amid discontent over prolonged blackouts and the difficult situation facing the population, while reports continue of security forces being deployed at various points throughout the city."
The appearance of the BEN with long guns in Chicharrones this Sunday represents a new escalation in the repressive response of the regime to ongoing public discontent in Santiago de Cuba.
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