Cubans pay last respects to Castro
Elderly
revolutionaries joined young doctors, famous musicians, government workers and
former guerrilla fighters in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución as thousands lined
up to pay their last respects to Fidel Castro. Some carried flags. A
few had flowers. All came with memories of the guerrilla leader who overthrew a
dictatorship, resisted a US-led invasion, faced down a nuclear superpower and
dominated the island’s political life for half a century.
Cartoon for @chronicleherald for Monday
At the start of the
official commemorations, Orlando Gómez had come with his wife to bid farewell
to his old comrade in arms. Waiting in the hot sun to sign the condolence book,
he recalled the first time he had gone into combat with Castro in March 1958. A few weeks earlier, Gómez – then an
idealistic 18-year-old – had left his home in Havana to join the small rebel
army in the Sierra Maestra mountains. He had been put in charge of a mortar
unit for the attack on an army garrison at the San Ramón sugar mill. The battle
lasted from midnight to 4am. Four guerrillas were killed, but they destroyed
the mill and the barracks before returning to their base in the mountains.
“Fidel led by example.
He was always in the frontline. He walked faster than everyone. He never
stopped moving, but he was very approachable. You could always talk to him,” he
recalled. “I want to say goodbye to this extraordinary man. He was a great guerrilla
leader and tactician.” Others remember Castro
as a leader who stood firm during
the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis, when
the world was taken to the brink of nuclear war over the Soviet Union’s efforts
to build a missile base on the island.
“He was very open with
the people about the threat we faced and how we must pull together to protect our
liberty,” said Jorge Jorge, a university teacher who had arrived two hours
earlier with a group of friends. “We have come here to share our grief and to
show our determination to hold on to Fidel’s ideals. He taught us how to
share.”
Like many in the crowd,
he had often come to the square to hear Castro deliver his marathon orations,
some of which lasted more than six hours. They were often at times of hardship
– of which there were many: the death of Che Guevara, the fall of the Soviet
Union, and the exodus of migrants escaping economic crisis or political
crackdowns.
There is widespread
recognition of Castro’s failures, and many – particularly among the young –
balk at his dictatorial rule. But this was not the time or the place or the
crowd to dwell on the negatives.
“I was born in a poor
black family. Thanks to the revolution, I had opportunities that did not exist
before,” said Tony Ávila, one of the island’s most famous musicians, who said
he had been called up the previous night by the culture ministry and told to
attend. He appeared more than happy to do so. “I’m here because of Fidel. He
was everything to me.”
It was not just Cubans
paying homage. Many foreigners were present – out of curiosity or shared
political beliefs. Chilean Alberto Reyes arrived with a handmade flag and a
photograph of the dead revolutionary who had inspired him as a youth to join
the Manuel
Rodríguez Patriotic Front – one of several dozen groups across Latin
America that were committed to armed struggle against the rightwing
dictatorships that held power across most of the region in the 1970s and 1980s. “He was the light in the lighthouse. More than
any other leader, he unified Latin America,” said Reyes, who has lived in
Havana since the 1990s.
Many turned up in
groups, bearing flags or wearing the uniforms of customs officers or doctors.
“I’m here because he gave me the chance to enter medicine,” said Beatriz de la
Cruz Quila, a 21-year-old medical student at the Institute of Gastrointestinal
Medicine – one of several dozen institutions created after Castro took power in
1959. The commemoration will
continue in Havana until a ceremony on Tuesday night. Then on Wednesday,
Castro’s ashes will begin a three-day procession east across the island, going
back along the route the victorious rebel army took from the Sierra Maestra to
the capital to topple Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Castro’s remains will
be interred on Sunday morning in Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, which is
also the resting place of José Martí, the hero of the 19th-century war of
independence against Spain.
That will mark the end
of nine days of mourning. Since Fidel’s death on Friday night, the media have
run blanket coverage of tributes, interviews, historical documentaries and
footage of diplomatic trips and speeches by Castro. Musical performances have
been cancelled and bars have been prohibited from selling alcohol.
“There’s a genuine
feeling of mourning, that’s not a formality, that’s not showy, that’s not
outward-focused, but rather completely intimate,” the former national assembly
president Ricardo Alarcón said on state television on Sunday. Not everyone is
grief-stricken. Democracy activists have cheered the demise of a leader who
repressed political opponents, denied freedom of speech and restricted travel
and religious worship. One woman at the Plaza
de la Revolución, who only gave her first name Milena, said she was sad but
determined to take something positive from the moment. “He should be remembered
as a revolutionary who believed in social justice and fought for free public
health and education. We need to maintain this. His ideas should live forever”
