The decision taken by Alessandra Rojo – mayor of Cuauhtemoc – is based on questionable arguments, such as the fact that the monument lacked the required permits, despite having been in that location for years.

When asked about the issue during her regular meeting with the media, President Claudia Sheinbaum considered the removal of the sculptures to be wrong and called for them to be returned to be placed elsewhere.

For their part, organizations such as the Jose Marti Association of Cuban Residents in Mexico decried the incident and demanded the immediate replacement of the Encuentro Monument, designed by artist Oscar Ponzanelli, for being considered a symbol of friendship between the two nations.

In the association’s view, this act is not a simple aesthetic change or an administrative decision, but rather “a cowardly gesture of historical erasure” and “a capitulation to the pressures of reactionary sectors seeking to uproot all vestiges of dignity, memory, and rebellion.”

The presence of both figures “at La Tabacalera—a territory historically linked to the working-class, the people, and freedom causes—was an act of symbolic justice and political affirmation” and “removing them is a betrayal of history, they say.

This act is considered an “Attempting to erase those who gave their lives to the cause of the oppressed only demonstrates the fear their example generates. It is not enough for them to lie about Cuba, to criminalize the Revolution, now they want to get rid of its leaders from public spaces,” the document added.

The Association warned that it will not allow this thing to happen, nor the obscuring of the thought and legacy of these figures, as also expressed by the organizations that joined, such as the Popular Socialist and Communist parties, the Communist Youth Front, and the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, which expressed its outrage and warned that it will not tolerate the erasure of the bonds of brotherhood between the two countries.

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