Blockades not to blame for Cuban crisis

To the editor: As one of the few Cuban- Canadian citizens living in Terrace, B.C., I feel the responsibility to provide some insight about the ongoing humanitarian and economic collapse [...]

Blockades not to blame for Cuban crisis Published 12:00 pm Friday, July 17, 2026 To the editor: As one of the few Cuban- Canadian citizens living in Terrace, B.C., I feel the responsibility to provide some insight about the ongoing humanitarian and economic collapse in my home country. The narrative that the United States trade embargo and recent fuel restrictions are solely to blame for the current social crisis, chronic shortages, and the collapse of Cuba’s electrical grid, is a common misconception which falls apart when examining key internal economic and political factors.

For decades, the Cuban government has been systematically mismanaging the economy of the island and maintaining absolute control over every aspect of industry and trade. The structural collapse we are witnessing today, is the result of the following: Strict Economic Control: The Cuban government’s insistence on maintaining a rigid command economy has stifled private enterprise, strangled local productivity, crushed local innovation and destroyed basic industrial sectors, including the once undisputed backbone of the island’s economy: the sugar cane industry. In 2002, in response to low global prices and production costs, President Fidel Castro ordered in what was known as the ‘Alvaro Reynoso Task’, a drastic downsizing of the sugar cane industry.

The government shut down 60% of the existing sugar mills, which displaced more than 100,000 workers. Instead of modernizing the remaining facilities, the government decided to invest in other industries such as tourism. Today, the sugar industry receives less than 3% of state investment, and the handful remaining sugar mills that still operate, cannot produce enough to cover domestic consumption.

Instead of enacting meaningful market reforms to allow Cuban farmers and entrepreneurs to freely produce food and trade, the communist state maintains a monopoly on imports and distribution, directly causing the acute scarcity of food, medicine and basic necessities. Neglect of Vital Infrastructure: The Cuban government’s prioritization of state-run tourism infrastructure, and its failure to maintain or modernize the island’s dilapidated thermoelectric plants, is the direct result of the current energy crisis, characterized by catastrophic, nationwide blackouts lasting over 20 hours a day. These extended daily blackouts that paralyze the country, take an immense physical and psychological toll on the society.

Besides affecting critical systems like health care, education and public transport, the blackouts make it nearly impossible to keep food fresh, to cook, to access clean water, to communicate with friends and family when phone batteries die, just to cite a few. People are surviving in a state of constant exhaustion. Unable to sleep at night, due to the extreme Caribbean heat, people bang pots and pans outside their doors out of sheer frustration and helplessness.

Yet, the ruling Communist Party refuses to relinquish political control and maintains an unyielding grip of absolute authority. While most neighbourhoods, schools and even some hospitals are frequently plunging into darkness, government-run hotels can somehow keep their lights on. Unsustainable Dependence on Foreign Subsidies: Rather than building a self-sustaining economy, the Cuban government built a model entirely reliant on subsidized oil and financial lifelines from foreign allies, first the Soviet Union, with whom they had a sugar-for-oil barter system from 1960-1991, and later Venezuela, with whom they had a controversial oil-for-doctor program.

Human rights organizations and the United Nations have raised concerns regarding the latter program, citing coercive contracts, heavy wage confiscation by the Cuban government (up to 95%) and withholding of passports to restrict the movement of personnel. This program is a form of modern human trafficking and the personnel involved is often referred to as “slaves in white coats”. The current shortage of refined fuel in Cuba today, is a direct consequence of this structural dependency which has been ongoing since 1960.

Monetary and Economic Mismanagement: Ill-conceived domestic policies, such as the botched ‘Currency Unification Task’, proposed by President Diaz-Canel in 2021, triggered hyperinflation that devalued citizens’ wages, obliterating local purchasing power. Unemployment increased as few people were willing to work for $20 dollars a month (average monthly salary). The skyrocketing inflation, and the severe shortages of food and medicine, among others, have contributed to widespread social discontent and historical migration waves.

Over 1 million Cubans have migrated from the island since 2021, representing a staggering 10% of the country’s total population. While external geopolitical factors certainly complicate international commerce, they do not cause a nation to stop producing its own food, nor do they prevent a government from upgrading its own electrical grid. The mass exodus of Cuban citizens fleeing the island is not a protest against foreign policy; it is a vote of no confidence in a ruling regime that is unable to cover basic necessities and that refuses to grant its people economic and political freedom.

Blaming external blockades is a convenient political shield used by the Cuban state to deflect from its own governance failures. True relief for the Cuban population will not come with donations and charity. These are only temporary band aids.

True relief will only be achieved when the government takes absolute responsibility for its economic model, opens the economy to free-market principles, allows free and fair voting (a right denied to Cubans since 1959), and respects all other fundamental rights of its citizens. Peaceful protesters, independent journalists, artists and political dissidents face arbitrary detention, harassment and imprisonment. There are currently over 1000 political prisoners in Cuba, some of which are children.

To illustrate it easily, I could be incarcerated for several years for writing this letter in my home country. Passive dialogue has proven insufficient thus far, so the best thing that Canada and the rest of the world can do, is to continue to apply pressure on the Cuban government to respect human rights and to implement democratic reforms. By continuing a policy of quiet diplomacy without clear conditions, Canada risks inadvertently legitimizing an oppressive apparatus rather than helping the citizens it claims to support.

We all need to stand together and start holding the Cuban Government accountable for the catastrophic humanitarian and economic crisis devastating the island. Viva Cuba libre! Shirley Oro Almagro, Terrace, B.C.