- Title: Fidel Castro is remembered at an outdoor memorial service in Mexico City
- Date: 27th November 2016
- Summary: PHOTO OF CASTRO
- Embargoed: 12th December 2016 21:48
- Keywords: Fidel Castro death Cuban embassy Mexico City
- Location: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
- City: MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA0035A7ZFIF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:The memorial services are well underway throughout the world for Fidel Castro, as a crowd gathered outside the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City Sunday (November 27) to remember the fallen revolutionary.
Cuban leader Raul Castro said his brother died on Friday (November 25) evening, almost 60 years to the day since Fidel and a band of armed comrades left Tuxpan, Mexico, to start the revolution which ultimately overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
Mexico City gun dealer Antonio del Conde met Castro in the 1950s while he was there in exile and bought him the "Granma" boat for his departure from the Mexican Gulf coast town of Tuxpan to lead his insurgency.
And so Mexico holds a special significance for the Castro-led revolution. Crowds gathered Sunday outside the Cuban embassy to commemorate the late Castro.
"Fidel is not Cuban, he is universal, as we've all been feeling, as we've all been made to feel. And that's why we're profoundly grateful at this very difficult moment. It falls on us to follow his legacy, and keep alive the memory of his actions," said the head of the business affairs for the Cuban embassy in Mexico City, Sonia Hernandez.
The Cuban government has declared a nine-day period of mourning on the island and suspended alcohol sales and even baseball games.
The streets of Havana have been calm since Castro's death, with people expressing national pride by hanging more Cuban flags than normal.
More than ever, Castro is being viewed as a symbol of defiance.
"I love his ideas and I know he's no longer here, but he is in spirit. And today what is happening at the Cuban embassy is a demonstration, and so many people coming out can't be for nothing. So many analyses throughout the world can't be wrong. Some people are happy, but they didn't have the values and the courage to stick by it at that time when they didn't want him around, that's when they really got nervous and didn't know how to respond to him at the time," Marisol Guerra, a Cuban living in Mexico who attended the ceremony.
A towering figure of the 20th century and an icon of the Cold War, Castro had been in poor health since he nearly died of an intestinal illness in 2006. He formally ceded power to his younger brother, Raul, in 2008.
Raul Castro, 85, who had been at his brother's side since they took up arms against a U.S.-backed dictatorship in the 1950s, has not appeared in public or on television since he announced Fidel's death on Friday night in a brief televised statement. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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