Sorrow, joy at Castro’s passing
Mixed legacy of former Cuban leader
HAVANA plunged into mourning on Saturday and celebrations erupted in Miami at the death of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, whose ironfisted rule defied the US for a half century.
One of the world’s longest-serving rulers and among modern history’s most striking personalities, Castro died on Friday night at age 90 after surviving 11 US administrations and hundreds of assassination attempts.
Castro crushed opposition at home from the moment he took power in 1959 to the day he handed over to his younger brother, Raul, in 2006 amid a health crisis.
For defenders of the revolution, he was a hero who protected ordinary people from capitalist domination.
To opponents, including thousands of Cuban exiles living in the US, he was a cruel communist tyrant.
After surviving the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, a suffocating US embargo and the Cold War itself, Castro lived to see the restoration of diplomatic ties with Washington last year.
But he never stopped railing against the American “empire.” President Raul Castro announced the news on national television. He gave no details on the cause of death.
There were starkly different reactions on either side of the Florida Straits.
In the streets of Miami, home to the largest Cuban-American community, euphoric crowds waved flags and danced, banging pots and drums.
“It’s sad that one finds joy in the death of a person – but that person should never have been born,” said Pablo Arencibia, 67, a teacher who fled Cuba 20 years ago.
“Satan is now the one who has to worry,” he added, because “Fidel is heading there and is going to try to get his job”.
In Havana, bustling streets emptied and Friday night parties ground to a halt as Castro’s admirers sank into grief.
“Losing Fidel is like losing a father – the guide, the beacon of this revolution,” said Michel Rodriguez, a 42-year-old baker.
Castro was to be cremated on Saturday, the first of nine days of mourning.
A series of memorials will begin today when Cubans are called to converge on Havana’s iconic Revolution Square.
Castro’s ashes will then go on a four-day procession through the country, before being buried in the southeastern city of Santiago on December 4.
Castro’s death drew strong – and polarised – reactions across the world.
“The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin in a telegram to Raul Castro.
“Comrade Castro will live forever,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping. “History and people will remember him.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un sent his condolences and praised Castro as an “outstanding leader” who fought to make the people “the genuine masters for the first time in the Western hemisphere”. Venezuela, Cuba’s main ally in the region, declared three days of national mourning. In a rally on Saturday night outside the tomb of Hugo Chavez, the leftist leader who was a staunch ally and good friend of Castro, President Nicolas Maduro said, “Fidel, go in peace, because we are still here.” Some in the crowd wept.
In the US, there were sharply different reactions from outgoing President Barack Obama and president-elect Donald Trump.
Obama, who embarked on a historic rapprochement with Cuba in 2014, said the US extended a “hand of friendship” to the Cuban people.
But Trump called Castro “a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for almost six decades”.
The future of the US-Cuban thaw looks uncertain under Trump.
He has threatened to reverse course if Cuba does not allow greater human rights.
Cuba says it refuses to be dictated to by foreign powers. — AFP