By Laura Becquer |
Havana (EFE) of fuel in Cuba, with an uncertain end.
In addition to the endless lines at gas stations, which have meandered over multiple blocks for three weeks now, in recent days there have been images of full bus stops due to the lack of public transportation and information such as the cancellation of a concert by the Cuban Symphony Orchestra.
“The fuel situation determines the announced modification,” said the general secretary of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC, single union), Ulises Guilarte, when announcing that instead of the traditional march, minor acts will be held in the communities.
If the pandemic is excluded, it is the first time that this parade – official and festive in Cuba – has not been held through the Plaza de la Revolución since 1994.
Farmers, pending fuel shortages
The crisis threatens to reach the agricultural sector as well. Some agricultural markets have recently seen a lack of fresh produce due to transportation problems from the fields, something that could exacerbate the country’s food shortages.
“I managed to get the winter (crop) and now they told us that the government will give us fuel, but I don’t know how much or how the distribution will be,” farmer Lázaro Guerra, who has a family farm in Havana, told EFE.
Like other farmers, he worries that the fuel will not arrive in time to prepare the land for the spring harvest in May and June.
Another concerned farmer is Leonel Capote, who criticized on Twitter that they cannot sow without fuel “and right now, there is none.” “Add to that, without fertilizers, without phytosanitary products, without inputs,” he warned.
The situation -and especially the uncertainty surrounding its end- is generating growing social unrest in a population that has been dragging on more than two years of serious economic crisis with general shortages, high inflation and frequent blackouts.
Causes of shortages in Cuba
The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, assured that the shortage was due to the “non-compliance” of the supplying countries -Venezuela and Russia, mainly- that are also going through a “complex energy situation.”
Cuba imports practically all the oil it consumes and uses it mainly to generate electricity.
In the first official explanation after more than a week of problems at the gas stations, Díaz-Canel pointed out that if the country normally had “between 500 and 600 tons per day”, the current problems had lowered those figures to “400 tons for all the activities”.
Then, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O, explained that the difficulties would last at least until May and that the authorities would continue “partially removing fuel, in a reduced way”, with the aim that “it does not touch zero supply” and “vital services can be guaranteed”.
De la O said that there is a trend towards “improvement based on decisions, on things that have finished negotiating, from suppliers that are already fulfilling their commitments.”
The head of Energy also pointed to the US sanctions: “It is very difficult for us to obtain ships to transport fuel, seek financing and comply with the requirements of fuel contracts.”
Among these measures are limitations on the sale of fuel (up to 5 liters per car) and the distribution of information and organization of queues through WhatsApp groups.
Cupet, the state fuel distribution company, assured this Sunday that it is not exporting gasoline (as it has done in the past, taking advantage of the fact that the country buys Venezuelan crude at advantageous prices) because “internal consumption is not being guaranteed.”
Previously, information and rumors had been disseminated pointing in this direction and pointing to it as one of the causes of the fuel crisis.
echoes of 2019
The situation is not new. Cuba already experienced complicated circumstances with fuel in 2019 and accused the administration of then US President Donald Trump of making it difficult for fuel to enter the island by putting pressure on Venezuelan oil tankers.
Díaz-Canel assured at that time that it was a “cyclical situation” and ruled out any similarity with the “special period”, the great crisis of the 1990s in Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet bloc in Europe, with shortages of fuel, food and frequent blackouts, a critical moment that is sometimes compared to the current one.
The president argued that the “aggressiveness” of the US government and a “genocidal plan” to “cause a social outbreak” in Cuba were behind the causes of the lack of crude oil.