14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2021 — Several residents of the Luz neighborhood, in Holguín, prevented two inspectors from seizing several agricultural products sold by a vendor on a corner of Mario Pozo street, according to a footage released Monday on social networks.
Two videos posted on Facebook record how neighbors got together so the merchandise was not taken, which included several products that cannot be found in state markets. The inspectors, dressed in blue long-sleeved shirts, demanded the presence of the stall owner, but no one responded to the call.
“They want to confiscate everything from an unfortunate man who sells and he is the one who resolves things for us here in the neighborhood. How long is the abuse going to go on,” said a neighbor who apparently recorded the materials with her mobile phone. “That man has a sick daughter,” commented another, when she learned that the police had been called. “And he doesn’t even have the money to take her to Havana to be seen,” she added.
Peppers, strings of garlic and onions, tomatoes and cucumbers, among other products, were on a table that local residents surrounded to protect it. “No one is going to take anything here”, “the situation here is terrible, we are going to help each other”, “we are like cats and dogs, this does not give more,” the neighbor who registered the incident.
“Strength is in union. Rise up,” the woman said while other people collected the products, to safeguard the merchandise from the police. “If we unite, all this does not happen, it is an abuse.” “They want to confiscate everything, from the one who solves us in the neighborhood,” he protested.
“We are going to fight to be better because what is lacking here is humanity, there is no humanity. Damn, why are we going to disgrace a man,” warned the neighbor as the inspectors left and immediately asked for applause and everyone present obliged her. “This is how we have to be: united.”
After collecting all the merchandise from the sales table to move it inside their houses, several neighbors shouted “we won” and applauded the solidarity action.
The scenes of people in the streets defending private sellers from fines or seizures of their products are increasingly frequent, despite the fact that the media constantly blame the self-employed for raising the prices of goods or hoarding food from stores to later resell it.
At the end of February in Caibarién, Villa Clara, a sweet seller staged a protest after being fined 2,000 pesos. The man climbed on the roof of his sales cart, in the middle of a public road, and around him dozens of people from the town gathered to show their support for the self-employed seller.
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