The Ortega and Murillo dictatorship installed a gigantic image of Fidel Castro in Managua for the centenary of the Cuban dictator.

The massive metal structure dedicated to Fidel Castro is being installed on the iconic Bolívar to Chávez Avenue. (Photo 19 Digital) A huge metal structure with the image of the deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is being installed on Bolívar to Chávez Avenue, in downtown Managua, according to information provided this Monday by Rosario Murillo, co-president and spokesperson of the Nicaraguan dictatorship. "We will be celebrating events at universities, in municipalities. And the workers of Enatrel have done another marvel, a metal sculpture that is being installed with great honor and pride on Bolívar to Chávez Avenue, honoring the leader of the Our American and Caribbean Revolution, Commander Fidel Castro Ruz, who was with us, who visited Nicaragua and inspired revolutionary struggles, inspired and supported our people, this brave, heroic people, this people who give their lives for peace," Murillo said through official media. The installation coincides with the centenary of Castro's birth, political mentor of Ortega, as recalled by journalist Miguel Mendoza on social media, who described the monument as a "metal structure with the image of the Cuban dictator" ordered by the regime near Luis Alfonso Velásquez Park. Mendoza noted that the work could also be interpreted as a response to U.S. pressure on Cuba, and pointed out a contradiction: the structure installed in Managua is larger than any monument erected in memory of Castro on the island itself, where the Cuban leader rejected in life the cult of personality. The Ortega Murillo family frequently visited the Cuban dictator. (Photo 19 Digital) After Castro's death in 2016, the Cuban government prohibited erecting monuments in his memory and using his name to baptize public spaces, according to Mendoza. The journalist added that, ten years after his death, Ortega and Murillo "seem determined to remind the capital residents of who learned the methods of repression." The newspaper La Prensa, for its part, reported that the dictatorship did not disclose how much the installation of the metal monument dedicated to what Ortega considers his main political mentor cost the Nicaraguans. The media recalled that, on the same Bolívar to Chávez Avenue, the regime previously ordered the removal of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro's image, the journalist murdered during Anastasio Somoza's dictatorship. According to La Prensa's report, the same avenue also features images of Hugo Chávez, Augusto C. Sandino, and Simón Bolívar, among other heroes and political allies of Sandinismo, forming a commemorative corridor built and financed by the regime. The new structure adds to another practice maintained by the regime for nearly two decades: the installation of so-called "trees of life," metal structures illuminated with LED lights that the population popularly calls "chayopalos" or "arbolatas." Until November 2024, then Minister of Energy and Mines Salvador Mansell confirmed the installation of 200 of these structures nationwide, including border points with Costa Rica, and announced that more would continue to be placed, even in Bluefields, Bilwi, and the Mining Triangle. The National Electric Transmission Company (Enatrel), responsible for the installation, does not publish the costs of each structure. A report by La Prensa from 2015, citing sources from Enatrel itself, estimated the cost of each tree at about $25,000, excluding surveillance and energy consumption, which would amount to a total expenditure of at least $5 million for the 200 structures counted up to 2024. The same report calculated that the set of trees consumes monthly energy equivalent to about 12,000 households, with an estimated annual expense of $5.37 million. The cult of the deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is reflected in the proliferation of monuments and places named after him in Nicaragua. (Archive photo) The presence of Hugo Chávez's image on the same avenue is part of a broader practice of tributes to the late Venezuelan president in Managua. According to an investigation by Infobae, in the Nicaraguan capital there is a market, a neighborhood, a school, a square, a technological center, a children's baseball stadium, power plants, an avenue, and a roundabout named after Hugo Chávez, as well as a university chair established since 2017 dedicated to his thought and legacy. The then Venezuelan ambassador to Nicaragua, Javier Arrúe, declared in 2017 to official media: "I have not known a country as chavista as Nicaragua." Two years earlier, he had stated that there are not even as many places named after Chávez in Venezuela as in Managua, according to Infobae.