Citizens Demand Reinstatement of Fidel Castro & Che Guevara Statues

ByMexico Solidarity

This article by Angel Bolanos Sanchez originally appeared in the September 25, 2025 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Organizations and citizens demanding the reinstallation of the sculptures of Ernesto Ché Guevara and Fidel Castro, removed from the Tabacalera Garden on July 16 by the Cuauhtémoc mayor’s office, criticized the decision of the Committee of Monuments and Artistic Works in Public Spaces (COMAEP) of the capital government for not taking legal action against the head of the demarcation, Alessandra Rojo de la Vega, and instead of demanding that she return the bronzes, asked her to take steps to determine their permanence, removal or relocation, as if it were not a fait accompli.

Carolina Verduzco, a member of the Committee of ’68, warned that this case could become “a political defeat for the 4T” against the PAN government of Cuauhtémoc if the sculptural group is not restored to the site it had occupied for eight years to evoke the first meeting of both figures, in July 1955, at 49 José de Emparán Street, Tabacalera neighborhood, even more so since President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and the head of government, Clara Brugada Molina, considered its removal as an act outside the norm.

The Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba at the rally against the removal of the statues of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Photo: Luis Castillo

She explained that on August 4, with the signatures of more than 30 organizations and a hundred people, including Tamara Barra, of the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, and the historian, academic and political scientist Pablo Moctezuma, they addressed a request to the Secretary of Planning, Territorial Planning and Metropolitan Coordination, Alejandro Encinas, in his capacity as president of COMAEP, asking him to report on the actions to reinstall the sculptural group and to ensure that its removal does not go unpunished.

The technical secretary of COMAEP, Raúl Espinosa, responded that he does not have the legal authority to implement any legal recourse, and reported that the mayor’s office has been asked “to take the necessary steps to determine whether the sculptures should remain, be removed, or be relocated.”

In a second letter addressed to Encinas, in which they reiterated their request that COMAEP require the mayor to reinstall the monument, they considered the lack of authority to file a complaint to be unfounded and the request for management to be “misguided,” “because it implies conceding that the return of the monument or determining its fate depends on the official’s will.