Cuban fined 500 pesos for selling avocados from his own bush

A delirious sanction by Cuban inspectors provoked the ridicule and indignation of a Cuban who was sanctioned witha fine of 500 pesos for selling avocados from their own harvest.

“A fine of 500 pesos for selling the avocados that my plant gave birth to!!! Are we Continuity? Ha ha ha,” said a Cuban user via Twitter who shared a photograph of his fruits and the receipt of the fine that was imposed on him.

Reports in various independent Cuban media indicate that the price of avocado in Cuba has skyrocketed to almost double that of the previous season, reaching between 80 and 100 pesos on average in mid-June, according to14 intervene.

"Mine is on a small scale, what really screws up are the farmers, who invest money, time and work and in the end a bureaucrat comes and confiscates entire loads of food from them!" added the accused.

In late May, an 83-year-old man in Las Tunas, an ex-combatant from Angola,He committed suicide after being fined 4,000 pesos for selling food in a wheelbarrow and not having money to pay the fine.

The man, identified asAngel Pacheco Soublet, sold fruits and vegetables to help support his wife, who was bedridden, and his daughter, who cares for her sick mother. His death left the victim's family, neighbors and acquaintances shocked.

“This is a call, a call above all from the heart. Gentleman, put your hand on your heart, those inspectors when they are going to issue a fine see the social situation we are in. See that we went through a pandemic. When I said it during the pandemic, I thought we were going to be better people and what we are becoming. Far from adding we are subtracting. Please, without words,” an Internet user then said in a video in which she spoke with the daughter of the deceased.

Dozens of comments in the forums where the news was published reveal the absolute dismay and sadness among those who knew Pacheco Soublet, whom everyone affirmed was a very good and helpful person.

It is not the first time that a misfortune of this nature has occurred in Cuba. In March of last year, the suicide of a young man in Mayarí, in the province of Holguín, made the news.after being fined 5,000 pesos by the police for selling agricultural products on the street without having a license to do so.

The tragic event led social media users to denounce the authorities' abuse of the most vulnerable. A user pointed out that the repressor who fined the young man was known by the name of Góngora. Neighbors of the community said that, presumably, the young man had been previously punished by another police officer named Tabuadita, with a fine of 2 thousand pesos.

"This young man found himself cornered, in the midst of hunger and the dog's life that we are leading, and saw no other way out than to take his life. He was an orphan of a mother and father," wrote the Internet user who revealed the name of the agent who he had allegedly imposed the sanction.

This Saturday, several Internet users commented on the post of the Cuban fined 500 pesos. “With two avocados you pay for it and you continue selling,” joked one of the commentators.

“Does your avocado plant comply with the health measures approved by MINSAP to produce these foods? How do you know that your avocado plantation is not financed by the enemy to destroy our food sovereignty?” another said sarcastically.

“It must be that a few days ago they put a refill on it!” answered the owner of the avocado tree. "This is incredible. In Cuba there is nothing to eat and the inept misgovernment of Díaz-Canel, instead of allowing everyone who has fruit trees to sell the fruits to mitigate hunger, is dedicated to fining and persecuting. #CubaEstadoFallido”, added another.