The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledged that the U.S. embargo cannot be used as an excuse for negligence, indifference, or the lack of attention from officials to the population, in remarks that contrast with the official narrative which typically blames the country's problems on Washington's sanctions.
"Where there is negligence, where there is indifference, where there is a role of a public official who does not attend to the population, there is no blockade that is valid, nor is there any justification for the blockade that holds," he stated during the Criterio Compartido program on November 4.
The words arose during a broadcast entirely dedicated to the water supply crisis, one of the most pressing issues facing Cubans.
According to Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, at dawn on November 3, nearly 2,681,770 people were experiencing interruptions in water supply due to network issues. The 66% of these disruptions were caused by electrical failures —the pumping stations do not operate without electricity— and 25% were due to breakages in pumping equipment.
During the program, citizens of Santiago de Cuba and Havana reported that they had gone up to two years without receiving water through the pipes, a situation that Díaz-Canel described as "real, serious, and complex."
The leader mentioned the embargo, the energy crisis, and the aging infrastructure as factors that exacerbate the problem, but he set a clear limit to that argument: no material difficulty justifies officials not appearing before the public or explaining the situation.
"One thing is the objective problem, and another thing is when that problem accumulates. When there are people who, for a long time, have had the accumulated problem, no one has come to explain, no one has come to share the situation with them," he noted.
The acknowledgment is unusual in the official Cuban discourse, which for decades has used the embargo as a universal argument to explain the country's shortcomings. By recognizing that there is an internal responsibility among officials that cannot be covered by this argument, Díaz-Canel introduces a crack in that narrative, although he does not question the system that appoints and supervises those same officials.
"What we have here is a responsibility that we must demand, and that is part of what this program needs to bring to the table," he added.
The statement raises questions about the actual accountability mechanisms in Cuba, since the officials identified as negligent are appointed and controlled by the structures of the Communist Party and the government it leads. Díaz-Canel also warned that "the resolution of a complaint should not depend on whether the person appears on the program."
The energy context further exacerbates the situation: this Saturday, the Electric Union predicted a supply of only 1,070 MW against a demand of 2,830 MW, covering just 38% of the country's needs.
Cuba has experienced at least seven total power outages during 2026, and in some circuits of Havana, there were over 52 consecutive hours without electricity at the beginning of November.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated in September that the actual number of people affected by water issues could reach 3.5 million, while Cuban pipes—many of which are between 60 and 70 years old—lose between 40% and 70% of water before it reaches homes.
Criterio Compartido is a biweekly program hosted by Díaz-Canel along with journalist Bárbara Betancourt on Radio Rebelde since September 23, 2026. Its previous broadcasts gathered complaints about insufficient wages, low pensions, and lack of fuel, as well as reports of unpaid pensions and elderly individuals without care.
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