Cubans love Fidel Castro.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-castro-idUSKBN13Q3GJ>
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Tens of thousands of Cubans greeted Fidel Castro's funeral cortege on
its journey across Cuba on Thursday, unflagging in their admiration for
one of the towering figures of the 20th Century who is equally loathed
by his adversaries.
Waving flags and singing the national anthem, Cubans thickly lined
pastel-colored colonial streets to pay their respects to Castro. He died
on Friday at age 90, a decade after stepping down as president but
defiant to the end toward the United States, the world power he
tormented from just 90 miles (145 km) away.
The government declared nine days of mourning for the man who built a
Communist state, aligned Cuba with the Soviet Union and survived what
his government claimed were more than 600 U.S. assassination attempts.
The cause of his death has not been made public, but Castro had been
weak since an intestinal ailment believed to be diverticulitis forced
him to relinquish power in 2006.
The outpouring from ordinary Cubans contrasts with the hatred of many
Cuban exiles who saw Castro as a tyrant who jailed opponents and ruined
the economy with socialism.
Whether out of revolutionary zeal, nationalist pride or a sense of
obligation in a one-party state that tolerates little dissent, Cubans
have poured onto the streets to bid their final farewell.
"I was born with him, I lived with him, and I wanted to die before him,"
said Ivan Castillo, 44, a public health worker.
He carried his 6-year-old son with the words "I am Fidel" across his
forehead, a repetition of a phrase that has become the national slogan
for the mourning period, shouted from streets and squares.
"Now it's on those of us who lived with Fidel to teach the youth to
continue fighting for his ideals," Castillo said, in the city of
Camaguey, where Castro's ashes will stay overnight 336 miles (542 km)
east of Havana.
On Wednesday, his casket spent the night alongside the remains of Che
Guevara in the city of Santa Clara.
The procession was slowly making its way east, destined for the final
resting place of his ashes in Santiago de Cuba, where Castro's rebels
first launched an attack on the U.S.-backed forces of Fulgencio Batista
in 1953.
Batista was finally driven from Cuba on Jan. 1, 1959, and the cortege is
retracing the trek Castro made from that day until he arrived in Havana
a week later.
Castro would go on to build a healthcare system for the poor, he sent
doctors around the world but also soldiers to Africa to help Namibia
achieve independence and weaken apartheid in South Africa.
Many lined up for hours on Monday and Tuesday to pass through a memorial
in Havana's Revolution Square. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands,
gathered there on Tuesday night for a four-hour ceremony in which
presidents from around the world delivered eulogies.
(Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Jonathan Oatis
and Andrew Hay)