HAVANA, March 23 (José Antonio Fornaris, Cuba-Verdad) - Thursday
afternoon two police cars converged on Monte Street, between Zulueta and
Monserrate, in Havana, and police agents ran off about 10 blind and other
handicapped peddlers who sell clothes and other knick-knacks on the busy street.
Police allege the handicapped are not authorized to sell at that location
and that they employ intermediaries in their trade, a practice forbidden in Cuba
as an instance of exploitation of man by man.
The peddlers say in order to sell their wares they have to be in
high-traffic locations and that they need the assistance of third parties due to
their physical handicaps.
This time the eviction was relatively peaceful, but often these incidents
turn violent. On February 15, 17 members of the police special brigades
descended from the truck in which they were patrolling kicking and beating three
men: one, a mentally retarded man who was selling tomatoes, and two others who
were transporting a matress they hoped to sell in a wheelbarrow.
A mutiny by neighbors eventually led the police to release the three, but
not before one officer yelled threateningly to the crowd: "We were born to
conquer."
"The problem is that the presence of so many handicapped selling in the
streets contradicts one of the so-called accomplishments of the Revolution:
social security," said one elderly onlooker who asked not to be identified.
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