PINAR DEL RIO, March 5 (Víctor Rolando Arroyo, UPECI) - After five
years working the land in the "Dos Ríos" farm, two peasants who
had received the land legally have been fined and disposesed by inspectors from
the Department of Agriculture.
The "Dos Ríos" encompasses approximately four acres and is
part of the "El Rosario" collective farm, in the municipality of Viñales,
province of Pinar del Río.
Mario Luis Mirabal Núñez and Fidel Graverán Martínez
had received permission from the managers of the collective farm to clean up and
use the land which the collective kept idle, in exchange for 25 percent of their
crops.
Now, after five years, State inspectors showed up at the farm on February 7
and fined Mirabal and Graverán 1,000 pesos each and drove them from the
land. Agriculture Ministry officials have not given them any reason for their
actions nor any answer to their protests.
Mirabal and Graverán had been planting beans and vegetables on the
land, which one witness said is now being taken over by weeds.
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