The benches of the Plaza de Marte, the most iconic public space in Santiago de Cuba, were once again found damaged this month, according to images released by the official newspaper Sierra Maestra and shared by the page "Santiago de Cuba today" on Facebook.
The incident occurred just two months after an identical episode that forced authorities to urgently repair them.
In early August, Sierra Maestra —the official organ of the Communist Party in the province— had reported the theft of the wooden boards from those same benches under the headline “The Firewood Boards”, noting that they had allegedly been removed to be used as fuel amid the energy crisis plaguing the city, with power outages lasting up to 22 hours a day in some neighborhoods.
The authorities responded quickly: on August 15, the banks were restored, with replaced boards and turquoise paint, and Sierra Maestra demanded that the law be enforced against those responsible: "Conservation actions at this heritage site must also be accompanied by care for the community. Additionally, it is necessary to enforce the law against those who commit acts of vandalism in this and other public spaces."
The citizens, however, were skeptical from the very beginning. "Now everyone needs to take care of them. Do the parks already have caretakers? It's important to prevent vandalism," asked one user. Another was more direct: "They should have made them out of metal and soldiers... end of story."
Now, in October, the cycle repeats itself. The page "Santiago de Cuba hoy" warned that "we cannot normalize the fact that resources allocated to improve our city end up being wasted due to irresponsible behavior" and announced that it will publish "the faces of the vandals on social media" if the investigations yield results.
The deterioration of Plaza de Marte is not an isolated case. In August, a section of metal railings disappeared from a historic bridge in Matanzas, a bronze star was stolen from the mausoleum of Major General Calixto García in Holguín, and unknown individuals toppled the bust of Antonio Maceo in Las Tunas.
In September, the Ignacio Agramonte Park in Camagüey was vandalized with graffiti, with damage that the Office of the Historian warned could be irreversible.
The pattern responds to a structural crisis. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing recorded 2,833 crimes in 2025, a 115% increase compared to 2024, with 1,536 thefts —a 479% rise since 2023—. The scarcity of fuel and electricity is pushing many families to resort to wood as their only source of heat and cooking.
The Plaza de Marte, which houses a tower-monument to the Liberating Army and busts of José Martí and Camilo Cienfuegos, was restored in 2018 and received further conservation work in December 2023 and December 2025. Within its perimeter is the provincial headquarters of the Communist Party, which became militarized in July 2026 due to concerns that the protests against power outages would escalate.
Several residents of Santiago have called for the reinstatement of park attendants, a position that was eliminated years ago: “I recommend evaluating the reestablishment of park attendant positions, as their presence was very effective in caring for our city’s most iconic parks,” wrote a citizen. Another summed up the more widespread viewpoint: “This isn’t about 'awareness,' this is the law; those who break it should pay the consequences.”
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