COVID-19 has reached the threshold of Fidel Castro Ruz Center, located in the Vedado district of the capital, forcing to suspend the opening of the place, created based on a law of the National Assembly of Popular Power in 2016 and a Presidential Decree from 2018.
The official opening had been announced at the end of 2019 and, for reasons never explained, did not take place. Until that date, the chosen area was still under repair.
Now, in January 2021, the pandemic has knocked on the doors of the headquarters, where it is intended to keep the ideas of the former Cuban dictator, and the initial invitation has been postponed.
What was originally to be an inaugural act, with the regime’s personnel last Friday, January 8, coinciding with the entry of rebel forces in 1959, had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the pandemic that has been renewed for several months.
The pandemic knocked on the doors of the headquarters, where it is intended to keep the ideas of the former Cuban dictator …
Now the streets are fixed, the center’s facilities painted, new lighting, renovated fences, carefully cut grass, new drainage for green areas and two small palms at the main entrance of the central house, and the center is heavily guarded by a dozen security and guard rooms. by the police.
On the façade, in gold metal, writes “Centro Fidel Castro Ruz”, a site that would be something like the mecca “revolutionary left”, where “important foreign visitors” would go to see exhibitions, audiovisual exhibitions and sign a book of honor praising the deceased.
Inside the venue, they are now talking about preparations for reopening, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, January 12, although in a Havana where coronavirus cases are increasing daily, any event risks being suspended or canceled on more than one occasion.
However, when they ask the local employees, they clarify the fact that for the general public it will open its doors in February, with scheduled visits. “Party” or “Tanganica” for the beginning of the Center was not announced in the Cuban press.
In a whole block, which goes from Avenida Paseo to Calle A, between 11 and 13, are the facilities of the Center, whose legal basis was established on December 27, 2016, one month after the death of the Cuban ruler, and approved by the Assembly National People’s Power.
a site that would be something like the mecca of the “revolutionary left” …
Legislation no. 123 of 2016, named “On the use of the name and figure of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz”, stipulated creating a center to protect Fidel Castro’s ideas, while forbidding his name on the streets, markets or commercial use. The exception to the rule (of the law in this case) was the use of the name of the deceased dictator “to name an institution that is established for the study and dissemination of his thought and work.”
In February 2018, while Raúl Castro was still President of the Council of State and Ministers, an initial group was created to preserve the documentation, study and dissemination of Fidel Castro’s ideas. In that initial meeting, Castro instructed Miguel Díaz-Canel, already the first vice-president of the Council of State and Ministers, to oversee the performance of the tasks and the group that will develop ideas for the entity.
At the head of that group they named her Alberto Alvariño Atiénzar, a retired colonel who became a party ideologue, who in addition to proclaiming himself a professional printer, studied in the USSR to become a “politician” in the Castro brothers’ army and was responsible for Olive Green Magazine for about four years, to later go to the Political Directorate of the Ministry of the Armed Forces (MINFAR) in the Ideological Works section.
From MINFAR the colonel becomes an official of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCP), where he holds the position of deputy head of the Ideological Department. In that position he had at his disposal April Publishing House, going so far as to publish different books, from the life of a professional Cuban boxer to that of the rebels who died before 1959. One of his books had a preface by Fidel Castro and another by Raúl.
With this approval, the former FAR minister launches Alvariño to lead the group, which had it among its members Eusebio Leal Spengler, the late Havana historian and José Miyar Barruecos, who was secretary of the Council of State from 1980 to 2009 and the person who spent the longest daily relations with the Cuban dictator.
The official position of the colonel is now that of chief of Documentary heritage conservation officeIt has not been specified whether he will be in charge of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center.
In November 2018, Alvariño was commissioned to attend a special session of the Council of Ministers, already under the control of Díaz-Canel, to present the progress of his work and the team he led. There he explained the political nature of the center and the purchase of high-tech equipment for the use of interactive information.
One of the missions of this entity, which is still closed when more than four years and two months have passed since Castro’s death, is “to contribute to the confrontation of enemy campaigns aimed at distorting the life, work and figure of the historical leader of the revolution.” Cuban, ”as the former colonel told the island’s ministers.
The work program, which he had already presented to Raúl Castro in February, was to be completed by the end of 2019, and this was repeated by Alvariño to the members of the Council of Ministers. But the plans were not carried out as planned; and in early 2020, the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Cuba.
The press stressed then that Díaz-Canel, in his capacity as chairman of state councils and ministers talked about “obstacles” that “the people involved in this beautiful project” had to overcome and even “advance in its formation”, without specifying what inconveniences they faced or what bureaucratic or political obstacles they face to integrate this select group of 30 people .
In February 2020, when COVID-19 began to grow and the disease spread around the world, Havana had not yet completed the restoration of all the buildings designed to protect Castro’s legacy.
Just at the beginning of 2020, in the days when millions of pesos were in motion to repair the large colonies in Vedado where the Center is located; In Old Havana, three girls, María Karla Fuentes and Lisnavy Valdés Rodríguez, 12, and Rocío García Napoles, 11, died when the balcony of a building in the Jesús María neighborhood fell.
The tragedy occurred on Monday, January 28, in the house located at no. 102, between Revillagigedo and Vives, a building that was being demolished, with no signs to prevent the danger of passing.
Lawyer Sergio Osmín Fernández wrote, quoting Díaz-Canel’s Twitter account: “Three girls lost their lives today after another dilapidated building collapsed in Havana. No proper process is required. You are responsible for redirecting resources. to questions unrelated to the well-being and security of Cubans. “
Various publications abroad, such as Comment on Cuba and CiberCuba published on their digital pages details about the reconstruction of the mansions in the area, sidewalks and Alameda de la Calle Paseo, as well as complaints from neighbors about the precarious situation of housing in the capital, damaged streets and destroyed sidewalks, including in the nearby area the embassies of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bulgaria, the People’s Republic of China and those of North Korea.