Santiago: Cuban President Raul Castro has said that his government will prohibit the naming of streets or public monuments after his brother Fidel in keeping with the former leader’s desire to avoid the development of a personality cult, reports AP. The younger Castro told a crowd gathered to pay homage to Fidel Castro in the eastern city of Santiago that the country’s National Assembly would pass in its next session a law fulfilling his brother’s desire that, “once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts statutes or other forms of tribute would never be erected.”
In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto “Che” Guevara have become common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths. Mourning for Castro has reached near-religious peaks of public adulation across Cuba since his death, particularly in rural eastern Cuba. Huge crowds have been shouting his name and lining the roads to salute the funeral procession carrying his ashes from Havana to Santiago.
