To celebrate revolutionary leader Fidel Castro’s 90th birthday, a Cuban tobacconist is attempting to break his own world record by rolling a 90-metre cigar.
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Other tributes include an exhibition of photographs of the revolutionary leader in Havana’s grandiose Hotel Nacional, flags reading “Gracias, Fidel”, billboards citing his best-known phrases and endless stories on state media.
Cuba’s former President Fidel Castro attends a gala for his 90th birthday at the “Karl Marx” theater in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016. As Fidel Castro nears his 90th birthday on August 13, the island’s brightest economic hopes lies in a post-detente surge in tourism that’s expected to boom when commercial flights to and from the United States, Cuba’s longtime enemy, start again on August 31.
Castro wrote a letter after Obama visited Cuba in March, criticizing Obama’s knowledge of Cuban history because he urged Cubans to look toward the future.
“I want you to express my deepest gratitude for the signs of respect, greetings and gifts I have received in these days, that give me strength to reciprocate with ideas that I will send to party militants and relevant agencies”, he wrote in the state-run Granma newspaper.
Mr Castro, who handed power to his younger brother Raul in 2008 due to poor health also wrote about his youth in the eastern village of Biran and about his father who died before the revolution.
As Fidel Castro turns 90 today, many historians will likely remember him for his dictatorial rule of Cuba since seizing power in the late 1950s from the US -backed Fulgencio Batista regime. Several of those have been substantiated by USA officials; some reportedly involved slipping poisoned or explosive cigars to the cigar-loving Cuban leader.
Castro’s birthday was greeted in low-key style by the Cuban government, with no major parades or rallies scheduled to mark the event.
He slammed Obama for failing to apologise to the people of Hiroshima for the atomic bomb dropped by the United States during World War II, when he visited the site of bombing in May.
He last appeared in public on April 19 at the close of the Cuban Communist Party Congress.
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Castro was not at the celebrations in his honour, but may be meeting ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Madura later today. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Cubans are migrating to the United States, hollowing out the ranks of highly educated professionals.
