(Havana) A center intended to preserve the work and thought of Fidel Castro (1926-2016) was inaugurated Thursday in Havana on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his death, in the presence of visiting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro surprise.
Mr. Maduro, who had not been to Cuba since December 2019, accompanied his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel and former President Raul Castro to this inauguration, without any official speech being made, according to images from state television.
In a message posted on Twitter, the Venezuelan president paid tribute to the former “Lider maximo”, described as “transcendent and unwavering hero who knew how to guide the Cuban people in the midst of difficulties”.
Born in 1926, Fidel Castro led the revolution against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. He triumphed in 1959 and established a socialist regime that continues to this day.
Falling ill in 2006, he ceded power, after 47 years of reign, to his brother Raul, who, at the age of 90, is now retired.
“In #Fidel’s office at the Palais de la Révolution, everything is as he left it on his last day there. I try to imagine it in the midst of the hard battles of so many difficult years. It inspires me, it touches me. And I continue to fight, ”President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who succeeded Raul Castro in 2018, wrote on Twitter.
The Fidel Castro Ruz Center was inaugurated on the day “which commemorates the fifth anniversary of the physical disappearance of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution”, the official daily reported. Granma.
A month after his death, the Cuban parliament passed Law 123, which prohibits the use of his name “to designate institutions, squares, parks, avenues, streets and other public places, as well as in any type. of decoration, recognition or honorary title ”.
Nor can its silhouette be “used for monuments, busts, statues, commemorative plaques and other similar forms of homage”.
Thus, in accordance with Fidel Castro’s wishes, no public place in Cuba bears his name, although his image is present in the country in many ways.
The only exception is “the use of his name to name an institution which, in accordance with the law, is built for the study and dissemination of his thought and his work”, such as the center inaugurated Thursday.
Fidel Castro’s charismatic leadership was criticized by his opponents, who accused him of fueling a cult of personality.