If there is one thing the Cuban regime has demonstrated in the days leading up to and on the actual day of the centenary of Fidel Castro, it is that practically any occasion can become a reason to nurture idolatry.
This time the commemoration reached a maternity ward in Holguín, where the presentation of a gift basket to a baby born on August 13 was officially marked as part of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the deceased dictator.
The Vladimir Ilich Lenin University General Hospital announced the delivery to Yudaimi González Almenares, who gave birth to a girl weighing 3,180 grams in the early morning of this Thursday.
“Special moments in the delivery of the gift basket for the centenary of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz,” the institution wrote while announcing the birth and displaying images of the gift.
The photographs show several garments for the newborn and hygiene and care products, including detergent, creams, shoes, and a pack of wet wipes—items that are ironically very much needed amid the deep supply crisis affecting the Cuban population as part of a political "continuity" that the regime claims has been in place since the system established by Fidel Castro in 1959.
The family, from Manguito, Marcané, in the Holguin municipality of Cueto, naturally celebrated the arrival of the baby girl.
According to the hospital's account, José Manuel, Yudaimi's husband, wanted his daughter to resemble him and to be born on August 13, the date of Fidel Castro's centenary.
The birth and the joy of their parents are, of course, strictly family matters and unrelated to any political responsibility.
The propaganda component is evident in the state institution's decision to publicly showcase the delivery of the gift basket as yet another tribute to the former Cuban leader.
The scene is part of a series of initiatives developed in Holguín to mark the centenary. In several municipalities of the province, 100 piñatas related to the celebrations for Fidel Castro were distributed, some accompanied by posters with the slogan "100 years with Fidel" and presented as gifts for children.
The campaign has even reached into unusual personal expressions. A supporter of the regime went as far as to reproduce on one of her nails the insignia of "Commander-in-Chief" associated with Castro, as part of the tributes for the centenary.
The deployment is part of a campaign organized by the state to commemorate the birth of Castro on August 13, 1926.
The authorities even officially designated 2026 as the "Year of the Centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz" and announced activities starting in 2025 aimed at extending his figure and thought into various areas of national life.
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