14ymedio, Madrid, 19 March 2024 — At 3:54 in the afternoon this Monday, the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant was synchronized with the National Electric System and, if all goes well, in the next few hours it will be able to contribute 280 megawatts (MW), said the Minister of Energy and Minas, Vicente de la O Levy. Added to this will be the arrival of a ship with fuel in the middle of the week that will allow generating capacity to be increased. But, as the saying goes, joy is short-lived in a poor man’s home and, in the best of cases, Cubans will be able to feel the relief for just two weeks, as noted on State TV’s Round Table program last night.
On officialdom’s TV program yesterday, host Randy Alonso brought together three other journalists notable for their loyalty to the Government – Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, Oliver Zamora and Bárbara Betancourt – to analyze the protests of recent days in various areas of the country, with populations in Santiago de Cuba , Granma and Matanzas in the lead.
Alonso’s focus was clear in the title of the episode — The United States, the Miami mafia and the anti-Cuban campaigns — and conveyed the official line of what happened: the population is tired of the blackouts caused by the US blockade and comes out to complain peacefully, although people in Florida sought to instigate “an attempted remake of 11 July” — a day of nationwide protests in 2021 –which did not occur. The cries of “freedom” and “homeland and life” that were heard in the protests were deemed to be slogans uttered by those who “tried to give it a political nuance,” “provocators who luckily were nullified by the people’s own actions and by the rapid response from the leaders,” they argued. This followed the same lines as the State newspaper Granma, which headlined this Tuesday on its cover: New attempt at a soft coup against Cuba. The lords of chaos were left wanting.
“The population is tired of the blackouts caused by the blockade and comes out to complain peacefully, although Florida seeks to instigate ‘an attempted remake of July 11,’ which did not occur”
Beyond the extensive rhetoric, the meeting offered some news, starting with the announcement of how soon the relief of the blackouts will take place and continuing with the plausible explanation that a ship – the Eco Fleet – coming from Tunisia and loaded with some 39,000 tons of diesel has been a few miles from the port of Havana for a month without being able to unload.
“How many ships have not reached the Cuban coast, looking at us from the high seas and they have not been able to arrive because we do not have the money to pay for it or they have been sanctioned. There has been the case of some who have arrived and said: ’Look, I can’t touch land’ and they have had to go and buy the ship, 20 million that perhaps the country had earmarked for the purchase of raw materials for the blood pressure people and that there is not enough to complete the purchase of the [items included in the rationing system’s] basic basket,” said Zamora.
The four analysts addressed th