International News

MIAMI, (MILLAT+APP/AFP) – Cuban-Americans who
loathed Fidel Castro celebrated tirelessly Sunday to mark his death, dancing, singing and honking car horns for the second full day.
Crowds first spilled into the streets of Little Havana Friday night
as news of the 90-year-old revolutionary leader’s death in Cuba spread.
The revelry has not stopped since.
“I’m not tired of celebrating because I can’t believe it. I never
thought that this moment would arrive,” said a woman named Delsy who declined to give her last name. She celebrated with a large crowd outside the Cafe Versailles, where exiles met in the Cold War’s heyday to plot the overthrow of the Castro regime.
Some two million Cubans live in the United States, nearly 70 percent
of them in Florida. The vast majority of those live in Miami and many saw Castro as a brutal tyrant.
Streets that had been closed because of the festive crowd reopened
Sunday as authorities tried to restore a semblance of normality. But then they had to close them down again.
Among the cacophony of car horns, drums, loud music and singing, a
chant rang out: “Fidel, you tyrant, take your brother too!”
Fidel Castro may be gone, but his younger brother Raul, 85, remains
in power as president of the Americas’ only one-party Communist-run state.
A rally demanding freedom and democratic reforms in Cuba has been
convened for Wednesday in Little Havana.
It will coincide with the start of a four-day procession in which
Castro’s remains will be taken around the island of 11 million for people to pay their respects.
“The tyrant is dead but the tyranny continues,” said activist Orlando
Gutierrez of the Cuban Resistance Assembly.
Several blocks to the east, the popular Ball & Chain salsa nightclub
offered discounts and a new drink: “Adios Fidel” (Farewell Fidel).
The place was bursting with people Saturday night. The street
outside, full of Cuban restaurants and bars, was packed with late-night pedestrians and customers.