Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM. Trump
Speaker 1: says Cuba is next on his hit list. For decades,
Speaker 1: the US has tried to isolate the country. Now Trump
Speaker 1: is tightening the screws and blockading oil and plunging the
Speaker 1: island into rolling blackouts. Life has become unbearable. Rubbish and
Speaker 1: rats are taking over the streets, Supermarket shelves are empty,
Speaker 1: and there's no fuel for its classic cars. Now Cuba
Speaker 1: is preparing for the possibility of a US attack. Today,
Speaker 1: Havana based journalist Rory Nickel on the hell Cubans are
Speaker 1: living through and the fear of what could happen next.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, April two, hevena and it's been really tough
Speaker 1: days across the country. Can you describe for us what
Speaker 1: you're seeing when you go out onto the streets there?
Speaker 1: How are Cuban surviving?
Speaker 2: Well, it's been very tough recently because since January the
Speaker 2: thirty first, when President Donald Trump of the US signed
Speaker 2: an executive order essentially blockading the island from receiving any oil,
Speaker 2: there hasn't been any fuel really, with a few small
Speaker 2: exceptions imported, and that has meant that a lot of
Speaker 2: the state institutions have shout. A lot of the schools
Speaker 2: have either shut or partially shut. It means that a
Speaker 2: lot of the transport has broken down.
Speaker 3: Rubbish on the streets, bikes to get around, power only
Speaker 3: by torch lighting. This the state of Cuba desperately running
Speaker 3: out of oil, supplies.
Speaker 2: Very empty roads, cars not being able to go anywhere,
Speaker 2: and it makes her a very strange atmosphere.
Speaker 4: And the notions I can't watch the news, we don't
Speaker 4: have any lights, which are essential for life. Everything's becoming complicated.
Speaker 4: It's getting worse every day.
Speaker 2: But it's very important to remember that Cuba has been
Speaker 2: in an economic crisis for wow, nearly sort of five
Speaker 2: years now, and so people are very used to the
Speaker 2: enormous blackouts we've had, which have been worsening, and people
Speaker 2: are very used to quite a lot of the difficulties.
Speaker 2: There's been few shortages before the government's run out of
Speaker 2: money to collect trash has been huge built ups of
Speaker 2: rubbish at the street corners. People have been setting fire
Speaker 2: to that, which is unnerving to say the least. So
Speaker 2: people are used to crisis. It's just been accelerated by
Speaker 2: these recent moves by the US government down.
Speaker 1: We've imperialism.
Speaker 4: Cuban President Miguel Dascanal addressed the crowd outside the US
Speaker 4: embassy on Saturday, hours after Venezuelan President Nicolas Madoro was
Speaker 4: abducted by US Special forces Rory.
Speaker 1: We know that everything changed for Cuba, of course, when
Speaker 1: Trump captured Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro. What was the relationship
Speaker 1: between the countries and what impact did the US intervention
Speaker 1: there have on Cuba.
Speaker 2: Well, the relationship was very deep ever since Hugo Chaves
Speaker 2: took over Venezuela, and Hugo Chavis used a lot of
Speaker 2: the Venezuelan all reserves to support Cuba with oil and
Speaker 2: to build up its sort of economic defenses after the
Speaker 2: loss of the Soviet Union. Then, obviously Hugo Chavis died
Speaker 2: here the position was taken over by a far less
Speaker 2: charismatic figure, Nicholas Maduro. The situation Venezuela was very much
Speaker 2: more tricky for Maduro than it is for the leadership
Speaker 2: of the Cuban Communist Party because it's a much less
Speaker 2: deep socialist program. So he was scared of his own
Speaker 2: people and his own sort of colleagues, almost as he
Speaker 2: subsequently proved right to be, and so he surrounded himselves
Speaker 2: with Cuban security, and when Madua was lifted out in
Speaker 2: that extraordinary abduction, it did send a shock. Thirty two
Speaker 2: Cubans were killed protecting him and their bodies, so their
Speaker 2: ashes came back to Cuba. It was a big national
Speaker 2: shock here and suddenly any oil was not coming anymore,
Speaker 2: and people immediately realized here how big a crisis that was.
Speaker 2: Because Cuba's list of friends has been growing ever shorter.
Speaker 1: And now in Cuba we are starting to see people
Speaker 1: come out onto the streets. We had that protest in
Speaker 1: Moron that became violent. What exactly are people protesting about.
Speaker 2: I'd be very careful. There's a very protest here is
Speaker 2: very very difficult. You protest, you go to jail for
Speaker 2: a long time and there's no real recourse, so people
Speaker 2: are terrified of it, so it doesn't really What happens
Speaker 2: is people come onto the streets, they bang pots, and
Speaker 2: you can hear it across the city some nights. What
Speaker 2: that's about is that people haven't got electricity. They are
Speaker 2: extraordinarily frustrated because in a Caribbean climate, if you don't
Speaker 2: have electricity, you can't have a fan, means you can't sleep,
Speaker 2: your refrigerator doesn't work. People are very very short to
Speaker 2: money on money because of hyperinflation and the lack of food.
Speaker 2: The situation you were talking about in more On, a
Speaker 2: town halfway along the island, was more extraordinary because that
Speaker 2: was a group of quite young people, I believe, who
Speaker 2: actually raided the local Communist Party headquarters and pulled out
Speaker 2: on the furniture and set light to it.
Speaker 5: Anti government protesters attacked a Communist Party office in Cuba,
Speaker 5: according to a state and newspaper.
Speaker 2: What always strikes me about protests here is that they
Speaker 2: usually begin with mothers of young babies who are in
Speaker 2: a desperate state. They haven't got milk to feed their babies,
Speaker 2: they're not getting anything from the state like they used to.
Speaker 2: Their babies can't sleep because the heat and the mosquitoes,
Speaker 2: and they haven't got fans to deal with that, and
Speaker 2: they will come to a government office to say please,
Speaker 2: can you do something? And other people will get involved
Speaker 2: and that's where sort of small protests rise up. But
Speaker 2: this is not Iran that we haven't seen huge protests
Speaker 2: like that, But I think it's still pretty remarkable how
Speaker 2: little protest there is given the situation people.
Speaker 1: Face coming up, Will Trump take Cuba?
Speaker 4: They built this great military. I say, you'll never have
Speaker 4: to use it, but sometimes you have to use it.
Speaker 4: And Cuba's next, by the way, But pretend I didn't
Speaker 4: say that. Please pretend I did. Please, Please please, media,
Speaker 4: please disregard their statement.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Cuba's next.
Speaker 1: We now have President Trump. He's threatening to take Cuba.
Speaker 1: His statements are getting bolder every week, and it does
Speaker 1: start to feel like, after a run, Cuba could be next.
Speaker 1: So what does he want with Cuba?
Speaker 2: He quite literally says Cuba is next. However, he's just
Speaker 2: done something literally today, something extraordinary happened, which has a
Speaker 2: Russian tanker arrived with seven hundred thousand barrels of oil
Speaker 2: so close to it. So and he let that through
Speaker 2: and I don't know, No one knows quite why he
Speaker 2: let that through. So that's suspicious. That's interesting because that
Speaker 2: suggests to me that we know, we know that they've
Speaker 2: been in talks. There's been talks between Marco Rubio and
Speaker 2: one of Raul Castro for del Gastro's brothers, grandsons, and
Speaker 2: that suggests that they've been allowed to import some oil
Speaker 2: in return for I don't know if we'll see some
Speaker 2: political prisoners released in the next few days or or
Speaker 2: whatever it might be. But I mean that's pure speculation.
Speaker 2: But you know, in a sort of dastardly way, the
Speaker 2: blockade is very very smart. They're just attacking all the
Speaker 2: things that government makes money on. And so you know,
Speaker 2: tourism has gone because the planes can't come in. Then
Speaker 2: they've got rid of the doctors that Cuba would send
Speaker 2: all around the world to one hundred and sixty countries
Speaker 2: over the last how many years, and they would make
Speaker 2: a lot of money out of that. So they're being
Speaker 2: sort of put upon everything that the Cubans can make
Speaker 2: money out of. The US government's going after But what
Speaker 2: does he want. There's two things he wants so whin.
Speaker 2: He wants the honor of taking Cuba and many many
Speaker 2: presidents have tried to get rid of these communist regime
Speaker 2: and failed, so he wants to be the man that
Speaker 2: does that. He also probably wants to move on as
Speaker 2: fast as he can from the fiasco in Iran. But
Speaker 2: he's got a sexual state called Marco Rubio, as probably
Speaker 2: you everybody knows, and Marco Rubia's mum and dad were
Speaker 2: Cubans and he's grown and Marco Rubio grew up in
Speaker 2: the Meu of Spanish speaking Miami, and his dream is
Speaker 2: to unseat the Castros and to create what their view
Speaker 2: of a democratic Cuba would be.
Speaker 5: We would like to see the regime no change. We
Speaker 5: would like to That doesn't mean that we're going to
Speaker 5: make a change, but we would love to see a change.
Speaker 5: There's no doubt about the fact that it would be
Speaker 5: of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was
Speaker 5: no longer governed by an autocratic regime. But you know
Speaker 5: what we mean.
Speaker 2: So I think he's There's two different strands of thought
Speaker 2: in the US government, but Trump's is pre eminent, and
Speaker 2: I think Rubio may or may not bend to that
Speaker 2: will depending on what the deal begins to look like,
Speaker 2: if indeed there is a deal.
Speaker 1: And we're also starting to see other countries stepping in
Speaker 1: as the US steps out, Russia, Mexico, the Vatican. Is
Speaker 1: any of that making any difference at all in terms
Speaker 1: of getting resources or fuel supplies into the country. I mean,
Speaker 1: can they do anything?
Speaker 2: I know that Claudia Schembaum of Mexico, the President of
Speaker 2: Mexico is very keen to send fuel, but she is
Speaker 2: too threatened by Trump to do that. No one else
Speaker 2: seems ready to stand up. I mean surprised. You know,
Speaker 2: there's all been all this talk about China having listening
Speaker 2: posts here, Russia having listening posts here, but neither seems
Speaker 2: that keen to go head to head with the US.
Speaker 2: People have made very good statements, but no one's actually
Speaker 2: stepped up.
Speaker 1: What does this crisis say about the promises of the
Speaker 1: communist revolution in Cuba, especially these days when people are
Speaker 1: just struggling to get through every single day, and is
Speaker 1: the country now facing a major turning point?
Speaker 2: I interviewed old lady on the street a few months ago.
Speaker 2: She was called martyr. I can't remember her surname, but
Speaker 2: I was very struck with her. She was you find
Speaker 2: with a lot of older people here that they tried
Speaker 2: to maintain their dignity by their their you know, their
Speaker 2: clothes are still you know, sort of well eye and pressed,
Speaker 2: but they're very threadbare and worn. Because most old people
Speaker 2: are on pensions of between sort of one to three
Speaker 2: thousand Cuban pesos, which because of hyperinflation, because of some
Speaker 2: economic mismanagement, by the government in twenty twenty one, means
Speaker 2: has been reduced by hyperinflation two between three and five
Speaker 2: dollars a month. At the same time, the padagas where
Speaker 2: you used to get your state ration of rice, beans
Speaker 2: and so on, have emptied. So these people are really
Speaker 2: in trouble. If they don't have family outside, they're really
Speaker 2: in trouble. Now, these are the people who built the revolution.
Speaker 2: These are the people who when Shikhavaras said, look, I
Speaker 2: want to create the new man. He didn't say women,
Speaker 2: but he meant that too. Where you give up your ego,
Speaker 2: give up your desire for personal advancement, and you put
Speaker 2: yourself at the service of the revolution. And in return,
Speaker 2: I will promise you cradle to grave healthcare, I'll promise
Speaker 2: you food, I'll promise you a house, and I'll promise
Speaker 2: you great education. And they said yes to that, and
Speaker 2: they gave it it there all and now they have
Speaker 2: found themselves cut a drift. And Martin has said to me,
Speaker 2: we lived with the dream a devotion, and now we
Speaker 2: have nothing. And I think you know it was a dream,
Speaker 2: and it's a dream that has affected a lot of
Speaker 2: people over the years, both in and out of this country.
Speaker 2: Lots of people followed it within, but lots of people
Speaker 2: followed it without. Many many students used to have Shaghevara
Speaker 2: on their wall, you know, and that dream of some
Speaker 2: other kind of world has collapsed. And depending on your ideology,
Speaker 2: can blame the Americans. They've had a nearly seventy year embargo,
Speaker 2: They've done everything in their power to crush this movement.
Speaker 2: But you can also blame the Cuban government who have
Speaker 2: you know, who've advanced so far right at the beginning
Speaker 2: in women's rights and race rights, but since then there've
Speaker 2: been increasingly old men, mainly white men, running a country
Speaker 2: into the ground. And from nearly all of the Cubans
Speaker 2: I speak to, they don't really care anymore. They just
Speaker 2: want the situation to change. It's so torturous for them
Speaker 2: that they just want a situation to change. However, having
Speaker 2: just heat fightd across Cuba to try and at least
Speaker 2: put myself on the ground with a lot of Cubans,
Speaker 2: it's been interesting to me just how many Cubans think
Speaker 2: Trump is ridiculous or pretty much the same as everyone
Speaker 2: else outside the US thinks of Trump. But all but
Speaker 2: maybe one or two blamed their own government for this
Speaker 2: current crisis.
Speaker 1: Despite all of that, would you say, we're on the
Speaker 1: edge of a major turning point for Cuba.
Speaker 2: Now, look, the revolution is over. But a friend of
Speaker 2: mine who's a university professor of Cuban studies, and he
Speaker 2: found me up and said, on my coffee table, I
Speaker 2: have a book. This title is End of the Revolution.
Speaker 2: It's dated twoenty thirteen, and next to it is another
Speaker 2: book that says Last Days of the Castros, and it's
Speaker 2: dated nineteen ninety three. So you know, they know how
Speaker 2: to maintain power. They you can't rule them out. And
Speaker 2: one of the most extraordinary things that I've been watching
Speaker 2: in the last few weeks is how many castros have
Speaker 2: suddenly reappeared from various places. And the talk is all
Speaker 2: about the or being that Miguel di Escanal, the current president,
Speaker 2: who is not a custra, has to be shoved to
Speaker 2: one side and out the door, and what happens after
Speaker 2: that is anyone's guess. But it is remarkable how many
Speaker 2: castras are suddenly reappearing.
Speaker 1: Rory, thank you so much for sharing the story of
Speaker 1: Cuba with us.
Speaker 2: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, the federal government has announced a
Speaker 1: suite of covid era support measures for businesses struggling with
Speaker 1: soaring fuel prices triggered by the war in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: The support package will include more generous Australian Tax Office
Speaker 1: payment plans, doing away with penalties and interest on unpaid
Speaker 1: tax debts, and offering support to defer payments where the
Speaker 1: business has suffered a revenue hit due to fuel supply issues.
Speaker 1: The ATO says it will also hold off on chasing
Speaker 1: unpaid tax debts and families hoping to get away over
Speaker 1: Easter are unlikely to get cheaper petrol before the long weekend,
Speaker 1: and those in regional Australia could be waiting weeks for relief.
Speaker 1: The federal government has cut wholesale fuel prices by twenty
Speaker 1: six cents a leader in a bid to head off
Speaker 1: the worst economic effects of the war, but analyss say
Speaker 1: the change won't be felt straight away as service stations
Speaker 1: will need to sell older, higher tax stock before bringing
Speaker 1: in the cheaper fuel. I'm Nicole Johnston and this is
Speaker 1: seven am. Thanks for listening.