CUBA-FIDEL CASTRO/EXHIBITION Havana photo exhibition celebrates Fidel Castro, Cuban revolution, ahead of US embassy opening

Record ID: 144508

  • Title: CUBA-FIDEL CASTRO/EXHIBITION Havana photo exhibition celebrates Fidel Castro, Cuban revolution, ahead of US embassy opening
  • Date: 11th August 2015
  • Summary: PHOTO OF FIDEL CASTRO AND CURRENT PRESIDENT RAUL CASTRO HUGGING
  • Embargoed: 26th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAU7907PSVZB2WGYEFBZHOSOIK
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Former Cuban leader and revolutionary, Fidel Castro, was honoured with a photographic exhibition in Havana ahead of his 89th birthday and the re-opening of the U.S. embassy in the Cuban capital.
    Cuban Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel was on hand for the exhibition's opening in Havana and features intimate and iconic portraits of the bearded revolutionary, whose cigar-smoking guerrillas ousted U.S. backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, which triggered a five-decade plus U.S. economic embargo on the Caribbean nation.
    Now with Cuba and the United States at the negotiating table to restore diplomatic ties and with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry due in Havana to re-open the U.S. embassy, Diaz-Canel told media that the détente was a victory for Cuba.
    "One day after Fidel's birthday, the United States embassy in Cuba will open. I think that this is a victory for the Cuban people, (because of) the heroism of the Cuban people, not to give up (so) to make clear from the lessons of history, from our truths, that it was unacceptable that a major power kept up barriers to talks with a small country that has only taken on the task of building a better country and from this position building towards a better world," he said.
    The Cuban flag was raised over Havana's embassy in Washington, as the United States last month and Cuba formally restored relations, opening a new chapter of engagement between the former Cold War foes.
    In Havana, the U.S. Embassy was also reopened for business with no outward sign of change. Embassy staff flashed new badges and business cards, and the website, Twitter feed and Facebook page of the mission changed. The Stars and Stripes, however, will not be hoisted there until a visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expected on August 14.
    Alex Castro, photographer and Fidel Castro's son, told media the hostilities should have ended long ago.
    "This (opening) is something that should have been done many years ago, given that the people of Cuba and the American people have good relations, that is to say that between the two actual populations have had good relations. I think these confrontations have always been things of the past, a past from many years ago. I think that this (opening) is going to be for the best for the two countries, for us and for them. I think it will be the end of an era of bad things," said Alex Castro.
    Fidel Castro retired from power in 2008, after 49 years in office. His younger Castro brother, Raul, was appointed successor and promptly heralded in a series of reforms to gradually change the Soviet-style, state-run economic model put in place after the 1959 revolution.
    But with Cuba's youth born long after the Castro revolution, youth groups in Cuba aim to keep the country's revolutionary spirit active among the next generation of Cubans.
    At the exhibition, Cuban youth leader Yunia Sky Crespo kept the focus on the future as Cuba's past takes centre stage.
    "It's a moment of historic importance. I think that by no means can we abandon the beliefs of our chief commander (Fidel Castro) precisely when we talk about relations with Cuba and the United States. For us, it seems that this (relationship) has been brought up at different moments and we have raised our own resolution at the 10th Youth Congress which is (regarding) necessary relations. (That includes), above all else, cultural exchanges between peoples that are necessary, as are economic relations. But I think that his (Fidel Castro) thinking today more than at any other time has to be permanently focused on Cuba's young people," said Crespo.
    Fidel Castro will turn 89 this week, largely out of sight but not out of mind. The birthday of one of Latin America's most iconic revolutionary figures has been a low key celebration in recent years due to fragile health.
    Photos of a frail-looking Castro meeting with visiting dignitaries are occasionally published, as well as some of his writings, though far fewer than his once frequent "Reflections," on global topics.
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