Cubans mourning the death of Fidel Castro visit cemetery housing monument to the revolutionary leader

Record ID: 75567

  • Title: Cubans mourning the death of Fidel Castro visit cemetery housing monument to the revolutionary leader
  • Date: 4th December 2016
  • Summary: SANTIAGO, CUBA (DECEMBER 4, 2016) (REUTERS) PLAQUE WITH NAME OF FIDEL CASTRO GENERAL OF STONE WITH PLAQUE FOR FIDEL CUBANS VISITING TOMB, HOLDING FLOWERS FLOWERS, CUBAN FLAG BEING PLACED AT TOMB (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN CITIZEN, RICARDO RIGORE, SAYING: "I came to visit Fidel because Fidel is our father. It's because he has educated all us Cubans that he's worked tirelessly, and everyone loves him. He's a tireless comrade in the fight." MORE OF FIDEL PLAQUE TOMB BENEATH DAWN LIGHT (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) CUBAN CITIZEN, NANCY MARTINEZ, SAYING: "He's our father, who has given us education, he's given us life, and because we feel a great love for him, that has been our lives from birth. Even more for me because I was born in '59, the year the revolution triumphed, I live here. I will continue coming, and Fidel will always be for us." TOMBS OF "CUBAN MARTYRS" CUBANS ARRIVING TO VISIT SANTA IFIGENIA CEMETERY SOLDIERS MARCHING BY EXTERIOR OF SANTA IFIGENIA CEMETERY
  • Embargoed: 19th December 2016 21:52
  • Keywords: Fidel Castro Santiago Cuban Revolution
  • Location: SANTIAGO, CUBA
  • City: SANTIAGO, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Reuters ID: LVA0015BGYHC7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Cubans began paying their respects at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago Sunday (December 4) after Fidel Castro's ashes were encased in a large granite boulder earlier in the day in a ceremony that capped nine days of public mourning in Cuba that aimed to literally set in stone the legacy for one of the 20th century's most influential figures.
    Revolutionary leader Castro toppled a U.S.-backed strongman in 1959.
    He relished tormenting Washington during half a century in power and crossed swords with 10 U.S. presidents, before stepping down a decade ago.
    Since Castro's death on November 25 at age 90, hundreds of thousands of Cubans lined streets and plazas to bid farewell to "El Comandante" (The Commander), with a combination of tears, vows to sustain socialism and choruses of "I am Fidel!"
    His monument at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in the city of Santiago de Cuba, sits a few steps from the mausoleum of independence hero Jose Marti, another towering figure of Cuban history with whom Castro shared a mistrust of the United States.
    Cubans visiting the site admired his pugnacious posture.
    "I came to visit Fidel because Fidel is our father. It's because he has educated all us Cubans, that he's worked tirelessly, and everyone loves him. He's a tireless comrade in the fight," said Cuban citizen, Ricardo Rigore.
    Castro was educated in the eastern city and launched his revolution there with a failed attack on the Moncada army barracks in 1953.
    Fidel Castro had been out of power for a decade but never far from the centre of public life. In his final years he wrote a periodic column on world and local matters and received foreign dignitaries at his home on the outskirts of Havana.
    He was a larger than life figure for generations of Cubans.
    "He's our father, who has given us education, he's given us life, and because we feel a great love for him, that has been our lives from birth. Even more for me because I was born in '59, the year the revolution triumphed, I live here. I will continue coming, and Fidel will always be for us," said one visitor to the cemetery, Nancy Martinez.
    Castro gave Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs. He was feted by Nelson Mandela for helping to end apartheid at a time when the West supported the racist system, but helped take the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.
    Forced to step down due to an intestinal ailment, he ceded power to his brother, at first provisionally in 2006, then definitively in 2008.
    His send off reflected a man who had a vast public career but was intensely private about his health and family.
    Dominating Cuban life for almost 50 years as president, Castro angrily rejected suggestions he was a dictator, denying any personal enrichment or personality cult around him.
    In keeping with his wishes, Castro's image will not be immortalized with statues and public places will not be named after him, his brother said on Saturday.
    Cubans still do not know the cause of his death, or where he was cremated. After a three-day caravan in which Cubans lined streets and packed squares to bid him farewell, the last ceremony was not broadcast on Cuban media.
    Instead, in Havana, military cannons unleashed a 21-gun salute that thundered across the capital city as the ceremony began hundreds of miles to the south east.
    Castro's naturalistic memorial was dwarfed by Marti's mausoleum and other elaborate edifices at the cemetery. The stone is a few steps from a monument to rebels who died fighting in the Moncada attack in Santiago, which started the revolution.
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