“We are still in combat, we are still working to address these two critical situations that place an exceptional condition in the lives of Cubans, and we will be permanently in contact with our people to the same extent that we are making progress in addressing these problems.”
The phrase, shared this Monday afternoon by the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, has to do with the two contingencies affecting the Cuban people: the energy emergency and the impacts left by the passing of the Oscar weather phenomenon.
After concluding the Palace of the Revolution the Check-Up meeting - the second of the day - to see first-hand how the country is progressing in the face of these two challenges, the Head of State made his statements and began by saying: “We have just held the analysis meeting that we are holding at two moments of the day as part of the follow-up to the exceptional situation that our country is experiencing, which as we explained yesterday to our people is based on two fundamental events, which are putting a major strain on the lives of the Cuban people”.
He then spoke of “the electrical emergency we have been experiencing in the last few days”, and of the effects caused by “Hurricane Oscar, which became a tropical storm as it passed through the eastern provinces”.
On the issue of the electricity emergency, Diaz-Canel said: “We must say that there is remarkable progress at the moment; there is more than 36 percent of the service restored, working with stability at the moment; and we continue taking steps and in the coming hours the levels of service to the population will be increased”.
“Already in the city of Havana we have more than ninety percent of the services worked, and now we are looking to increase the levels of service in the rest of the provinces, and especially to attend with particularity the problems of the eastern provinces.”
The President commented that, about the energy emergency, we are going to two moments: “A first moment is that in the next few hours, we will be overcoming this emergency from the point of view of the disconnection event, and we will then enter a stage of managing the deficits that will remain - which was the situation we were living before the first disconnection process and which we aspire to be able to work in a way in which the availability of fuel and a whole group of negotiations that have been carried out with friendly countries will allow us to be in better conditions, to gradually reduce the generation deficits”.
On the issue of the electricity emergency, Diaz-Canel said: “We must say that there is remarkable progress at the moment; there is more than 36 percent of the service restored, working with stability at the moment; and we continue taking steps and in the coming hours the levels of service to the population will be increased”.
“Already in the city of Havana we have more than ninety percent of the services worked, and now we are looking to increase the levels of service in the rest of the provinces, and especially to attend with particularity the problems of the eastern provinces.”
The President commented that, about the energy emergency, we are going to two moments: “A first moment is that in the next few hours, we will be overcoming this emergency from the point of view of the disconnection event, and we will then enter a stage of managing the deficits that will remain - which was the situation we were living before the first disconnection process and which we aspire to be able to work in a way in which the availability of fuel and a whole group of negotiations that have been carried out with friendly countries will allow us to be in better conditions, to gradually reduce the generation deficits”.
The Cuban President warned that it is “a major task in the economic and financial conditions that the country is experiencing, caused -I repeat once again- by the tightening of the blockade against Cuba, and by the inclusion of our country in the list of terrorist countries”.
About the cyclonic event, the dignitary declared that the first information had already begun to “flow after its passage through the territory of the eastern region”. And he stressed:
“We want to inform the population that the affectations are severe at this moment in the province of Guantánamo, with which we have maintained permanent communication. It must be said that the municipalities of San Antonio and Imías have been strongly hit by this event, and there have even been flooding levels, which were not historically registered, in these two areas”.
“Unfortunately, from the preliminary information we have, there was the loss of six human lives in the municipality of San Antonio; and we are still doing the work of rescuing the population, to continue evaluating the possible damages of the impacts, because there are areas that are flooded, which we have not yet been able to enter.”
The Head of State highlighted “the support given by the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior to save the population”. He praised that these important institutions took part in the rescue actions and care and protection of the population: “Therefore, in the next few hours we will have more precise news about the situation of these two places”.
Cuba in the BRICS
“We wanted - the president expressed - to also give additional information to our population, which has to do with the BRICS Summit, which is going to be held during the 23rd and 24th, in (the Russian city of) Kazan.”
“This is an important event, where the BRICS member countries have summoned more than thirty countries to strengthen the foundational precept of the BRICS to expand cooperation with the South. In other words, there is an orientation of this integration bloc towards the countries of the South”.
Díaz-Canel Bermúdez valued that “it is a great honor for Cuba to be able to participate in this Summit. We had already participated in the South Africa Summit, representing the Group of 77 and China, in which we held the pro tempore presidency at that time. Once again, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin - who is currently presiding over the BRICS - invited Cuba to be present at this event”.
“And it means a huge opportunity, an important opportunity for Cuba to participate in it, taking into account the historical relations we have with the BRICS countries.” In the same line of thought, the dignitary referred to the recent request made by Cuba, in its “aspiration to be approved as a partner country within the BRICS”. And he added: “We in the BRICS feel a very favorable environment”.
A country like ours, he stressed, “which has been constantly besieged by imperial policy, enduring an intensified blockade, an inclusion in a spurious list of countries that allegedly support terrorism, finds in the BRICS an environment of inclusion, an environment of equality, an environment of cooperation and collaboration, an environment of solidarity, based on projects that are developed between the BRICS countries and the countries of the South”.
Speaking of Cuba as a nation included within that South, and the framework of the BRICS, the dignitary spoke of the Caribbean country within a context “in conditions of mutual benefit and with a truly inclusive projection, where the aspects of multilateralism are defended and also the aspiration to change the unjust international economic order that prevails today in the world and that responds to the interests of the imperialist powers”.
Referring to the purposes of the important bloc, the President spoke of an effort “based on the creation of an economic and commercial cooperation structure, which does not use the dollar as its currency, which takes into account the complementarities that may exist between the different countries, and which can take advantage of all the potentialities”.
“In other words, a space in which President Xi Jinping of China also called for five initiatives that have to do with the construction of a global community of shared future, of a global community of security, of a global community to share the advances in science and innovation, among other aspects. Therefore, it was an event in which we were going to participate at the highest level of the country”.
Díaz-Canel explained to reporters, “When this electrical emergency arose, and the cyclone alarm, we decided not to participate and to remain here in the country, to be at the forefront, together with the leadership of the Government, together with the rest of the Party leadership and all the effort that our people are making to face both the electrical emergency and the recovery from the damages caused by cyclone Oscar”.
He emphasized that “we are going to be worthily represented”, because “the Cuban delegation is headed by our Foreign Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the Political Bureau, comrade Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla”.
“This is an event where we were also going to have the possibility of meeting and having interviews, working meetings with important world leaders - such as the esteemed presidents of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin; the President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping”; as well as ‘the leaders of the delegations of Vietnam and other friendly countries, including the BRICS countries’.
The Cuban President assured that “an important part” of these exchanges could take place; and “that Cuba's participation will also have an important impact and transcendence in this event”.