Castro laid to rest next to Cuban independence hero Marti
SANTIAGO, Cuba: Fidel Castro was laid to rest yesterday alongside the mausoleum of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, ensuring that the polarizing nature of Castro’s life will continue in death.
Castro and his leftist revolutionaries claimed Marti’s mantle upon overthrowing a USbacked regime in 1959 and later married Marti’s ideals to their brand of Soviet communism, enraging other nationalists, anticommunists and Cuban exiles who also claim Marti as their own.
The interment ceremony, billed as solemn and simple, started at 7am EST (1200 GMT). Nine days of national mourning came to an end at noon (1700 GMT).
Castro, who survived five decades of US attempts to kill or overthrow him, died on Nov. 25 age 90, a decade after resigning from office due to an intestinal illness and ceding power to his brother, current President Raul Castro, 85.
Even in retirement, Fidel Castro was beloved by leftists and antiimperialist’s around the world and hated by political opponents who believe he ruined Cuba with a one- party state and socialist folly.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans flooded plazas and lined highways in tributes to Castro as a funeral cortege drove his cremated remains some 600 miles from Havana to Santiago, the city where Castro launched his revolution in the 1950s. Raul said ‘ millions’ came out to pay respects.
Marti, a leading poet and writer who penned the lyrics to the song ‘ Guantanamera,’ provided intellectual heft behind the reasons for breaking from Spain and safeguarding Cuban sovereignty and national identity from foreign powers such the United States. He died in battle in 1895 during Cuba’s war of independence from Spain.
“The union of two ideas was very important for the Cuban people,” said Maria Martinez, 50, who works in a museum. “Fidel is a follower of Marti’s ideas.”
Castro’s cremated remains was entombed next to Marti’s castlelike mausoleum in Santiago’s Santa Ifigenia cemetery. — AFP