Protesters angry over Cuba’s persistent blackouts and food shortages vandalized a provincial office of the Cuban Communist Party overnight Friday into Saturday, state-run media said.
The rare outburst in the town of Moron showed the depth of Cubans’ discontent as they endure economic hardship made worse by a US oil blockade and other pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has stated he would like to see regime change in Havana.
The unrest was part of a new trend of protests in which people bang pots and pans at night in the street or at home to vent frustration over shortages of food, medicine and other basics as well as frequent rolling power blackouts that can last almost all day.
Photo: The Cuban Presidential Office via EPA
The state-run newspaper Invasor said five people were arrested in what it called an incident of vandalism in Moron, a town of about 70,000 people 500km east of Havana. The paper published a brief article on the unrest, in which it said people threw rocks at the local Cuban Communist Party office and ignited a fire in the street with furniture from the building.
“What began peacefully, after an exchange with the authorities in the area, degenerated into vandalism against the headquarters of municipal committee of the Communist Party,” the newspaper said.
Video circulating on social media shows a small group of protesters breaking into and ransacking the party office, removing documents, computers and furniture and burning it in the street.
In some footage people are heard banging pots or shouting “libertad,” or freedom.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel acknowledged in a social media post “the discontent our people feel because of the prolonged blackouts.”
“What will never be comprehensible, justified or admitted is violence,” he said.
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