Residents of the neighborhood Mariana de la Torre in Santiago de Cuba protested this Thursday against the blackouts that are affecting the area, according to a video documented by journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada on Facebook.
The clip, lasting just 27 seconds, captures the sound of pots being struck in the nighttime darkness of the neighborhood, where residents themselves stated that the area "heated up."
The pot-banging protest this afternoon does not come out of nowhere. At the beginning of September, residents of 2nd, 4th, and 11th streets in the same neighborhood reported nearly 48 hours without electricity due to a fault in the wiring of a high-capacity transformer.
The Electric Company then claimed that it did not have the necessary cable to carry out the repair.
The energy context surrounding this cacerolazo is devastating. On September 18, Cuba experienced a total disconnection of the National Electric System —counted as the seventh or eighth nationwide blackout of the year according to various media— and the reconnection took more than 32 hours. Throughout September, the generation deficit exceeded 2,000 MW on several occasions.
Since June 15, the Electric Company of Santiago has reorganized power outages into nine residential blocks, leaving each area with only one or two hours of service per day.
Mariana de la Torre is not the only protest site in the city. At the end of July, neighbors from the Reparto Sueño staged almost daily pot-banging protests due to blackouts lasting up to 22 hours, with a police presence in the area. Previously, in May and March, similar protests were reported in the city.
The phenomenon has overwhelmed Santiago. In September, residents of El Vedado blocked Avenida 26 after more than 40 hours without electricity; mothers in Arroyo Naranjo blocked a street with their children after 48 hours without power and more than three days without water; dozens of people protested in Fontanar; and in Santa Clara, the pressure from residents in El Condado forced the repair of a transformer after almost 36 hours without service.
The pattern repeats across the island: the accumulated despair from power outages lasting over 12, 24, and even 48 hours drives Cubans to take to the streets, banging pots and pans as their only means of being heard, in a country where organized protests are penalized and the electricity crisis has gone unresolved for years.
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