While millions of Cubans have been enduring blackouts for months and the electrical system has faced eight total collapses this year, the Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla celebrated this Monday the 66th anniversary of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution from the Cuban Mission to the UN in New York, alongside members of the regime's diplomatic delegation.
On his X account, Rodríguez posted images from the event held at the diplomatic mission building and wrote: “We celebrate the 66th anniversary of the founding of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, alongside the members of @CubaONU. We reaffirm the steadfast commitment of Revolutionary Diplomacy to continue defending the Homeland, the Revolution, and Socialism.”
The celebration on New York soil stands in stark contrast to the reality experienced on the island.
On September 18, Cuba experienced its eighth national blackout of the year: the successive tripping of the 220 kV Matanzas-Cienfuegos and Matanzas-Santa Clara transmission lines triggered a cascading disconnection of the National Electro-Energetic System, leaving more than nine million people without electricity for approximately 32 hours.
The situation prompted the United States Embassy in Havana to issue a security alert due to the collapse, warning about widespread disruptions in telephone and internet services.
After that blackout, more than 80% of the base station sites and about 70% of the telecommunications cabinets were out of service, resulting in an internet traffic loss of 58%.
On September 1, the Electric Union forecasted a maximum demand availability of only 1,020 megawatts against a demand of 3,300 megawatts, with a projected shortfall of 2,310 megawatts.
The UN warned that blackouts in Cuba are jeopardizing the vaccination of 70,000 children, while Foreign Affairs magazine cautioned in mid-September that the island is nearing a "point of no return" in its crisis.
In parallel with the celebration of the chancellor in New York, the national event for the anniversary of the CDR took place in Matanzas —a province recognized as a national leader in the annual emulation and the epicenter of power outages— where the national coordinator of the organization, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, participated in the activities while the province remained in darkness.
Miguel Díaz-Canel took the opportunity to publish five messages on X calling for an expansion of the CDR surveillance, linking it to energy savings and the prevention of crimes, drugs, and corruption: "Surveillance is not abandoned, it is expanded," he wrote.
Rodríguez's presence in New York is part of his extensive agenda at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, where the chancellor repeatedly blamed Washington for the Cuban crisis and referred to the embargo as "collective punishment."
On September 22, the Cuban delegation left the UN chamber during President Donald Trump's speech, in which he referred to Cuba as an "absolutely failed state" and predicted the end of the regime.
Three days later, in an interview with NBC News, Rodríguez attributed Cuba's relative stability to the "effectiveness" of the government, a claim that stands in stark contrast to the reality of an island where the economic model has been deteriorating for decades and whose electrical infrastructure collapses with increasing frequency.
Related videos:
Filed under: