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Cuba’s communist government announced Monday that the blackouts currently leaving parts of the country with no lights and no fans in the middle of summer will continue for weeks or possibly even months to come.

“The operating reserves that we have in the electrical system are insufficient to cover the demand, making effects on service inevitable,” Energy and Mining Minister Livan Arronte Cruz said during a discussion of the power grid on state-run television Monday evening.

The minister said breakdowns of Cuba’s largely obsolete 20 power plants, where maintenance has been postponed for lack of funds, had combined with fires this year at two generators to dash hopes of ending outages over the hot summer months and perhaps into next year…

Havana has largely been spared the daily blackouts which can last four hours or more and be repeated during a 24-hour period.

This has already been going on for months, making life and work extremely difficult for people, though as the Reuters report above notes people in Havana have largely been spared the worst of it. This report on the blackouts is from May.

“I couldn’t work because I got to a client’s house and there was no light,” laments Mamito, an air conditioning repairman who lost the morning due to the blackout. “Without electricity I can’t test the equipment or show the owner how the fix turned out.” Around the area, in the Cerro neighborhood, the cafeterias were also closed and the traffic lights were off.

Local stations try to broadcast the blackout schedule but sometimes the blackouts come without warning. Those received worst are those that appear in the middle of the night, because the heat of May forces us to use fans or air conditioning equipment to be able to sleep. It is common for shouts to rise with swear words or insults against Cuban leaders when the blades of the fans stop moving in the middle of the night.

But the geography of the blackouts is irregular and reveals the ruling party’s fears of new popular protests like those of last July. “Why don’t they take electricity away from Havanans as much as from us?” asked a resident of the city of Sancti Spíritus on Facebook this weekend. Most of the comments pointed to the authorities’ fear that “people in the capital will throw themselves into the streets.”

The concern about a popular uprising against the government isn’t all talk. There were major protests last summer which were also prompted by blackouts. NPR reported at the time that there was a mood of revolt on the island and the government shut down the internet to prevent video of the protests from spreading. They also rolled out Raul Castro to try to prop up the communist revolution.

YANEZ: We’re hearing from special sources that there is still a mood of revolt on the island, that there are police officers on every street corner, that some people have been – police have shown up to – at their homes and have taken them away for taking part in the demonstrations on Sunday. It’s a very delicate mood in Cuba right now. Anybody who dares to go out in the streets will be likely grabbed and taken into custody…

CORNISH: The Miami Herald has also talked about the fact that Cuba, as you say in your headline, rolled out 90-year-old Raul Castro. What do you think was the symbolism that was attempted here and why do you think that, in this moment, this is ineffective?

YANEZ: This was harking back to the old days of the revolution, and the only one left is Raul. He retired earlier this year. But when the question of defending the revolution, as they say, suddenly erupted on Sunday, they called on him to be a face of, this is what we did 60 years ago. We’re not going to have this taken from us. Here’s Raul, who is 90 years old at this point. And they are – Cuba is dealing with a younger generation that is not buying into this idea of a revolution that happened 62 years ago. So Raul was there to remind them. And the president called out for old revolutionaries and communists to come out to the streets and stop this uprising.

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I don’t know if seeing Raul Castro (now 91) on state TV still works but shutting off the electricity and the internet definitely makes it difficult for protesters to get their message out or organize their protests.

A local news station in Miami published a story last week showing some video of angry Cubans taking to the streets in the dark with pots and pans to demand change.

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Here’s one more video showing several thousand people protesting the blackouts.

Finally, here’s Reuters report on the announcement from the government:

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