HAVANA – Cuba yesterday celebrated the 50th anniversary of a 1959 revolution. Its leader, Fidel Castro, transformed the island into a communist state that has survived despite long years of opposition from the nearby United States and the collapse of its cold war benefactors.
The revolution’s landmark anniversary comes at a time when the era of Dr Castro, now 82 and ailing, is winding down. Uncertainty hangs over the future of the Cuba he built into an improbable world player admired for its achievements in the social sphere but criticised for its human rights record.
A celebration that had been expected to be a major event has been subdued in a nation mired in economic problems and divided on what the revolution has wrought.
President Raul Castro, who officially replaced his ailing older brother in February, was to speak yesterday evening in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba from the same balcony from which the elder Castro proclaimed victory after US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista fled on January 1st, 1959.
Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public since undergoing surgery for an undisclosed intestinal ailment 2½ years ago, was not expected to attend, officials said.
In a brief message on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper Granma yesterday, Fidel Castro sent his congratulations to “our heroic people” for 50 years of revolution.
In a television interview on Wednesday night, Raul Castro said his speech would include the sombre message that, 50 years on, many difficulties and much work still lay ahead. – (Reuters)