Instead of representing the greatness of Havana, it is a sign of the neglect and abandonment that today abound in the city.
Havana, Cuba. – Almost all the great cities of the planet have iconic sites that represent them, either because of their beauty or by historical considerations, and therefore the authorities strive to keep in the best conditions.
Havana also has sites that could exhibit the greatness of a capital city with more than five centuries of existence. However, the neglect, abandonment and indolence of their territorial government have transformed many of those places into an authentic sample of the acute crisis that the country is going through.
On this occasion we refer to the Parque de la Fraternidad, a place of recreation located in the municipality of Centro Habana, and that counts, among other attractions, with an immense CEIBA surrounded by all the Latin American republics, in addition to busts of the main fighters for the freedom of Latin American peoples. An effort of the then authorities of the Republic for exalting the brotherhood between Cuba and its brothers countries in the region. As is currently known, the park was inaugurated during the VI Pan -American Conference held in our capital during the government of Gerardo Machado.
The park is in a very busy area of the city, where you can see the initial stops of several bus routes, and also the boteros taxis piqueras that cover the route to the town of Santiago de Las Vegas.
But the one who ventures these days to travel through that park, where Miguel Barnet located his story Fatima and the Fraternity Park, You will find the majority of its banks broken, since its woods have been stolen by the population to cook with firewood, given the lack of gas and other fuels. It will also find more than one beggar – the regime calls them “roosters” – sleeping on the ground or in whatever the banks. All this is accompanied by a dirt that floods all corners of the installation.
At night the park remains totally in the dark. At that time, criminals abound on the prowl of any distracted person or who has the need to walk around its surroundings.
From time to time, as a date approaching that you want to be commemorated by the authorities, the park receives some attention. In recent days, in the context of what Castroism calls “solidarity day with Puerto Rico”, we saw a group of people with brooms in the hands, in an action aimed at cleaning the surroundings of the bust of Ramón Emeterio Betances, a hero of the Puerto Rican struggle against Spanish colonialism. In the end, everything is summarized in the placement of a floral offering to its memory by some Puerto Rican independentistas who are watered by Cuba, and members of the official Cuban Institute of Friendship with the peoples, chaired by the ex -spy Fernando González Llort.
Surely the toilets were militants of the Communist Party, or members of the Defense Committees of the Revolution, who comply with the shock tasks indicating the machinery of power. Once the tribute to Betances is over, all the filth will return to his bust and the rest of the park.
And as a climax, to give a more gloomy image to the current calamitous state of the Fraternity Park, we see the remains of the Saratoga Hotel, to cross the remains of the Saratoga Hotel, destroyed three years ago For a powerful explosion, without the authorities having done something for their restoration.
