Over 50 years, and their economy still sucks.
Free market capitalism would deliver wealth to citizens.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/amid-blackouts-scarce-food-cuba-protests-rattle-cradle-revolution-2024-03-27/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqDQgAKgYICjC3oAwwsCYwye7-Ag&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AZsHK_m-VBEiVpmNpga3Y9D4eAPkl0U9xr--Ogyxxpq4uYsP5dP_IlhCARRV4T1iLzsQ21WGCihz2iic90PrYnER-KKAzF

Amid blackouts and scarce food, Cuba protests rattle 'cradle' of the
Revolution
By Dave Sherwood and Alien Fernandez
March 27, 20249:05 AM PDTUpdated 11 hours ago

SANTIAGO DE CUBA, March 27 (Reuters) - A crowd swarms the steps of a
small state-run market on the outskirts of Santiago, Cuba's
second-largest city, sweating and shouting, jostling for a chance at a
once-monthly ration of chicken.
A pound bag of thighs is going for a bargain 20 pesos - about a nickel
at the black-market exchange rate - but furor devolves to chaos as word
spreads there may not be enough for everyone.
And that's when the lights go out.
"This is life here," said Mauri Macias, a 39-year-old chef with two
children who spoke with Reuters as he waited his turn to buy a handful
of the government-subsidized poultry. "You live without being able to
make plans."
The episode last Wednesday in Santiago – the site earlier this month of
a rare public protest - provides a telling snapshot of the challenge
facing Cuba's government: When the power fails, tensions - even in areas
sympathetic to Fidel Castro's 1959 communist Revolution - begin to soar.
Reuters interviewed more than two dozen residents and local officials in
the Santiago de Cuba neighborhoods of Veguita del Galo, Jose Marti,
Micro 9 and Abel Santamaria. They told of their frustration at food
shortages and electricity outages that sometimes top 10 hours daily.
"Living without electricity is primitive," said Yoni Mena, a 34-year-old
who runs a vegetable stand in Abel Santamaria, a hillside neighborhood.
"The mosquitoes, the heat, sometimes there is no water. People are
losing their minds. And that leads to other problems, like violence."
Several hundred protesters gathered on March 17 in Santiago's Carretera
del Morro Park, chanting "power and food," according to first-hand
accounts from local residents. Social media videos showed a smaller
group shouting "freedom" as local Communist Party leader Beatriz Johnson
prepared to speak with the crowd from a rooftop.
Both the government and observers characterized the protests as largely
peaceful.
The Cuban government, once reticent to acknowledge protests, now calls
for dialogue and has moved quickly to attend to grievances in areas
where they have flared.
In Santiago de Cuba, local officials and residents said the government
has begun to distribute subsidized rations, including chicken, rice,
sugar and milk.
Power supply also became much more regular in the week following the
protests, according to residents and Reuters observations.
"We are aware that (lack of) electricity provides the spark for any
protest," Energy and Mining Minister Vicente de la O'Levy said last week.
Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel visited Santiago on Thursday. The
president blames the United States and the "capitalist media" for
stoking protests, and says his government is willing to have dialogue
with upset citizens.
Reuters, which did not witness a protest while in Santiago in the days
following the March 17 rallies, requested an interview with Communist
Party officials to discuss the earlier demonstrations but received no
response.
CRADLE OF THE REVOLUTION
Santiago, a Caribbean outpost some 870 kilometers (540 miles) south and
east of the capital Havana by rutted roads, dubs itself the "cradle" of
the Cuban Revolution.
The former Moncada military barracks downtown were the site of the
revolution's first battle in 1953. Castro himself, who ruled the island
for nearly five decades, once lived in a wooden home overlooking the
bay. He is buried here, his tombstone marked simply "Fidel."

Item 1 of 6 People try to get a once-monthly ration of chicken, during a
blackout, at a small state-run market in Santiago, Cuba, March 20, 2024.
REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo
[1/6]People try to get a once-monthly ration of chicken, during a
blackout, at a small state-run market in Santiago, Cuba, March 20, 2024.
REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens
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The city, like Cuba, has fallen on hard times since the COVID-19
pandemic. Tourism – once a major source of foreign currency - has
sputtered, with potential visitors put off by a lack of infrastructure,
U.S. visa rules and news coverage of economic woes and unrest.
A long-standing U.S. trade embargo and related sanctions, as well as an
inefficient state-run economy, have led to shortages of food, fuel and
medicine, while Cuba's obsolete power plants cannot meet demand.
Mirta Rusel, 58, a state textile worker in Jose Marti, earns 3,410 pesos
($10) a month. She said she had adapted to the power outages, but not to
food shortages.
"In the days there was no rice, I ate only sweet potato," said Rusel,
adding that recently she would fry it in oil for variety. "That's the
reality of life in Cuba."
Some Cubans Reuters spoke to in Santiago talked of their appreciation
for a system that for decades provided basic state-subsidized
healthcare, food, housing and education.
Luz Perez, 48, a former schoolteacher who lives in an apartment block
built by the Castro administration, said she would not protest but felt
authorities needed to take action.
"Aggression doesn't solve anything," Perez said. "I love Cuba. But this
situation is terrible. No one can live like this."
'WE HAVE TO SOLVE OUR OWN PROBLEMS'
Cuba's 2019 constitution grants citizens the right to protest, but a law
more specifically defining that right is stalled in the legislature,
leaving those who take to the street in legal limbo.
Others try to work with the system.
Maria Antonia Figuera, a neighborhood block leader who represents 1,500
people in Abel Santamaria, said she attends often angry complaints day
and night.
Figuera said she organizes sporting events for children during blackouts
and is constantly wrangling with local officials to assure water and food.
"People are irritated," she said in an interview at her home. "We have
to solve our own problems here, because no one is going to do it for us."
Rights groups, the European Union and the United States say Cuba's
heavy-handed response to anti-government rallies on July 11, 2021 - the
largest in decades - have also led many to think twice before attending
demonstrations.
In the wake of the March 17 protests, 38 people were arrested
countrywide, including several in Santiago, according to Spain-based
Prisoners Defenders. Cuban authorities have said some protesters
committed crimes ranging from public disobedience to vandalism, but have
not provided information on detentions.
A government truck carrying "black beret" Interior Ministry troops -
sometimes employed to disperse protesters - was parked on Wednesday and
Thursday night at the site of the largest March 17 protest, near a local
Communist Party headquarters in Veguita del Galo.
Maria Elena Casanova, a 64-year old state worker who lives near the site
of the Santiago protest and watched it take place, described it as
peaceful - and the natural conclusion of several weeks without power.
"I don't feel that anyone planned it," she said as she sat on her
doorstep waiting for power to return to the neighborhood.
"That was the people there, expressing their problems."
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Reporting by Dave Sherwood and Alien Fernandez in Santiago de Cuba,
Additional reporting by Alexandre Meneghini; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien

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