when the US military abducted President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro of Venezuela<\/a>, Donald Trump has promised Cuba will fall. \u201cWhether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,\u201d he told reporters at the White House in March.<\/p>\nIn its efforts to achieve this, Washington has used sanctions to destroy Cuba\u2019s industries. Foreign companies doing business on the island, from hotel operators, airlines, miners and shipping companies, have been driven out (or in cases such as Canadian nickel miner Sherritt, have drawn up plans to stay in by selling its interests to Ray Washburne, a former advisor to Trump).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seven containers in Kingston and another 40 in China, but we have no idea when, or if, they will arrive,\u201d said an electric car importer.<\/p>\n
In May, a court in Florida charged 95-year-old Ra\u00fal Castro with murder, 30 years after the shooting down of small planes out of Miami dropping leaflets on Havana, and opening the possibility of a Venezuela-style extraction.<\/p>\n
Fuel shortages have left the streets of cities like Havana almost empty. Photograph: Ram\u00f3n Espinosa\/AP<\/p>\n
Even before the US cranked up the pressure, the Cuban state was weak, having fallen into the grip of hyperinflation during the pandemic. Now, services are faltering. For years one of the safest countries in Latin America, crime is blossoming: there are fights on the streets, cars and houses being broken into, and muggings with violence. Police, once ubiquitous, are hard to find, and victims complain they take hours to turn up.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re still there though. Prisoners Defenders, a Madrid-based group, said that the number of political prisoners had risen to 1,306, with newcomers such as H\u00e9ctor Ochoa Vergara \u201cdetained after taking part in a peaceful demonstration against blackouts and water shortages in Ciego de \u00c1vila\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Cuban government\u2019s determination to appear united has recently appeared to be under strain. For months now, the US has been leaking its discussions on a possible deal over political and economic reforms, negotiations channeled through Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Castro, grandson of Ra\u00fal Castro.<\/p>\n
Last week, the 42-year-old Rodr\u00edguez Castro gave an interview to USA Today, inviting reporters to one of his grandfather\u2019s old offices in Havana, then to Antojos, a smart city restaurant. He was wearing Hermes sneakers, a Rolex and carrying official documents in a Salvatore Ferragamo bag. \u201cIt pains me that many people can\u2019t live the way I do,\u201d he told the reporters, adding that while he had no interest in politics, \u201cif at some point the revolution needs me to step up, I will do it\u201d.<\/p>\n
The resulting uproar took in musicians, academics, former diplomats, and just people on the street outraged by such a display from someone who is, in the words of respected academic Julio C\u00e9sar Guanche, \u201cwithout recognised institutional public functions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cuba\u2019s president, Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel (2nd L), accompanied by Cuba\u2019s National Assembly president, Esteban Lazo Hern\u00e1ndez (L), commander Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Machado Ventura (2nd R), prime minister Manuel Marrero Cruz (R), and Ra\u00fal Guillermo Rodr\u00edguez Castro (C-back). Photograph: Adalberto Roque\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Most telling though, was the anger of younger Cubans associated with the government. \u201cTo usurp the functions of government, to assume a public role for which no one elected you, to proclaim yourself spokesperson for measures or new directions for the country \u2026 would anyone else be allowed to do that?\u201d wrote Michel Torres Corona, whose Con Filo programme on Cuban television was recently considered the epitome of state propaganda.<\/p>\n
Early in the crisis, the US made clear it had been looking for someone to be its \u201cDelcy\u201d, the equivalent of Venezuela\u2019s Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who took Maduro\u2019s position as president of Venezuela and is now working hand in glove with Washington. But Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban and Cuban American studies at the University of Miami, thinks Rodr\u00edguez Castro\u2019s USA Today interview may signal a collapse in such negotiations, calling it instead \u201ca cry for relevance\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s an open question as to who exactly he speaks for, and whether the channel of communication with him is ongoing or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Certainly, having gone into a lull during the World Cup, war drums are once again banging in the US, 90 miles to the north.<\/p>\n
Rubbish fills the street in Havana Photograph: Yamil Lage\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In the unlikely surrounds of the Biltmore hotel in Coral Gables, Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, stood next to an Iranian Shahed drone and attempted to link Cuba with Iran over (unconfirmed) reports that Cuba has purchased 300 attack drones. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to recognise that Iran has consistently been working with Cuba,\u201d he said. In the White House, Trump followed up, saying: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to allow that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile Cuban government efforts to show willing by opening up the economy, announcing 176 as yet to be enacted measures expanding the private sector and inviting in investment, were dismissed by the US State Department as \u201csuperficial smoke signals\u201d.<\/p>\n
The grid was reconnected at 7am on Wednesday, people cheering if their block received electricity. But everyone knows it is only temporary.<\/p>\n
Laura Garcia, an illustrator and single mother from Havana\u2019s 10 de Octubre neighbourhood, said her neighbours now lived only in the present. \u201cWhat I hear is a level of desperation that doesn\u2019t allow the distance to discuss the future,\u201d she said. She had just gone 72 hours without power, and when pushed for further comment, only muttered: \u201cWhat has to fall doesn\u2019t fall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Cuba\u2019s national grid collapses, as it did for the third time in 10 days on Tuesday, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-770161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}