By Monike de Motas, Independent Cuban journalist.
HAVANA, February 12, 1997.-- January 16, 1997 was just another day in the Cuban capital. At one of the surviving ice cream vendors which still remained open, thanks to the refusal of the mayor of Central Havana of following the unjust order to close them all down, a group of kids wait their turn to purchase the treat.
Suddenly, a truck stops across from the private vendor and its occupants storm inside, ordering the stoppage of the sales, (in order) to take the ice cream machine with them. The order is final, and it comes form a state official backed by an agent of the Technical Department of Investigations of the Police.
The owner is not surprised at this visit, but upon seeing the dissappointed look of the innocent kids who wanted his ice cream cones, he pleaded: "At least allow me to sell to the kids". As a reply, the state representatives emptied out the container in the machine and, in front of all the small witnesses, threw the contents out into the street.
"Auntie, Fidel didn't take it, Fidel stole it", was the expression uttered by one of the youngsters who had been deprived of the treat, without any fear of being heard by the regime's functionaries who at the time were loading up the machine to remove it.
"I knew this was going to happen, because some days ago I got a visit from the prosecutor who warned me that they were going to take away the machine, and told me not to try to get it back, because it belonged to the State, and that's why the State was taking it away".
"Well, don't you have the title to the machine given to you by the people who sold it to you?, I inquired. "Yes, he replied with an ironic smile on his lips, "I paid 2,000 pesos for it, and I have the document with everything on it, stating that I'm the owner, but not only that, to get it in working order I had to spend 4,000 and now look......"
He left the ending up in the air, and I, even as I read in his ironic glance what his eyes were expressing, sought to put it into words and I insisted: "Then, that paper is only good for...... to use in the toilet?" "Only to use in the toilet, he stated."
After this conclusion, there was nothing else for me to ask further, then I sought to establish what all the rumors were all about regarding the virtual offensive against pizza production, since shortly before some self employed vendor had told me about rumors circulating that the government would only allow its (private) sale until the upcoming month of March.
"Yep, they are saying such things in the street, but I haven't been told anything officially yet. Just imagine, they've already taken the ice cream from me, now if they also take the pizzas, I don't know what I'm going to do since that's the only thing I have left".
After I left this worried victim of the system, I started reminiscing about something my colleague and friend, Manuel David Orrio, commented to me once: "The economic policy of this country when it comes to private investment has always had a ceiling", he had stated, "the State opens the markets to solve a specific crisis, and when the crisis lightens up, they close them again, to prevent the expansion of private capital from going beyond the limits convenient to the government".
But as the interviewed source said, "these businesses are not making us millionaires, they simply allow us to survive". What really happens, in my opinion, is that the system is not interested in raising the standard of living of the population, so they can continue to exert pressure upon it. Or perhaps is what a friend of mine told me recently: "Money generates power, that's why the State can't allow money to circulate".
Whatever the real cause is, the truth is that with these latest actions by the government against the private food industry, they are proving through actions the fickleness to be found in such sensible areas as administration of justice, the trust worthiness of State documents, the civil guarantees, and good-will in the promotion of an internal free market.