Residents of San Miguel del Padrón, in Havana, reported this Friday that a truck from the Electric Company arrived at the San Miguel del Padrón roadway —before reaching the La Balear Hospital— escorted by police vehicles and members of the so-called "black berets" armed with AKM rifles, allegedly to intimidate residents opposing the power outage or other electrical service work.
The testimonies were sent to journalist Mario J. Pentón and shared on his social media. He clarified that Martí Noticias, the outlet he works for, was unable to independently verify all the details of the complaint and requested that the Cuban authorities explain "why it was necessary to deploy police forces and special troops during an operation by the Electric Company in a residential area."
The sources that provided the testimonies requested that their voices and identities be protected, as they claim to be afraid of being identified and facing reprisals; therefore, the video does not include ambient sound.
The "black berets" is the popular name for the National Special Brigade (BEN) of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), a force created to respond to "serious public order disturbances, invasions, and enemy aggressions," according to MININT itself. What distinguishes the report from this Friday is that the deployment did not respond to an ongoing protest, but rather accompanied a power outage operation preventively, which the neighbors interpret as a measure of preemptive intimidation.
San Miguel del Padrón has become one of the municipalities in Havana with the longest history of protests related to the electricity crisis in 2026. On May 13, residents gathered in front of the municipal government headquarters demanding "power and food" in a protest that erupted due to accumulated desperation. On June 19, a pot-banging protest accompanied by burning tires shook the Afán neighborhood. And on July 26, a video revealed the extent of a pot-banging protest that occurred two days earlier in La Cumbre, with shouts of "freedom", and the arrival of trucks, patrols, and motorcycles from the MININT.
On July 24, just a week before the complaint made this Friday, dozens of police officers and MININT forces were deployed in El Diezmero, within the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, during protests over power outages. The municipality has dozens of reports of electrical issues on the power outage map.
The deployment of black berets in contexts related to power outages is not new on a national scale. On June 29, armed individuals with rifles were deployed in the Chicharrones neighborhood of Santiago de Cuba following protests involving pots and pans due to power cuts lasting up to 22 hours daily. According to data from the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts, 107 protests were recorded in Cuba in June, with Havana leading the street protests, totaling 82.
The electrical crisis fueling this tension is the most severe in Cuba's recent history. In July, the National Electric System suffered at least three total collapses; on the 6th of that month, the 10th, and the 14th, which left millions of people without service. In some neighborhoods of Havana, the blackouts lasted for 35 consecutive hours.
A report from Cubalex analyzing data from March 2026 had already warned of "a social militarization" involving patrols and deployments of repressive forces in the context of blackouts. The complaint made this Friday in San Miguel del Padrón suggests that this trend not only continues but is escalating: the regime's special forces no longer wait for protests to erupt before appearing on the streets.
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