Cuba on Sunday marked the anniversary of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s first armed uprising 62 years ago with calls for an end to the US embargo and the return of the US naval base at Guantanamo.
The ceremony — attended by Cuban President Raul Castro and about 10,000 of the country’s ruling elite and their guests, but not by the frail 88-year-old Fidel — was the first since the restoration of relations with the US.
“Now begins a long and complex road toward the normalization of bilateral relations, which includes, among other things, the end of the blockade and the return of the Guantanamo naval base,” said Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, No. 2 in the Cuban Communist Party.
Photo: EPA
Machado’s brief speech contrasted with the hours long anti-American orations Fidel was known for, particularly on the July 26, 1953, anniversary of the assault he led on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago.
Though a military failure that landed Castro in prison, the uprising is considered the start of a revolutionary movement that ultimately ousted the dictatorship of then-Cuban president Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Across the country in Havana, 40 members of the Ladies in White opposition group and another 27 activists who were holding a weekly protest march were arrested and held for several hours, their leader Berta Soler said.
Cuban authorities do not confirm arrests.
Fidel stepped down as the country’s president in 2006 in poor health; his brother and successor Raul has presided over tentative economic changes, but the overwhelming majority of the Soviet-style economy is still government-run and in grim shape.
Cubans earn about US$20 a month, oxen still plow fields and people face long lines for transport in Havana.
Cuba’s main ally and economic partner of more than a decade, Venezuela, is facing economic and political crises that some analysts fear could destabilize Cuba.
And on Dec. 17 last year, Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama stunned the world by announcing plans to restore relations severed for more than half a century. On July 20, the longtime Cold War foes reopened embassies in each other’s countries.
However, a US trade embargo remains in effect, with opposition to lifting it strong in the Republican-dominated US Congress.
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