Protests: Neighbors of Luyanó block a street due to lack of water

Havana/Blackout and protest no longer go hand in hand in Cuba. This Friday, on México Avenue, in the capital municipality of Cerro, 14ymedio came across the remains of the previous night’s protest: large stones, piles of garbage and even a chair remained on the road, forcing vehicles to avoid them. As seen in the broadcast videos On social networks, dozens of neighbors took to the streets playing pots and blocked the road after spending 24 hours without electricity. Several hours later, the obstacles still had not been removed. When consulted by this newspaper, a neighbor preferred not to make statements for fear of police surveillance.

This newspaper documented, also this Friday, another protest in Luyanó, in broad daylight. Neighbors who had been without electricity for more than 24 hours blocked several streets with empty buckets, branches and metal objects. On a poster they summarized their main demand: “Water and light.” According to what a neighbor told this newspaper, the lack of water is what most outraged the neighborhood. “I’m about to go to the Malecón to drink salt water,” he said. The sector chief went to the scene to talk with the residents and shortly after the electrical service was restored. The authorities promised to send a water pipe, but after noon, it still had not arrived. The neighbors decided to keep a street blocked until that happened.

This Thursday night, from the Editorial Board of 14ymedio, intense banging of pots and pans were heard coming from several buildings in Nuevo Vedado, near Boyeros and Conill. The neighbors had been without electricity for more than 28 hours. The service was restored for just an hour and a half, when the refrigerators were already defrosted and the water in the building had been completely consumed. When the blackout returned, the largest and most extensive cacerolazo in memory of the neighborhood began, something unusual given that it is mainly inhabited by officials and state workers.

In some areas of the capital, blackouts already exceed 72 hours. The lack of electricity supply also aggravates the water crisis: residents of numerous municipalities report that they have not received it for weeks. The cuts are consecutive and the few hours with power are barely enough to recharge the batteries, much less to pump water.

Along with the energy crisis, complaints of illegal charges within the electricity company are also beginning to surface. “Corruption in the UNE is rampant because of its respect,” a Luyanó resident tells this newspaper. “Not long ago, the neighbors here paid for them to come and fix a breakdown. We had been without electricity for almost 24 hours and we had to pay for them to do what they are supposed to do.” According to neighbors, the practice of paying to be connected to privileged circuits has also spread and thus reduce the time of blackouts.

Similar claims were made by the residents of San Miguel del Padrón during the protests this Thursday, which took place in broad daylight. Neighbors reported that some workers prioritize the restoration of service on certain circuits in exchange for money. “They pay them to come and turn on the power and that is the situation that exists in other neighborhoods, that there is no stable power,” said one resident to Martí News. “The workers know the current need we have with the energy crisis and they are getting paid.”

In the same line, broadcast videos from Calabazar, in the municipality of Boyeros, they show several neighbors holding two people who, according to testimonies, were workers at the electricity company and were negotiating to prioritize certain circuits in exchange for money. According to user testimonies, the two involved were later arrested by the Police. Other videos show dozens of neighborhood residents gathered in the streetchanting slogans to demand the restoration of electrical service and denounce the lack of transparency in the operations of the state company.

Guanabacoa was another of the many hot spots in the capital. There, residents marched in groups through the streets after three days of blackout and a month without water, shouting “Water and current!” According to the testimonies spread On social networks, residents from different neighborhoods joined the same protest. According to these publications, state authorities went to the scene to try to calm the protesters and promise that the service would be restored.

In San Isidro, Old Havana, the pictures show to neighbors shouting directly against the Government and Miguel Díaz-Canel, denouncing that they have been without electricity and water for four days. A woman, shouting with a broken voice, exhorts the “handsome” of the neighborhood to bravely confront the police.

The engineer and private entrepreneur Yulieta Hernández Díaz also published This Friday in their profile that in their neighborhood of Playa they staged a cacerolazo that lasted for an hour and only stopped when the electricity returned. According to reports, the neighbors had accumulated nearly 100 hours without electricity, they recovered the power for just two hours and were left in the dark for another 31 hours. “13 days, I think, that we are going without water and still counting. I’m already losing count, my neighbors tell me it’s 16 days. We’ve even collected rainwater,” he wrote.

The Government’s response to the protests continues to be repression. The activist Gisselle Ordoñez – known on social media as Zea Gisselle – reported this Friday in a detailed chronicle that she was summoned and interviewed by State Security agents in a police unit in Havana, where they questioned her about her participation in demonstrations and her publications on social networks.

“I don’t have a President, I don’t have a country or a country; what I have is the neighborhood where I was born, the place where I was born and where I grew up, an island, a piece of land”

According to her story, the agents accused her of “exercising leadership” in the protests in her neighborhood, of documenting police operations and of disseminating content on social networks that, according to them, responded to opposition interests. The activist denied belonging to organizations or receiving financing, but clearly expressed her position: “I do not have a President, I do not have a country or a country; what I have is the neighborhood where I was born, the place where I was born and where I grew up, an island, a piece of land.”

According to the activist, the interview ended with the signing of a warning document. In it, Gisselle wrote that she committed to “not change her way of thinking” and try not to incur crimes established in the Penal Code.

The pressure against those who participate in protests also extends to other provinces. This Friday, the independent organization Cubalex denounced the forced disappearance of at least six people detained after a protest over the blackouts that occurred on Tuesday night in the Loma del Chivo neighborhood, in Guantánamo. According to the organization, State Security and Police agents filmed the protesters and later arrested them.

So far two of them have been identified, Yeansg Carlos Pérez George and Cristian Jesús Bergondo George. Cubalex assures that their relatives do not know the whereabouts of the six detainees and remain in front of the Operations Unit of the Department of State Security in Guantanamo, where they report having received mistreatment by the authorities.