Cuba’s Crisis Boils Over: Protesters Torch Communist Party Headquarters in Morón
Fuel cutoffs and blackouts ignite a decade’s rage
Residents of Morón, a city on Cuba’s northern coast roughly 250 miles east of Havana, stormed the local headquarters of the Cuban Communist Party in the early hours of Saturday and set furniture and documents ablaze in the street. Footage shared widely on social media showed large crowds outside the building, chanting “Libertad” as fires burned and objects were hurled at the structure. Cuban authorities confirmed five arrests and described the events as “vandalism acts,” while state media denied reports that police opened fire on the crowd. Independent accounts and video circulating online appeared to show a young man collapsing near the building shortly after what sounded like a gunshot; witnesses in the footage were heard saying a protester had been struck. Cuban state media attributed the apparent fall to a “drunken” participant. The unrest in Morón came after ten consecutive nights of street protests across the island, the most sustained wave of public anger seen in years. The immediate trigger was a near-total collapse of electricity supply. A broken boiler at the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant, Cuba’s largest, cascaded into a nationwide blackout. Two additional power plants shut down after fuel oil and diesel were exhausted, and solar parks operated well below capacity.
US fuel embargo and Venezuela’s collapse tighten the noose
Cuba’s energy crisis has its roots in a deliberate policy campaign by the Trump administration. After the United States abducted former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a January operation, the supply of heavily subsidised Venezuelan oil that Cuba had relied on for years dried up entirely. An executive order issued on 29 January effectively barred any country from shipping oil to Cuba, threatening economic penalties against third-party suppliers. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said publicly that no petroleum shipment had reached the island in three months. The fuel shortfall has cascaded outward. Cubans are struggling to access food, medicine, and basic services. Multiple Havana neighbourhoods joined the protests through “cacerolazos,” the Latin American tradition of banging pots and pans loudly at night. Slogans including “Down with communism” and “Freedom” were heard across multiple provinces. Some graffiti photographed in Matanzas province reportedly read “Viva Trump.” Cuba’s government, in a separate diplomatic gesture, announced it would release dozens of prisoners citing its relationship with the Vatican, a move widely read as an attempt to reduce external pressure. President Trump, speaking earlier in the month, declared the Cuban government was in its final days, and said Cuba would be “next” after the United States concludes its military campaign against Iran.
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