“Let us speak, please let us speak,” an official shouted desperately to the crowd gathered in front of the Aranguren and Panchito Gómez store in Havana, who was brandishing his supply book. “I need, President, that if you are at home, come up here for a second,” he added in the midst of the avalanche, phone in hand, while demanding the intervention of the president of the Latino Popular Council, in the municipality of Cerro.
The reason for such an uproar was the arrival of a truck loaded with 255 packages of frozen chicken, a story that took hundreds of neighbors out of their home in search of a piece of meat and that degenerated into a popular revolt against the management of the sale. The place was not trivial, the store is located on one of the corners where on July 11 there was an intense confrontation between the protesters who came out to demand rights and freedoms to the street and the agents who tried to suppress the protest.
“Here we made a list to control the sale in the store and a row has arisen. It is between those who were on the list and those who arrived and marked when they saw the chicken truck approaching,” he explained to the president of the Council Popular the civil servant, with nervousness.
“Here we made a list to control the sale in the store and a row has arisen. It is between those who were on the list and those who arrived and marked when they saw the chicken truck approaching”
The list, collected three days before by the social workers involved in the “Operation to combat coleros”, contained the data of the ration book and the identity cards of about 100 people, the lucky ones who had the chicken reserved to buy it , in a staggered manner, once it arrived at the establishment. However, the measure caught many residents who were unaware of the new system by surprise.
“We are going to intersperse the people on the list with those who arrived,” a social worker with the intention of pacifying suggested amid the uproar. Far from silencing people, they enraged even more.
“What they are doing is wasting time, and she gave a solution,” exclaimed one of those present. “But with the solution she gave, I’m not going to get chicken,” a woman answered angrily. Amid the hubbub, representatives of the Government and the Communist Party ordered the store staff to begin the sale as quickly as possible, delivering three packages per person. Taking into account the amount available, only the first 85 in the queue were going to be able to buy, compared to the more than 150 that were waiting outside the store.
At the stroke of seven o’clock at night, a saleswoman came out to announce that the last three packages had been sold and the refrigerators were empty again, and again provoked the outbreak of anger in the fifty people who crowded together demanding answers to those responsible for the trade. The delegate of the constituency, in charge of representing the neighbors, far from asking for explanations from the president of the Council and the envoy of the Party, crossed the fence and confronted their voters.
“85 people did not enter here, there were fewer,” an annoyed man uttered, questioning the process. “When am I going to be able to buy something in this store? I can no longer pay for the package of chicken at 350 pesos in the street. It is simply unsustainable,” he continued. “Neighbor, you cannot accuse without evidence. You cannot come here and create chaos. Find out how things work so that later you can claim with rights,” the delegate snapped.
“When am I going to be able to buy something in this store? I can no longer pay for the package of chicken at 350 pesos in the street. It is simply unsustainable”
“The chaos is formed by you who cannot ensure the food of the people,” an elderly man dared to say in the background. “A chicken truck comes and they only sell to 85 people. What lack of respect for the people!” He insisted.
“Neighbors, calm down and do not be fooled. As the situation is in the country, nowhere is a truck full of chicken entering,” justified the delegate.
The president of the Popular Council, who had tried to stay on the sidelines, raised her voice at that moment. “Here everyone knows that little merchandise enters this store and that it is not enough for everyone. But nobody, ever, takes anything from the population. If we make a list so that they can buy even once a month, there are people they get upset, and if we don’t, then they protest because they say they always buy the same. “
The civil servants tried to reduce the tension, but the spirits did not calm before the poverty of the arguments. “My work here is well done, because nothing has deviated and the nine vulnerable who passed had their documents in order. It is simply very little and everyone cannot buy, “defended a Party envoy to monitor the possible abductions of vendors and verify the condition of those most in need.
“And those of us who work like me, don’t we have the right to buy? Who invented that list and where was it said?” Asked a disadvantaged young woman who only got silence for an answer. The person in charge of the list put the girl aside and asked her to look for her in the store at any time this Wednesday to find a solution to her case.
“I’m going home without chicken, but with the illusion that this time is getting less and less,” grumbled a man who lived the last days of the USSR, where he was studying engineering in 1989, grumbled. “I seem to be reliving that moment, the last stage of socialism, “he declared.
On Tuesday morning there was already a modest line around the store to sign up for this Wednesday’s list, when shifts will be limited, according to a social worker, to 100 people. Everything indicates that the same scenes from the previous day will be repeated in that Havana corner.
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