Havana Cuba. — Edinardo Domínguez, a Cuban resident in Conakry, capital of Guinea, asked the authorities of that city to change the name of the avenue Fidel Castronamed after the deceased dictator and which was inaugurated by him 50 years ago.
Guinea was the first African country that Castro visited. The ruler arrived in that nation on May 3, 1972. Days later, on May 8, before leaving for Algeria, he cut the ribbon that inaugurated the avenue with his name on it. Now, Edinardo Domínguez asks that the road be renamed after Nelson Mandela.
“Everyone knows that Fidel Castro was a president who dedicated himself to destroying Cuba, the Cuban people. Nelson Mandela was always a man who fought for the equalities of men,” said the evangelical Christian pastor, based in that West African country since 2013.
Domínguez, who is also a member of the Cuban Reflection Movement in Guinea, intends to collect signatures and “take them to all levels, international organizations, courts and all places necessary for the name to be changed.”
From Cuba, several members of the opposition support Edinardo’s idea. José Alberto Álvarez Bravo, promoter and coordinator of the International Anti-Dictatorial Coalition, affirms that it is understandable that other countries have a positive view of the person who was Fidel Castro.
“However, for us Cubans it is an offense that the main avenue of the capital of Guinea bears the name of Fidel Castro, a person who was the architect of a repressive, criminal and feudal regime that has imposed its will based on the repression, the crime of the State and the oppression of an entire people”.
José Elías González Agüero, national coordinator of the Union for Free Cuba Party (PUNCLI), and opposition member Oscar David Fernández Alarcón also support Edinardo Domínguez’s lawsuit.
For González Agüero, “Fidel Castro spent millions of pesos on propaganda to try to deceive the entire world regarding what is the misnamed Revolution.”
“He has been a manipulative, submissive and liar man with respect to his town and I think he does not have the honor of having a street in another place that is not with his name,” he says.
During his visit in May 1972 to the Republic of Guinea, commonly called Guinea Conakry, Fidel Castro toured the regions of Kankan, Kissidougou, Faranah, Labé and Kindia and participated in the inauguration of the “Kwame Nkrumah” youth cadres training school. ”, accompanied most of the time by the then president of that country, Sekou Touré.
Guinea, a country in crisis
On September 5, 2021, this country, considered one of the poorest in the world, experienced a coup d’état perpetrated by the Army Special Forces Group, who claimed that they were seeking to lay the foundations for a transition to democracy.
A report from the EFE Agency points out that, after the coup, the European Union asked all the political actors of the African nation to participate in a consensual transition.
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