Fidel Castro Dies, 9 Days of National Mourning
HAVANA TIMES – Former Cuban President Fidel Castro died on Friday night at the age of 90, informed his brother, President Raul Castro, on national television.
“With deep pain I appear to inform our people, the friends of our America and the world that today, November 25, 2016, at 10:29 p.m. , the commander in chief of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz died, said Raul Castro.
The Cuban president assured last night that the remains of Fidel Castro will be cremated, as was his wish, and that in the coming hours the Cuban people will be informed about the detailed organization of the posthumous homage.
The Council of State declared nine days of National Mourning between November 26 and December 4. “Public activities and spectacles stand cancelled, the national flag will wave at half-mast in public buildings and military establishments. Radio and television will maintain an informative, patriotic and historical programming, “reported Granma, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba.
The last published images of Fidel Castro are from November 15, when he met at his home in Havana with the president of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang. His last public appearance was on August 13 during the celebration of his birthday at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana.
Since his departure from power in 2006, Fidel Castro was retired from the front line of politics. He has often received international personalities at his private residence and from time to time wrote opinion pieces such as the one that severely criticized the motives of Barack Obama’s trip to Cuba in March 2016.
In April, during the VII Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, Fidel Castro made his last speech in which he reaffirmed the political ideas that marked his life.
“We will all be in for our turn, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain, as proof that on this planet, if we work with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we must fight without ceasing to obtain them”, said Castro on that occasion.
The tribute
The Central Committee of the Communist Party reported that “from November 28, from 09:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., at the Jose Marti Memorial, the population of the capital will be able to pay homage to its leader, which will extend until November 29 in the hours between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m.
On November 28 and 29, between 09:00 and 22:00 hours, in the places to be announced in a timely manner in each locality, including the capital, all Cubans will have the possibility to pay homage and sign the solemn oath to fulfill the concept of Revolution, expressed by our historic leader on May 1, 2000, as an expression of the will to give continuity to his ideas and to our socialism. “
¿Qué tu ves que no veo? No podía esperar a salir de allí. For my American friends….what did you see that I did not? I could not wait to get out of there! And the fact that people risk, and in many instances die, trying to escape Cuba soeak louder than anything you can say.
You seem to forget the “Cuban missile crises” happened. You know when Castro allowed Russian missiles to be deployed on Cuba that were a direct threat to the USA.
If he had not gone in that direction the Cuban/ U.S. relation possibly would not have been so bad.
And answer this…why did the boat peaple come to the U.S. if we are so bad?
your an idiot. You have no understanding of what Fidel achieved. USA only hate him because he was too clever for them. They couldnt buy him or control him. If USA cant win, it will always paint a bad picture. If USA cant control someones country, it calls them dictators. The biggest dictator is America. Much poverty, murder and injustice. Look in the mirror.
Your experience was diferent than mine. We were simple people who had the little we had taken. My father refused to join the communist party and was sent to a work camp. I saw it all. Those freedoms you enjoy in Vermont were taken away. How can you approve of that?
Really? Yeah, a limited doiet is great for your health. Give a Cuban a chance and they’ll stuff themselves with Lechon. So what you are saying is that you would preger to luve in a “zoo” where your diet is limited and shortages abiund. Where only children have access to Milk (the powdered kind) and adults go without. I lived the reality. I don’t recommend.
Go live behind bars in a zoo. I’m sure that they can manage your diet.
Yet, I don’t see your ppl risking their lives to go to Cuba..ummmm.
As a Cuban who has lived inAfrika the Caribbean and amerikkka I would rather see my ppl continue OUR path vs what we as Cubans will suffer under trump
You are correct However as a Cuban I would rather that my country remain in 1950’s than see if suffer as my ppl are in amerikkka
The demonstrated difficulty with you socialists is that you excuse the incompetence and dictatorial behaviour of socialist and communist regimes by saying that they are not pursuing true socialism. so true socialism has presumably never been practiced – unless in North Korea?
“The inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of misery”.
Is Havana Times the place to discuss internal US affairs – the US has decided by vote that the best person to represent them is Mr. Trump?
I can assure you that Cubans do not lead what the wide world would describe as a decent life!
The only way for Cubans to have a quiet life is:
DON’T CHALLENGE THE SYSTEM, ACCEPT IT, STAY MUTE AND EXIST!
Although you evidently consider that average income per man woman and child equal to 33 US cents per day is above poverty, let me remind you that the UN figure is $2 US per day.
Crashed and burned. You must live in an alternate reality
In the imortal words of Billy Joel, “only the good die young”
And still they risk their lives to flee your socualust paradise.. You shoukd really speak to these people and show them the error of their ways… lol.
So how is it working out for me? Well, at least I have enought to eat and the freedom to call yiu an arse on this site. Something denied to me in Cuba.
Si
“We do hope to raise the standard of living to what the middle class has now. We import now $150 million of food. If we grow that we will give work to our people.’
“Cuba is capable of producing cotton, paper and newsprint.”
Fidel Castro 22 April, 1959
A journey around Cuba today will demonstrate hundreds of thousands of acres of good agricultural land reverting to bush and a visit to the shops demonstrates that Cuba continues to be unable to produce toilet paper and is obtaining some from Vietnam and a shortage of food products although frozen chicken from Tysons in the US demonstrates dependence upon the capitalist system.
So what material goods are being produced as a consequence of the Castro family dictatorship?
and so many other of his fellow dictators. Queen Elizabeth 11 however assumed office seven years before Fidel and is still well sixty four years later. She has met every American President from Roosevelt onwards.
Concise and correct!
So now Mr. Goodrich you are expressing admiration for the man whose political practices have been described by you as “State capitalism”.
Have you got around yet to thinking about making a first visit to Cuba?
Oh Dan, oh Dan, why don’t you as an immigration lawyer arrange your own immigration to Cuba become a permanent resident and experience the joy of living under the oppressive dictatorship of the Castro family regime?
I don’t believe Herr Mattner that you live in Cuba as I do. Yes, there is opportunity to criticize the US muddled health systems which leave many unprotected and cost 17.1% of the GDP, but Canada’s health system is superior to that of Cuba where the medical staff although very good, have to work in hospitals with broken windows, missing door handles, crumbling staircases and failing equipment and are unable to obtain drugs which they can correctly define for specific conditions and which the Castro regime fails to supply.
You may respond by referring to the much promoted Labiofam SA, but apart from some products which may or may not be quack, can you name one single drug that they have developed?
You Herr Mattner are unqualified to speak in possessive terms about “we” when speaking of Cuba. You insult Cubans and detract from your personal integrity..
You got to be kidding, i see a bunch of fat people in the streets of Miami celebrating, old and young.. and they probably all have cholesterol plugged arteries and diabetes and struggle up a flight of stairs. Compare to the people of Cuba any day. And recently on CNN i saw interviews of Trump supporters in Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia, Toothless, fat, and as ignorant as they come if you could understand the English they mangled for lack of grammar.
So how’s that Trumpy thing , guns for every man woman and child, massacres , and child porn rings and stuff working for you guys who fled, enjoy , Trump doesn’t give a “…” for poor Cubans, he is wanting to put a Trump Hotel in Havana like his last visit there.
Are you talking about Batista and his American Mafia gang or the Castros, i am confused.
You must be talking about some other Island. “for the right of 100% to live a decent life”, “it brought Cuba out of poverty” !!!!!!!!!!! Where exactly did you see no poverty in Cuba???????
Too funny 🙂
Trump is working on the truth part, don’t worry about that.
And live dirt poor. Good idea…
There is no respect for Cuba.
See what his bank account balance is. That will show if he was true or not.
seems the majority of the time he was a dictator and your whole population kneeled before him. An entire country of losers. wow.
9 days of worshiping a commie. Have fun. Do not look to the U.S. to help you.
One of history’s great avatars has joined the immortals! He dedicated his life to improving the lives of his people and the respect of his nation. To the end, he remained true to his ideals and, like all great men, had an “oceanic” vision of life and the world.
I’ll always remember that day in December, 1969, cutting cane with him in the fields outside Aguacate, then sharing his table for the the evening meal in the comedor; later that night, in the Brigade’s meeting hall, listening as he answered our questions for several hours. In the midst of the Q’s and A’s, there was an apagon; despite the lack of lights, he continued, the embers at the end of his tobaco dancing up and down in the darkness. I’ll always remember those magical moments.
Thirty-seven years later I was fortunate enough to hear one of his last public speeches at the 2006 May Day festivities.
Farewell, Fidel! Give my greetings to the philosophers sitting at their symposium (drinking party) on the upmost ring of (Dante’s) Inferno! (which is a much more interesting place than either Purgatory or so-called Heaven!)
He outlived so many American Presidents.
Castro, along with Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Ts e-tung, as well
as the prophets of all religions, are considered “Men of Universal
Destiny” in the history of mankind. Before them, slavery was common
across the globe, and they were the vanguard of revolutions that
changed the world across the 5 continents. Certainly, Fidel Castro was
a thorn in the side of the U.S., and the promoter and the inspired of
revolutions in the Spanish Latin America. That is why the U.S. staged
636 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, but all failed. Castro
was so influential in Latin America – along with Che Guevara, and the
U.S. had to install pro-U.S. dictators across Latin America who killed
hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries to prevent Communism from
taking over the continent. But Fidel Castro survived all U.S.
assassination attempts, plus the U.S. Bay of Pigs military invasion to
overthrow him, He was a global hero of his time, but in today’s
capitalism era when, and in the era that refugees try to escape poverty
across continents, the Fidel Castro luster would just fade into the
annals of the romantic Communist era that started with the French
Revolution: “Liberte; Egalite.” Viva Fidel! Unfortunately, liberty an
equality is still in short supply across the globe, and with the
snuffing of the revolutions, the global refugee problem is the new
struggle for liberty and equality. Nikos Retsos, retired professor
They have terrible health care.
A brutal dictator who stole from and oppressed an entire nation for decades. A failure by every measure
He was both a revolutionary leader and a dictator. A man of contradictions and ideals. Fidel Castro never understood what genuine socialism means. For him it was resistance to capitalism and state control over the economy. This was indeed the common (Stalinist) model among revolutionary leftists in the 1950’s. But true socialism is about workers control, planning from the bottom up and a socialist democracy. Cuba is not a socialist democracy, it is a top down bureaucratic deformed state that is slowly embracing state-capitalism like China did. With Fidel Castro death, the pro-capitalist forces in the communist party will be strengthened!
Now that Capitalism has completely crashed and burned, Fidel Castro was able to pass away in peace.
Condolences from Canada.
Castro and friends have had quite a run!! There can be no change in the functions of the Cuban life style, until the people speak!! Let’s see if they get the chance! Good luck to all!!
Fidel’s Cuba has demonstrated that good education, excellent health care, and respect for all citizens, are not the benefits of rich countries. Cuba has put the US to shame in this area. Cuba has traded the capitalistic right of the 1% to own 99%, for the right of 100% to live a decent life. Not everyone likes the trade, but it brought Cuba out of poverty, and it ended effective enslavement of the poor. Look at many 3rd world countries today, and you can see how such a Cuban system could benefit many people. Perhaps some people in Miami are celebrating, but they are probably the descendants of the 1% that were kicked out by Castro. They lost, he won.
“We will all be in for our turn, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain, as proof that on this planet, if we work with fervor and dignity, we can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we must fight without ceasing to obtain them” … Except for the first phrase, it’s all FFP, Foolish False Pride.
Never corrupted. Died true to his ideals. What an incredible life, leader and human being. His glory is only augmented by the slander of his critics. Has hecho bien, Fidel !
With Trump we can actually tell the truth. We are happy to see a communist dictator like Castro die seeing his country on the verge of being free from him and able to make choices as individuals and not as slaves to him !!
It will? This is the first President who has zero experience in politics and insults on Twitter like a Troll. Has a cabinet of White Supremacist. It’s gonna be interesting to say the least.
Celebration time! Come on!
P.S.
It’s kind of the same as Trump becoming the U.S. President. Nothing is going to change. It will be the same old dog an pony show in Washington.
I see all the people celebrating on the streets of Miami & that Fidel’s death means freedom for Cubans. Are they forgetting that Raul is still in charge of the country and the government has not changed???? Unless the Cubans living on the Island start another revolution, I don’t believe anything will change.