Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

After several false starts over the weekend, the efforts to recover Cuba’s electrical system began to make headway on October 21. Meanwhile, authorities have declared that Oscar has become a tropical storm.

Following a severe collapse of the national power grid on October 18, Cuba continues to make great efforts to restore electrical service to all homes and institutions on the island.

The Electric Company of the capital, Havana, reported that close to 90% of the clients in the capital have been reconnected and announced that “There will be no rest until the Electric System is fully restored.”

In this regard, President Miguel Dïaz-Canel said “We were at the National Load Dispatch since very early in the morning. The microsystems in the country are being strengthened and Havana is gradually receiving energy. It is a complex job, but we are taking sure steps. We said that we will not rest until the total reestablishment.”

In other parts of the country, reconnections continue while attempts are made to repair the damages suffered by the thermoelectric power plants, which, due to the difficulties of access to spare parts and technological elements that help to repower the system (caused fundamentally by the criminal economic blockade suffered by Cuba on the part of the US government), the repair tasks are very complicated.

Tropical Storm Oscar

Amid the critical situation with the collapse of the power grid, Hurricane Oscar made landfall on the Caribbean Island late on Sunday. Fortunately for the inhabitants of eastern Cuba, the storm downgraded its intensity and hit the island as a tropical storm, though still unleashing heavy rains and wind in the eastern region. The level of damage that Oscar can produce is still uncertain.

According to experts, the storm is now headed to the Bahamas, though authorities have called on the population to not lower their guard and to be alert to official communication channels.

The world stands with Cuba

Amid Cuba’s blackout, the member states of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP), expressed in a communiqué their support to the Cuban government and offered their help to overcome the difficult times the island is going through: “The complex situation that [Cuba] is experiencing today is a consequence of the economic war, financial persecution and [the refusal to sell] fuel supplies by the US administration, which seeks to asphyxiate Cuba in its commitment to the well-being of the Cuban people”.

Furthermore, the communiqué adds “The policy of maximum pressure through unilateral coercive measures and the blockade against the nation is cruel and inhuman and has been categorically rejected by the majority of the countries of the world, since […] it only seeks a change of regime, in open violation of the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and the norms of International Law.”

In a press conference on October 21, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Lin Jian, also expressed support to Cuba as it faces unprecedented challenges, “[The] US blockade on Cuba has been catastrophic for Cuba’s socioeconomic development and people’s lives. China once again calls on the US to fully lift the blockade and sanctions on Cuba at once and remove Cuba from the list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism.’”

In a statement, the platform of social movements of Latin America and the Caribbean, ALBA Movimientos, categorized the current situation on the island as one of “anguish and tension, a product of the suffering induced by the criminal blockade.” ALBA Movimientos argues that the US-imposed blockade ultimately seeks to “undermine the role of the Cuban State in satisfying the basic needs of the population, while trying to privilege an incipient private sector, incapable by its condition of providing the levels and extent of social justice achieved by the Revolution.”

In the statement, the movements also warn that this latest episode of blockade-induced hardship on the island could be seized upon by reactionary, counter-revolutionary forces. “At this moment, all the psychological pressure apparatus is being used to induce a social outburst of unforeseeable consequences, using as a basis and pretext the legitimate expressions of social unrest resulting from the current situation, its accumulated and possible solutions,” it warns.

The only viable solution which would respect the sovereignty of Cuba and guarantee the possibility of dignified life, is the immediate and irreversible lifting of the blockade on Cuba, concludes ALBA.

Meanwhile, the White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre claimed in a press conference on October 21, that the US is “not to blame for the blackouts on the island or the overall energy situation in Cuba.”

Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.