Cuba: Protest Over Water Brings Police and a Water Tanker
The water tanker arrived without a hose, and a senior officer demanded that residents carry their own buckets.
HAVANA TIMES – “You need it, you haul it.” This response from a police official to residents of Regla who were protesting the lack of water only heightened tensions on Maceo Street on Wednesday, August 19th. Several women from this Havana municipality had gone to complain outside the police station and managed to get a water tanker to the area. However, the truck arrived without a hose, and the solution offered was for each family to carry their water home in buckets.
The protest had begun shortly before, as 14ymedio confirmed at the scene. A group of women were standing in front of the police station, visibly upset and demanding a response to the lack of water service. On their way back to the neighborhood, one of them shouted to residents that everyone should come out onto the street because the problem didn´t only affect those who had gone to protest.
“She was insisting we all need to come out, because everyone was without water, not just them,” said Frank, a local resident. He has heard the same complaint from various parts of the municipality. “People are complaining because they don’t have even a drop of water left.”
About 15 minutes later, a water tanker arrived, along with a group of police officers, including some high-ranking senior officials. Numerous residents, including women and children, watched from the sidewalks.
The arrival of the tanker, however, didn´t put an end to the dispute. The vehicle didn’t have a hose to deliver water directly to the homes, and the driver wanted the residents themselves to come fill their containers and carry them away.
The exchange between residents, the tanker driver, and the officers became increasingly heated. “You need it, you can carry it,” one of the senior officers snapped. That remark particularly incensed residents, who pointed out that the neighborhood is home to many elderly people and others who are unable to carry several buckets of water from the street to their homes.
This method also fails to guarantee enough water for a family’s needs. Residents explained that when the situation was less critical, a tanker could supply two or three homes and fill their household storage tanks. Now, with many more homes dependent on the water trucks, each household ends up receiving barely three or four buckets.
“That doesn’t solve anything,” another resident lamented. Even less so, he added, for those who must set aside water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and maintaining minimum hygiene for several days.
The water-supply crisis in the municipality isn’t new. On August 13, the Havana water company, acknowledged disruptions in the lower areas of Regla and Casablanca linked to the El Gato System, one of the main sources supplying the capital. That day, the state-run company also reported electrical problems that had left several pieces of equipment in the system out of service.
The interruptions have made access to water a recurring source of frustration in Regla. In June, residents of the municipality blocked a street after going more than 24 hours without electricity or water. Police quickly arrived in the area, and tensions eased only after electrical service was restored.
A month later, on July 8, dozens of people again took their complaints to the municipal government and Communist Party offices after several days without either service. Women with children, elderly people, and other residents gathered under the sun while police and officials attempted to contain the discontent.
Wednesday’s scene once again illustrated something that is repeated in different parts of the island. Women are often the first to take to the streets to demand action; next, the uniformed officers arrive, and only afterward does some emergency solution appear. This time, the tanker provided temporary relief from the water shortage in a neighborhood of Regla, but it was far from resolving the problem. As long as water distribution continues to depend on improvised responses, the next complaint will surely be only a matter of time.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.