Demonstrators set fire to the Orlando Pantoja Tamayo House-Museum in the municipality of Contramaestre, Santiago de Cuba province, this Sunday.
The fire occurred amidst a day of protests marked by slogans against the regime and a strong police presence on the streets, according to videos shared on social media by independent journalists Yosmany Mayeta Labrada and Yois Ramos.
The building, popularly known as the "Maffo Museum" and located at 32 Abelardo Castro Street in the Maffo-Moscow Popular Council, was engulfed in flames as neighbors gathered in the streets shouting "Freedom!" and "Contramaestre wants no more communism."
The fire carries a symbolic weight that is hard to ignore
The museum was dedicated to Orlando «Olo» Pantoja Tamayo, a guerrilla fighter born in Maffo in 1933, who fought under the command of Ernesto Guevara from 1957 and died on October 8, 1967, in the Quebrada del Yuro, Bolivia, the same day and place where Che was captured.
The Cuban regime venerates him as a symbol of revolutionary internationalism. The house where he was born, built in 1936, was converted into a museum in 1991 at the initiative of the History Commission of the Municipal Bureau of the Communist Party in Contramaestre.
The Olo Pantoja House-Museum housed personal belongings, weapons, photographs, and historical documents. By burning that space, the protesters did not just attack a building; they rejected the historical narrative that the dictatorship uses to legitimize its power.
Escalation of protests in Santiago de Cuba
The incident occurs within the context of a surge of protests in Santiago de Cuba during June 2026, driven by the crisis of fuel, water, food, and daily blackouts.
Since June 5, there have been protests involving pots and pans in various neighborhoods of the city, including Micro 2, the protests at the José Martí Urban Center and multiple neighborhoods on June 18.
In Contramaestre, discontent had been escalating prior to this. On June 14, police harassment was reported following the appearance of anti-government posters and graffiti with slogans against the Communist Party.
On March 22, the recruitment office of the Municipal Military Committee was set on fire, in an act interpreted as a rejection of Mandatory Military Service.
The fire at the museum represents the most symbolically charged action in this sequence of protests in the municipality, solidifying Contramaestre as one of the hotspots of greatest tension in the eastern province.
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