“Cuba Cancels May Day Demonstration Due to Fuel Shortages and Economic Struggles”

The communist government of Cuba canceled the traditional May Day demonstration due to severe shortages of gasoline and diesel fuel.

As a rule, hundreds of thousands of people are brought to Havana by bus from all over the island to celebrate what is called International Workers’ Day in Cuba.

Demonstrations have been held every year since 1959 after the victory of the revolution. The cancellation for economic reasons happened for the first time. In 2020 and 2021, however, the processions were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Huge queues of cars have been lining up at gas stations for several weeks in a row. Sometimes drivers wait their turn for several days.

Somewhat earlier, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that the country receives only two-thirds of the fuel it needs. According to him, suppliers who do not fulfill their contractual obligations are to blame for this.

Jorge Pignon, Director of the Energy and Environment Program at the University of Texas at Austin saidthat this is an unambiguous allusion to Venezuela. Both countries entered into a barter agreement back in 2000, according to which Cuba sends doctors and teachers to Venezuela, and, according to some sources, counterintelligence agents, in exchange for receiving oil. This agreement is now in jeopardy.

“Over the past two decades, Venezuela has been constantly losing revenue because it does not sell this oil on the international market,” Pignon said.

Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba have already been cut by almost half over the past decade due to its own internal problems: overall production has declined due to corruption, mismanagement, and sanctions.

However, the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine changed the situation. For the first time in years, the Biden administration has given permission to Chevron to extract and export Venezuelan oil to the United States.

Venezuela suddenly has a much better buyer after years of economic crisis. Higher quality Venezuelan oil now goes to the US.

This put Cuba in a difficult position: there is oil in Cuba, but it is of poor quality, and the island’s refineries are not able to process it.

Cuba is constantly short of hard currency and cannot buy fuel in the required quantity on the world market.

The “maximum pressure” sanctions imposed by the Trump administration and largely upheld by President Biden are depriving Cuba of billions of dollars a year in foreign exchange earnings.

The lack of fuel further complicated the daily life of the Cubans. According to the Spanish newspaper El Paisa typical monthly salary is 150-200 dollars, despite the fact that a liter of vegetable oil costs 30 dollars.

The Cuban government still claims that the socialist model is great for the country and that US sanctions are to blame.

Instead of a mass demonstration in the capital, the country is likely to have local marches that people can attend on foot.