Only 5 illuminated letters remain of the 23 that make up the slogan posted on the Habana Libre Hotel
14ymedio, Pedro Espinosa, Havana, 10 May 2024 — At the end of April 2021, an old well-known Castro slogan appeared on the façade of the Habana Libre hotel in the capital: Patria o Muerte Venceremos [Homeland or Death We Will Win]. The sign, on the cornice of the building that faces 23rd Street in El Vedado – where there was once a mural created by the Cuban painter Cundo Bermúdez who was exiled in the 60s – in red capital letters, had been placed just two months after the song Patria and Vida [Homeland and Life] was released, and immediately converted into an anthem and motto against the single-party regime
The coincidence escaped no one, especially taking into account that the blue letters that said Habana Libre on top of the emblematic building had been removed more than two years ago without being returned to their place, neither then nor now.
The letters lit up at night, making the phrase darker in the middle of the darkness in which daily blackouts leave the city.
However, little by little they have been melting away. Now, only 5 illuminated letters remain of the 23 that make up the deadly call. The epitome of an entire system that is collapsing, the slogan is fading in Cuba.
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