Disappearing paintings, mansions vandalized, books stolen and later auctioned in St. Petersburg or London, Sèvres vases that end up as decorations in the houses of leaders, old newspapers ruined by termites, incinerated or sold as raw material. Cuban heritage has not ceased to be in danger in recent decades, despite the laws that supposedly protect it.
The scrapping of a heritage locomotive in Sancti Spíritus is the latest episode in a long list of oversights and negligence by the Government. A reportage of the newspaper Escambrayreproduced in other official media, tells of how an old Baldwin locomotive, assembled in 1917 in Philadelphia, United States, “was turned into pins and other elements whose whereabouts have been impossible to determine.”
But it was not theft or vandalism, but a “meeting” of the local transport bureaucracy, in which it was determined that the locomotive “occupied space and did not fulfill any purpose”, and that it would be sent to the Recovery Company. of Raw Materials for its dismemberment.
The provincial government created a working group to investigate the causes, but the conclusion they reached was that “it was appreciated that there was a lack of knowledge of the meaning of the property.” However, the file of the terminal contained the file of the locomotive and its value.
The machine had operated at the beginning of the century in the north of the province of Sancti Spíritus, and when it went out of circulation it was cornered in central Uruguay, where it accumulated rust and humidity. She was then transferred to the bus terminal in the municipality of Jatibonico and in April of this year her disappearance was reported.
According to the Penal Code, actions like this are not criminal when they lack “social danger due to the scant nature of their consequences”
Valued at more than 22,000 pesos according to its initial appraisal, the symbolic price of the locomotive dropped to 18,594 and continued to drop decade after decade until it reached 3,345 pesos.
The loss of value meant that local transport leaders could not be charged with a crime. According to the Penal Code, actions like this are not criminal when they lack “social danger due to the small entity of their consequences.”
Those responsible for the scrapping of a locomotive registered as National Heritage, whose identity is not published, will go unpunished, and the report – written in a supposedly critical tone – is the most “severe” measure they will suffer.
Both the text published in Escambray as its replicas in other media have provoked harsh criticism from readers. “The bungling, lack of control, tolerance and justification. Although the nation’s heritage was damaged, the bureaucrats do not flinch and misrule prevails,” says a user.
“The bungling, lack of control, tolerance and justification. Although the nation’s heritage was damaged, the bureaucrats do not flinch and misrule prevails”
“What would have happened to the locomotive if it hadn’t been dismantled?” asks another, “because it was probably in the same place, taking up space, full of rust and gradually destroying itself. Why didn’t they announce any project with her? They remembered her because she disappeared.”
Another reader complains about the “chutzpah” of officials, who “hide behind an overwhelming bureaucracy” and raise the “stupid and essentially inefficient slogan of ‘doing more with less'”.
The comments also include the mention of other places, objects and real estate that the Government has abandoned to its fate. A few weeks ago, the damage to an emblematic mural painted by the artist Leandro Soto in the city of Cienfuegos was also reported. Regarding the “intervention” of the work by the Cuban Hydraulic Resources company, there was no trial or sanctions.
“The disrespect for memory and the indolence for the heritage of the Cuban authorities is outrageous,” says Cuban writer Camilo Venegas Yero, blog author The Stoker and member of a family of three generations of railwaymen. Since his exile in the Dominican Republic, the writer has tried to reconstruct part of that legacy and dedicated several texts to the Baldwin locomotives on the Island.
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