In Cuba, courts continue to impose harsh penalties for crimes related to food production, a sector that authorities consider essential to the national economy.
However, the severity of the penalties is in stark contrast. The Cuban countryside is a difficult reality, where a lack of resources, low wages, and rising prices drive many workers to commit desperate acts.
The Abreus Municipal People's Court in the province of Cienfuegos sentenced a citizen identified as Javier Santana Rodríguez to one year of correctional labor with confinement for the crime of theft. This, according to the official newspaper September 5The ruling found him guilty of stealing five quintals of potatoes—approximately 230 kilograms. These potatoes came from the fields of the Carmelina Base Business Unit, in the town of Horquita.
“Exemplary” trial in Abreus
The events occurred on February 16, 2025, around two in the afternoon. At that time, the accused was caught transporting the product in an animal-drawn cart belonging to his father. The authoritiescupThe five quintals of potatoes were valued at 6020 Cuban pesos. This prevented financial losses for the state-owned company.
Despite this, the court imposed the full penalty and added accessory measures: deprivation of the right to vote, prohibition of orcupto management positions, restriction on leaving the country until the sanction is served and entry ban to the affected company.
A reflection of the crisis in the Cuban countryside
The case was presented by the official press as a demonstration of "social discipline," but it occurs amid a context of widespread agricultural crisis. In Cuba, farmers face shortages of fertilizers, fuel, and basic supplies. A quintal of potatoes costs the state more than 1000 Cuban pesos. Meanwhile, the average national salary barely reaches 6500, insufficient to cover essential expenses.
These factors have driven an increase in agricultural theft, especially in rural areas, where people survive on incomes far below the real cost of living.
Severe punishments without fundamental solutions
The Cuban government maintains that criminal sanctions seek to protect national production. However, experts believe that punishing small-time offenders does not solve the structural problems of agriculture.
In areas like Abreus, classified as a productive hub, the "exemplary" sentences contrast with state inefficiency, crop losses, and the lack of incentives for those who work the land.
Thus, each new trial shows that the root of the problem lies not only in the fields, but in the economic management that keeps them unproductive.
And what the leaders steal at all levels, of course they do not go in person, they just divert the place to deposit and justify it with state activities, you only have to see the nutritional status of each one, at the extremes one by default, the sanctioned and the others Obese
although there is a shortage there.