Fidel Castro made a rare public appearance on Saturday at his 90th birthday gala, after the leader of the 1959 revolution thanked fellow Cubans for their well wishes and lambasted his old foe the USA, in a column carried by state-run media.
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Seated in the front row of the Karl Marx theatre, he was flanked by Raul and regional ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Workers help Cuban cigar roller Jose “Cueto” Castelar, not pictured, hand roll a 90m cigar, stretching through many rooms, in Havana.
Fidel Castro celebrated his 90th birthday by praising the Cuban people and issuing a stinging rebuke of U.S. President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published Saturday.
Raul, 85, has gradually opened up Cuba’s economy and foreign ties, restoring diplomatic relations with Fidel’s old adversary, the United States.
A gala in honor of the birthday was held Saturday evening at the Karl Marx theater in Havana. He formally transferred the presidency to his brother in 2008. He also mentioned his father’s death shortly before he overthrew U.S-backed strongman Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Castro’s birthday was greeted in low-key style by the Cuban government, with no major parades or rallies scheduled to mark the event.
After Obama visited Cuba in March, Castro recalled the island’s long enmity with the United States, including Washington’s backing for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
“I believe that the speech lacked the statue of the US president when he visited Japan and lacked words to apologize for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, although they knew the effects of the bomb”, Castro wrote.
As thousands of Cuban nationals gather long Havana’s seafront celebrating retired Cuban leader Fidel Castro turning 90 today, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has congratulated Castro for what it calls the selfless, inspirational and revolutionary contribution he has made in advancing a free world. Fidel Castro, however, criticized Obama then too, saying that Cuba didn’t need “the empire to give us anything”.
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The need for closer economic ties with the U.S. has grown more urgent as Venezuela, Castro’s greatest ally, tumbles into economic free-fall, cutting the flow of subsidised oil that Cuba has depended on from the South American country for more than a decade. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Cubans are emigrating to the United States, hollowing out the ranks of highly educated professionals.
