There was a time when International Workers’ Day was marked in Cuba by parades involving more than a million people marching through Havana’s Revolution Square. Many came out of conviction, some because they were pressured, others to enjoy the party.
This Monday, however, the square will be empty, after the Cuban Communist party cancelled this year’s celebrations due to gasoline shortages that are crippling the island’s economy.
For weeks, motorists have been sleeping in their cars outside petrol stations in queues that stretch for miles and last for days.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said the island is only receiving two-thirds of the petrol it needs, and that the shortfall is due to supplier nations failing to fulfil their contractual agreements.
Jorge Piñon, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean energy and environment program, said this was an allusion to Venezuela. The two socialist nations have had a barter agreement since 2000: Cuba sends Venezuela doctors, teachers and – allegedly – counterintelligence agents in exchange for shipments of crude. That deal is now being strained.
“For the last two decades Venezuela has been losing that revenue by not selling that oil on the international market,” Piñon said. “I think they’ve just come to a point where they can no longer continue to provide cash-free oil to the Cubans.”
Venezuela’s exports to Cuba have dropped by about 50% over the past decade as overall oil production has decreased due to corruption, mismanagement and sanctions. But the war in Ukraine has brought a new dynamic into play.
Hungry for crude after sanctioning Russian oil and gas, W
