The January 3 capture of Nicholas Maduro by Delta Force commandos also put an end to electricity in Cuba.
Venezuela was the largest supplier of the oil that ran Cuba’s ancient power plants. By February, President Trump had a full oil embargo in place. He not only turned off the Venezuela supply, but strong-armed Mexico into ending “humanitarian” shipments of free oil, and used the US Navy to turn back a Russian oil tanker.
Electrical blackouts occupy more hours of the day than electrical supply. I was staying in one of the most privileged neighborhoods in Cuba, in the central neighborhood of Vedado, next to hospitals and huge tourist hotels that are given a prioritized electrical grid. I only had one 12-hour blackout, and then daily short ones of 2 to 4 hours.
That was an excellent supply of electricity, perhaps the best in Cuba. In outer parts of Havana, electricity can be as rare as a few hours a day, and reports from secondary cities and the countryside indicate that 20 to 24 hours of the day there is no electricity. This has continued for months. Many provincial Cubans have been reduced to cooking in the street over small wood fires.
In Havana, you can see that many people have switched to battery powered lights, and those who can afford it have a small generator or solar panels, and large lithium wall batteries. All those goods are imported, and only available to those who have relatives abroad.
The farther you range from Central Havana, the darker Cuba gets. But even in my neighborhood, I was warned constantly about a new class of desperate, knife-wielding criminals, and the empty avenues and pitch-black streets were terrifying.
This video shows a stretch of one of the most famous avenues in Havana, Presidentes, lined with elegant buildings, none of which you can see.
In the next issue of this Havana at Midnight series, I’ll explain why virtually everyone I interviewed in Cuba nonetheless supports the oil embargo.
“Don’t give them one gallon of gasoline,” a woman told me.
