havana/Introduced by a press team that could not be more loyal to him, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Villa Clara took a trip to one of the great forgotten people of the province: Cifuentes . The journey – narrated in an almost evangelical tone by Vanguard– describes Osnay Colina’s “editing lessons” for the guajiros, his diatribes about poor production and the director’s “inquisitive perspective”, a euphemism to describe his main goal: scolding.

Everyone has left Cifuentes, lit in “geographical dispersion” and without resources to guarantee their agricultural goals – which Colina requested – this year. There was no shortage of pictures that Miguel Díaz-Canel has tried to make popular: those of the director with two or three farmers, who hear from a bureaucrat how to do his job.

In the newly founded Industrial Agricultural Company, which received 10,000 hectares, Colina gave his first scolding: 10% of the land​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ancies only 72% of the plan was put in“. will close soon.” To make matters worse, there is much illegality in the Company, where they asked for “maintenance”, and stocks of milk and meat are falling.

There was no shortage of pictures that Miguel Díaz-Canel has tried to popularize: those of the director with two or three farmers

The stern face, the authoritative movement, the speech under the sun, some of Colina’s features that the camera Vanguard wants to celebrate. Among his many utopian demands were “plantation despite resource limitations and bundles of technology, machinery, fuel and the use of animal drafts.” ” The director did not say where they could get the parts on his detailed list, but suggested that his local subordinates would “demand if they did not comply. ”

“A lot of food escapes to third parties,” he warned, referring to the Cifuentes black market. Colina asked to go to the farms to see “what happened” to the farmer who did not deliver what was owed and to help – although only “as much as possible” – the man who ‘ adhere to the State. To show his interest in the contracts between the representative and the Government, his photo was taken reviewing the farmers’ contracts.

What was agreed with Acopio was still on paper, said ironically in a meeting with Colina, the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture in Villa Clara. 85% of the hired guajiros did not respond to what was agreed or deliver very little production. “Where is the other party going? That is the one who flees to different destinations,” he said.

Vanguard He insisted that Colina left on his tour “without much notice to the parties involved”, a way of warning that apparently no one had time to “give colour” to Cifuentes terrible situation. The “educational” part of his trip is based on a series of lessons: if payments are late, it’s because the city works “the old way” and avoids banking; If production is not going well it is because the “non-state actors” are shady in their management; If the money does not flow, it is because the guajiros refuse to have tax accounts.

The situation is not unique to Cifuentes: only 21% of the farmers of Villa Clara, Colina complain, have a bank account and around 200 markets – 23% – still do not have a means of payment​​​​ to do

Local leaders had expressed their hopes on an old pig being transformed into “country milk” to impress Colina. It was a failure. Although the official recommended the transformation of the warehouse, which now has 47 cows bought by the State, milk production is not according to the annual plan and the animals are not properly fed .

Local leaders had expressed their hopes on an old pig being transformed into “country milk” to impress Colina.

“And what about feed for stock?” he says. Vanguard who asked. The answer: 13 hectares of sedge and two of grass. Colina became angry again and said that it was a “pressing point” to improve the situation. “It needs to change to achieve systematic leaps,” he said. Cattle live “with genetic improvement, but without water, shade and even less with an abundance of food.”

There is no end to the problems that the newspaper story brings to Colina. The prose is not afraid to fall into a kind of confidence with the peasants that makes the director suffer and asks questions that, like Colina’s speech, also mock: “Where the planting programs, with their own seed banks? Of course they are null. There, along with theft and illegal killing of livestock, poverty and deaths will be the order of the day if critical points are not corrected,” he concludes.

With the loyalty of the newspaper of the Communist Party in Villa Clara – famous for not moving a single thing from orthodoxy or giving room to excessive criticism -, Colina uses a method that has given results to other colleagues , such as Liván Izquierdo: allowing himself to be promoted by the official media so that the Government will reward him and “promote” to Havana.