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While Cuba is experiencing one of its worst economic crises in decades, the regime mobilized companies and organizations from Villa Clara this Wednesday to urgently rehabilitate the Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara Sculptural Complex in Santa Clara, where the remains of Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, founder of MININT and the main architect of the Cuban state’s repressive apparatus, will be interred this Thursday.
According to state media Radio CMHW and Soy Villa Clara, the work includes general cleaning, improvements in gardening and lighting, painting, restoration of damaged floors and roofs, waterproofing of the museum, and replacement of all the wooden framework in the Multipurpose Room with aluminum and glass.
The main emphasis was placed on the Mausoleum of the Combatants of the Front of Las Villas, where the remains of the deceased commander will rest. Reday René Armas Álvarez, the director of the Complex, explained that "work is underway in cleaning and polishing the marbles and granite of each of the 220 niches that this site has, as well as the replanting of some landscaping, as well as the painting and decoration of the arches that provide access to the place."
The hydrosanitary network, the furniture, and the protocol area were also completely rehabilitated, and the vegetation of the Memorial where the remains of Che Guevara rest was restored, designed to replicate the Bolivian jungle.
The contrast is hard to ignore: a country where hospitals lack basic medications and blackouts stretch for hours is undergoing a rapid beautification operation to honor someone who was known by the nicknames "the Dwarf," "Puddle of Blood," and "the Butcher of Artemisa".
Valdés, who passed away on Sunday, June 21 at the age of 94, was a founder of the MININT in 1961 and a driving force behind the UMAP, forced labor camps where homosexuals, religious individuals, and dissenters were interned. In August 2021, at the age of 89, he personally decorated MININT officials who suppressed the demonstrators on July 11 in Palma Soriano.
The regime declared an official mourning through Presidential Decree 1247 for June 23, with flags at half-mast on public buildings. The very Raúl Castro, aged 95, made a public appearance that day at the MINFAR headquarters in Havana to lead the first honor guard for his comrade.
The Cuban-American congresswomen María Elvira Salazar and Carlos A. Giménez expressed sorrow that Valdés passed away without facing justice for crimes against humanity. With his death, the historical generation of the Revolution is now reduced to Raúl Castro and Guillermo García Frías.
The choice of the Che Complex reflects Valdés's explicit desire to rest near the guerrilla leader under whose command he fought as the second-in-command of Column No. 8 "Ciro Redondo" during the Battle of Santa Clara in December 1958.
The military honors and burial ceremony is scheduled for this Thursday morning.
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