New Pots and Pans Protests in Cuba over Blackouts

On Friday night, residents of Cerro and Nuevo Vedado in Havana protested from their homes, banging pots and pans, demanding the restoration of electricity.

By 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – After more than 60 hours without power, the residents of Nuevo Vedado in Havana protested on Friday night with pots and spoons due to the lack of electricity. They are not the first. The previous night, on Thursday, residents in Encrucijada, a municipality in Villa Clara, also took to the streets to protest the prolonged blackout by banging pots.

These protests have not been as intense and numerous as those on October 20, when the island was experiencing a massive blackout. Nonetheless, the sound of pots was heard not only in Nuevo Vedado. Residents of Cerro also in Havana,  protested, including those in two twenty-story buildings that, nearly completely dark, emitted the metallic sounds typical of these protests. These buildings, located at the iconic Esquina de Tejas, have significantly deteriorated in recent years. They house low-income families, many of whom previously lived in old tenement buildings on that land.

On Thursday night, residents of Encrucijada, in Villa Clara, also banged pots demanding the restoration of power. According to a video shared by journalist Mario Penton, residents gathered at the local government headquarters to demand the end of the blackout, shouting, “Turn the power back on, damn it!” and in another video, allegedly from the same night, chanting, “The united people will never be defeated.”

In a later part of the recording, two officials—a man and a woman—appear trying to calm the crowd, while one resident responds, “That’s just politics.” The official explains to the residents that they can “keep singing and banging pots,” but it is unlikely that “the situation” will be resolved soon, prompting complaints and cries of discontent from the residents.

Other videos shared by CubaNet and social media users confirm that the protests took place in front of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power. Shortly after the pot-banging protest, the provincial Electric Company announced the restoration of service in the municipality.

The protests, however, did not go without consequences. So far, according to Justicia 11J, seven people have been detained in the municipality for participating in the protest, though only six names are known: Rafael Camacho, Hector Luis Olivera, Marcos Diaz, Ruben Martell, Rodel Rodriguez, and Aliucha Herrera, Camacho’s mother, who went to the Encrucijada Police Station on Friday with about twenty others.

Herrera told the media that a group of relatives of those detained went to the station to inquire about them. “Last night we protested peacefully for power because we’d been without it for 72 hours, and this morning they started rounding up young people, including my son. They took his phone, and I haven’t gotten it back. We’re here, about twenty people waiting,” she explained before being detained herself.

Another resident who participated in the Encrucijada  protest, Alejandro Morales, shared with the media images of several military agents surrounding his home and threatening him after confiscating his phone. In the recordings, a plainclothes officer is heard saying he will “put him in a sack.” Morales shared images of broken shutters and objects after the authorities allegedly “kicked down” his window.

In October, after the failure of the electric system and then the passing of  Hurricane Oscar, multiple protests were reported across the island. According to Justicia 11J, 51 events were counted between the 18th and 31st of that month. In Manicaragua, Villa Clara alone, the organization confirmed six detainees.

“They were arrested on October 23, transferred to the State Security headquarters in Santa Clara, and are now held in La Pendiente prison, also in Santa Clara. The Prosecutor’s Office is requesting ‘provisional detention,’” Justicia 11J reported.

In Camajuaní, another municipality in the province, Jorge Mendez was arrested on October 19. “ICLEP reports that he is ‘under custody at the State Security headquarters in Santa Clara. Mendez protested with a loudspeaker from his front porch,” they added.

Other media outlets reported the arrest of Nelson Caballero Diaz, a 24-year-old father of two, on October 18 in Camagüey for protesting the blackouts. His family told Marti Noticias that he had demanded the restoration of electricity in Jimaguayu with other residents, banging pots and shouting slogans.

“A neighbor called me and said, ‘Did you hear that they beat up your husband outside?’” said Daimara Aliaga Rodriguez, Caballero’s wife, who added that the man had to be taken to the hospital after the beating. Aliaga received a call informing her of her husband’s condition. “She called me around two in the morning, asking if I knew my husband was in the hospital. I told her I didn’t, and I was finding out from her,” she said.

After a week in detention, during which Aliaga could only see him for 10 minutes, Caballero was transferred to the Ceramica Roja prison, charged with “incitement to commit a crime.”

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

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