After 65 years of a failed socialist revolution with its inherent corruption and mismanagement, the electrical grid all across Cuba collapsed. The Cuban people are taking the brunt of this, while the elite of the Communist Party continue to live luxurious lives. The blame for the massive power outages in Cuba falls squarely on the communist Castro dictatorship and its decades of plundering the island’s resources for its own benefit.
Mailyn Salabarria explains in the International Policy Digest:
Socialism Turned the Lights off in Cuba
Imagine the grand opening of a fancy rooftop lounge in a high-rise, with the whole city watching. Suddenly, the building implodes at the party’s peak, killing all in attendance. Why? Because instead of investing in concrete foundations, the architects splurged on Rolexes, Gucci bags, and an endless supply of champagne for the elite’s celebration.
What if, in the wake of this disaster, those responsible tried to shift the blame for the tragedy onto the people who could have sold them better concrete? That would be nonsensical, right? Well, that’s essentially what just happened to Cuba’s power grid.
In the past few weeks, one of the island’s largest and most dilapidated power plants finally reached its breaking point, causing a total blackout in 90% of the country.
For almost five days, Cubans had no electricity, limited Internet, running water, and barely any access to essential services. For five days, the corrupt communist regime’s epic financial incompetence and negligence were on full display for the world to see.
The island’s unelected president, Miguel Díaz-Canel — heir to Castro’s communist plantation — was forced to shut down schools, suspend work, and halt all non-essential operations to contain the unfolding disaster.
Naturally, he took to state-controlled TV to do damage control, blaming the U.S. embargo -or the few Helms-Burton Act restrictions left in place by now- for the energy disaster in the country. (It’s unclear who he thought he was talking to, as the entire island was dark.)
The truth behind Cuba’s power crisis runs deeper than a broken generator. It’s a direct result of over 60 years of failed policies and chronic financial mismanagement. This is a crash course in Econ 101: A centralized economy that believes in “robbing Peter to pay Paul” will always collapse under its own weight.
Cuba’s power system relies on aging, poorly maintained, and overexploited thermoelectric plants fueled by high-sulfur crude that corrodes machinery even faster. Add to this a mass exodus of qualified energy professionals and the government’s refusal to invest in infrastructure, and it’s no wonder that scheduled blackouts have been a way of life for Cubans since 1959.
Blackouts were “business as usual” for the 27 years of my life I lived in Cuba, and still are for 11 million people left on the island.
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