Havana’s energy ministry said earlier today that Cuba is experiencing another nation wide blackout, reported numerous news media outlets. It is its fifth national black out in less than a year, reported The Guardian. The cause of this humanitarian disaster remains the same. University of Pennsylvania Associate Professor Amalia Daché on October 21, 2024 on MSNBC, then in the midst of another nationwide outage in the island, explained it with both accuracy and brevity that eludes many, but remains relevant today.
“This is symptomatic of a larger system that the Cuban regime functions within, and the lack of investment into the power grid, into its electrical system has a lot to do with the fact that they mismanage their economy. They do not invest in the electrical system the way they should, such as modern societies, and the Cuban regime has just been, again, doing in appropriate things with the finances that they get from their allies, and they have not been appropriately funding the electrical grid in Cuba.”
Nora Gamez Torres provided needed background information and context in her reporting that appeared today in the Miami Herald in the article, “Another island-wide blackout in Cuba, as power grid collapses amid energy crisis“.
“The Cuban government has blamed the energy crisis on U.S. sanctions, pointing to sanctions on vessels transporting oil from Venezuela to Cuba and the general effect of the U.S. embargo in denying financial resources to the government. The U.S. sanctions, however, appear to have done little to deter the shipments from Venezuela, which continued, though at a lower pace because of Venezuela’s own production problems and decisions to prioritize dollar sales.
A recent Miami Herald investigation revealed that the Cuban military-run conglomerate GAESA held massive dollar reserves last year that could have been used to update the country’s old energy infrastructure.
Lately, the left-leaning Morena government in Mexico has stepped in to send oil to Cuba. Mexican state oil company Pemex sent one billion dollars in subsidized oil to Cuba between July 2023 and September 2024, according to an investigation by a Mexican civil society organization focused on exposing corruption. It sent another $850 million between May and June this year, the report says.”
This is in stark contrast to lazy reporting from NBC News, The Washington Post, and The Guardian which repeat regime talking points without any push back. While NBC News quotes Havana’s claims about the U.S. Embargo. The Washington Post and The Guardian go further claiming that the black outs are due to a lack of foreign currency reserves, ignoring the reporting that the Cuban military’s conglomerate GAESA is holding $18 billion in foreign reserves. Other countries with that amount of currency reserves are Panama, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. They do not have the nationwide power outages Cuba is suffering from.
Jorge Piñon, a Cuban-born energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin, highlighted that Cuba’s electricity grid relies on eight very large power plants that are close to 50 years old. “They have not received any operational maintenance, much less capital maintenance, in the last 12 to 15 years,” he said, adding that they have a lifetime of only 25 to 30 years. “So, No. 1, it’s a structural problem; they are breaking down all the time, and that has a domino effect,” he said.
Nora Gámez Torres of the Miami Herald cited Jorge Piñón, in her October 17, 2022 article “Cuba ramps up imports of Russian oil, helping Putin to evade sanctions” describing him as “a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island” in which the following revelation was made.
Amid economic and political turmoil, Cuba has received at least $322 million worth of oil from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine as authorities struggle to offset diminished shipments from close ally Venezuela, according to estimates by oil industry experts. The 4 million barrels of Urals crude oil received by Cuba “is the largest quantity since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Jorge Piñón, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center who closely tracks oil shipments to the island.In 2015, Havana received a $1.36 billion offer from Moscow to fix and construct new generators, but Cuban officials had other plans.
In 2015, Moscow offered $1.36 billion to fix and build new generators in Cuba, but Havana had other plans.
In September 2022, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Tatiana Amarán Bogachova, stated that the Cuban regime had not been able to access the Russian credit of 1.2 billion euros for thermoelectric plants, as it had not managed to secure the 10% upfront payment (120 million) needed to access this credit. “The money from that loan was not used for anything. Simply put, we have not been able to resume the project. On the other hand, credits are not a gift, but a loan. There is no way for Cuba to use the money for anything other than this project,”
Amarán expressed. The “project preparation work” was carried out by Russian and Cuban companies. It took three years, from 2016 to 2019. Amarán justified this delay by claiming it was a study of great “complexity,” but the situation worsened in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic and the deep crisis of the Cuban economy.
“It was impossible for us to secure the advance amount that would allow the Russian party to have access to the credit for the project,” said Amarán, arguing that in recent years the government prioritized other issues. … “Between 2006 and 2019, the Russian government lent Cuba $2.3 billion to finance energy, metallurgical industry, and transportation projects. However, the regime did not guarantee the maintenance of the thermoelectric plants. In February 2022, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament ratified the regulation that extended until 2027 the payment of loans granted to the Cuban regime, which has almost completely stopped repaying loans since early 2020, which “increased its debts to Russian commercial banks and exporting entities,” according to the EFE agency.
The responsibility of the kleptocratic elite in Cuba
On August 15, 2024 Tampa resident Mirtza Ocana (age 39) pled “guilty to one count of bulk cash smuggling and one count of conspiracy to commit bulk cash smuggling.” She was smuggling millions of dollars out of Cuba to the United States.
“According to court documents, Ocana returned to the United States on a flight from Cuba on February 5, 2024. Despite telling U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents that she had no cash to declare, Ocana concealed more than $31,000 in her luggage. After agents found this cash, Ocana admitted that she frequently smuggled cash into the United States from Cuba and that she had done so two to three times per month since June 2023. She also told agents that she was paid between $1,000 and $2,500 each time she smuggled cash. Agents searched Ocana and discovered an additional $71,300 in cash hidden in her clothes. In total, agents found approximately $102,700 in cash concealed both in Ocana’s clothes and in her luggage.”
“Corruption can be simple or complex. Officials fortunate enough to have control over scarce resources like fuel sell these on the black market and realize enormous profits. The preferred approach is more indirect, however. Following the outbreak of anti-regime protests in July 2021, the government allowed the establishment of private “micro, small, and medium enterprises,” theoretically as a way to open up the economy to market forces. But most if not all of the 9,000 private enterprises operating in Cuba today are owned by powerful regime figures who then funnel public works contracts to them.”
Alejandro Gil Fernández, Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning until February 2, 2024, was detained on March 7, 2024. He has been linked to Mirtza Ocana and her “bulk cash smuggling” operation from Cuba to the United States by CubaNet. Ms. Ocana has denied the connection, but the timing and word of mouth indicate otherwise.
Money leaves Miami for Cuba and returns to Tampa for regime oligarchs, and their relatives
Nora Gámez Torres reported in the article “How Miami companies are secretly fueling the dramatic growth of Cuba’s private businesses” published in the Miami Herald on June 23, 2023 that “the money that families have sent to their relatives in Cuba for decades is now fueling an explosion of capitalism on the communist island. Businesses that facilitate that flow of cash have created a clever but complex system that is helping Cuban private entrepreneurs sidestep U.S. financial sanctions and buy abroad the supplies they need for their businesses on the island.” Now we know that millions of those dollars ended up in the pockets of high ranking Cuban officials, and funneled back into the United States through Tampa.
Cuba is in the midst of an existential crisis with a dictatorship that is a kleptocracy, has failed the Cuban populace, while at the same time destabilizing democracies in the region, sponsoring terrorism, and sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine. They have resources, but their priority is not the well being of Cubans.
Sanctions work because trading with the dictatorship, as Europe, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and much of the rest of the World is doing, does not translate in improvements for every day Cubans, but more resources for Havana to pursue an agenda hostile to Western democracies, and the rule of law.
On August 11, 2022 the Center for a Free Cuba published a petition for the establishment of an emergency humanitarian corridor for Cubans which called on Havana and the world’s democracies to take concrete actions. The present moment calls to reissue this petition.
“The [Cuban] government would prefer to control all relief efforts, but they don’t have the capacity to,” Nodarse Venancio of WOLA said.
We call on the Cuban dictatorship to:
- Eliminate restrictions on the distribution of humanitarian aid from international organizations and from Cubans in the diaspora to Cubans in need on the island;
- Permit visits of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Cuba’s prisons.
In addition, we urge that world democracies call on the UN Security Council to respond to the situation by sending a delegation to Cuba, and by establishing a humanitarian corridor for direct emergency assistance to needy Cubans, without regime participation.
This petition was inspired by the Christian Liberation Movement’s policy proposal “For Solidarity with Freedom of Cubans Campaign. Eleven concrete actions to isolate the Cuban totalitarian and segregationist regime.”
If you are in Washington DC next week on September 18, 2025 and want to learn more about the reality of what is happening in Cuba then you should check out the premiere at 6:30pm of the documentary Cuba's Eternal Night at The Miracle Theatre located at 535 8th St SE. Washington DC 20003. Tickets available online.
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