Armando Antonio Calvo Forte, an 83-year-old retiree residing in the Naranjal Norte neighborhood of Matanzas, has been trying for over two years to claim compensation for the total destruction of his car, which was crushed by a state truck that has been operating without a technical inspection since 2019.
His case, shared on Facebook by historian and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández, outlines a series of institutional irregularities that he himself describes as a deliberate dispossession.
The accident occurred on February 26, 2024, when a concrete mixer truck from the Prefabricated and Pre-mixed Panels Company of Matanzas hit his yellow Skoda Octavia, which was parked in front of his home garage. According to Calvo Forte himself, the vehicle, "without maintenance since 2019, had brake problems, did not hold air in the tanks, the brake hoses were tied with wire to the front wheel chassis, had no emergency system, and the telescopic end of the steering bar was disconnected from the system." Police technicians confirmed this diagnosis.
From the first night, the institutions acted against him. At the police station in La Playa, the report was written without taking his statement, and a company official identified as Eliecer pressured him to sign. The elderly man refused. For weeks, the police denied him the report number, preventing him from hiring a lawyer. It was only thanks to the intervention of Major Osmani, the second in command at the station, that he obtained the number — report 3536/24 — and was able to provide his account of the events.
The technical assessment by the state company Inter Mar S.A. certified that the vehicle had a total impairment of 57%: 53.3% in the bodywork and 62.5% in mechanical components. The report concluded that "the vehicle has its structure completely deformed, with evident signs of this deformation in the columns, floor, frame, misaligned doors, and firewall, as well as damage to mechanical elements." The car was declared a total loss due to the damage.
The oral trial took place on August 28, 2025, at the Municipal Court of Matanzas. Company leaders acknowledged in court that they had authorized the truck to operate in poor technical condition. Nevertheless, Judgment No. 39 of 2025 held only the driver, Luis René Caballero Caballero, responsible and sentenced him to pay 2 million Cuban pesos—equivalent to about 4,000 dollars at the time of issuance—without attributing any responsibility to the company.
What followed exacerbated the harm. The ruling, dated September 3, 2025, was not delivered until the end of October 2026, more than a year later. The court claimed that "there was no electricity" to print it. When Calvo Forte returned the next day with a portable power station to facilitate the printing, they responded that "that was not allowed."
With the document in hand, the elderly man went to the Compensation Fund, an entity of the Ministry of Justice responsible for managing these payments. The response was that they could not proceed because the court had never sent them the "Notification of Compensation" required by current regulations. The money has still not arrived.
Meanwhile, the ongoing devaluation of the Cuban peso is eroding the real value of the fixed compensation every month. And time is running against a man who lives on his pension and cares for a sick and bedbound 62-year-old daughter. "I am an 83-year-old man, with no means of support other than my pension, caring for my sick 62-year-old daughter, and abandoned by a law that does not protect me and by insensitive officials," he stated.
López Hernández, who is facing a criminal proceeding with a request for four years in prison due to his activism, does not hesitate to point out the intention behind the delays: "I believe that due to Armando's advanced age, they are delaying everything to see if he dies before he can receive the compensation."
The complaints about the institutional neglect of Cuban retirees have multiplied in recent months. A survey by the organization ASIC conducted with 506 retirees revealed that 99% felt their pension was insufficient to cover food, housing, or medication, and 98.8% perceived neglect from the State.
Related videos:
Filed under: