‘Light also exists’: Some Cubans see hope in the darkness of the moment

Every day, 77-year-old Diosdado Valdez walks along a ditch beside a highway west of Havana, using a knife to harvest long grass that he stuffs into a burlap sack to feed his three goats. 

Valdez said he’s been all over Cuba during his long years, cutting sugar cane and working in the fields. He said this moment in his country’s history worries him. 

“We don’t have a future if we don’t get help with the oil,” said Valdez. 

The U.S. oil blockade on Cuba is now in its third month, creating an energy crisis that impacts almost every facet of daily life in a country already struggling with aging and deteriorating infrastructure. 

On Sunday, the New York Times reported the U.S. Coast Guard would allow a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering some relief.

Tracking data shows the oil tanker, carrying approximately 730,000 barrels of oil, was just off the eastern tip of the island on Sunday night and slated to arrive in the city of Matanzas by Tuesday.

Journalists working for Cuban state media also reported on the boat’s expected arrival, though Cuban officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amid the growing hardships weighing on daily life, some people in Cuba still believe there is hope for a better future on the other side of this pivotal moment in the country’s history.

Cuba suffered two national blackouts lasting hours within the space of six days in mid-March, while food prices for basics such as cooking oil, chicken and vegetables are climbing nearly out of reach for many people. 

The U.S. has created a small exemption allowing private businesses to import fuel, totalling about 30,000 barrels so far this year, according to Reuters. 

But that covers only a fraction of the need in a country where the Communist government controls transportation, public works and health care, along with food imports and most of the tourism industry, which has almost completely collapsed.

“You need to change the people in charge. You need to change the system that runs the country, and you need to change the economic model that it’s following,” said U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio Friday after a G7 meeting in France. 

“That’s the only way forward if Cuba wants a better future.”

Former Cuban president Raúl Castro is leading fledgling talks with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, current Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel revealed in an interview that was recently shared by state media.

The energy crunch and its cascading effects have added another layer of hardship for a large portion of the population already living on the knife-edge of poverty. 

Frustration has flared into sporadic protests. A Communist Party building was set on fire in the city of Morón, about 450 kilometres east of Havana, and cacerolazos — the banging of pots and pans — have erupted at night during blackouts. 

Still, a fear hangs over many residents, who worry that speaking publicly about the hardships they face could get them in trouble with the government. 

CBC News spoke to numerous residents in Havana and in Bauta, a city about 40 kilometres west of the capital, where people have filled the night with the sound of cacerolazos. 

Many described the exhaustion of planning their lives around unpredictable power outages — jumping out of bed at 3 a.m. to start cooking going when electricity suddenly returns.  

At the same time, many said they worry that speaking openly about their daily struggles could be interpreted as political criticism of the government and put them at risk. 

“The situation in this country is a bit tense,” said Ivette Arencibia, a volunteer at a local Catholic church in Bauta.

Arencibia said it is difficult for many people in Cuba to speak out.

“We are a country that has lived under a socialist regime for 60 some years, and this is one of the idiosyncrasies that Cubans have. It’s a little difficult to step into those themes because you enter into the realm of controversy,” she said.

Manuel Perez, 80, was an adolescent during the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He later helped reshape the country, becoming a literacy teacher. He also lived in the Soviet Union and studied engineering before returning to Cuba.

He said Cubans should not fear voicing their feelings about the hardships they face.

“These are real difficulties we have today — the lack of food, the problem with gasoline, the problem with the blackouts … the lack of attention across different sectors, that all exists,” said Perez.

He said the system that governs the country also needs to evolve. 

“The Revolution has to have its positive change within the modern times we live in. 60 years ago is not the same as 60 years later…. There are things that have to change,” he said. 

Perez said he sees hope on the horizon. 

“In the depth of the darkness, in the depth of the same cave, light also exists, even if it’s a little bit farther away,” he said.

Journalist and academic Julio Aleaga, who is aligned with the country’s opposition, has literally felt the fist of the Cuban regime for crossing its ideological lines.  

Aleaga said police officers once grabbed and beat him as he walked out of his Havana home one morning at about 8 a.m. They shoved him into the back of a cruiser and took him about 50 kilometres away to a police detachment in the borough of La Lisa, west of the capital, he said. 

He was detained and kept alone until about 4 p.m., when a senior security officer appeared.

“He told me, I wanted to meet you…. For him, wanting to meet meant that he was the boss and that he could have me beaten and that he could do whatever he wanted to with my life,” he said.

Aleaga wrote a novel called Maleconazo after an explosive anti-government protest in August 1994 along Havana’s famed seawall, the Malecón. The book, published in 2022 and banned in Cuba, is set during the Special Period in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union plunged the island nation into a deep economic crisis. 

“It was a very difficult moment, much more difficult than now,” said Aleaga. 

Unlike today, when strict gasoline rationing and a black market keep a limited number of vehicles in operation, there were no vehicles on the roads during the Special Period, he said. 

“There was no gas for anyone, even for government ministers or officials, even for tourists,” he said. 

The country also faced a profound food shortage that led to widespread vitamin deficiencies and caused about 50,000 people to lose their eyesight because of an illness called optic neuropathy, Aleaga said. 

He said power was rationed during that era in eight-hour intervals — eight hours on, eight hours off. 

“Today, you don’t know when there will be power and you don’t know when it will be cut off. You don’t know when the system will fail,” he said.

“That type of uncertainty also makes this moment different.”

Aleaga said “the provocative and disruptive spirit of the United States government” is another element that adds to that uncertainty. 

However, Aleaga does not want U.S. pressure through the oil blockade to force the collapse of the Cuban government. 

“It could lead to something much worse,” he said. 

Aleaga said Cuba needs to follow a path of truth and reconciliation, similar to what South Africa pursued after the end of apartheid. 

“I believe that’s the direction we should go — with forgiveness, reconciliation, not for a total cleansing of the slate and complete reset, but through a process of transitional justice,” he said. 

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/cuba-light-future-9.7145447?cmp=rss