Mr. Castro, who has not appeared in public since a Communist Party Congress in April, was not expected to turn up to any of the celebrations, according to Reuters.
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Cuban super heavyweight Leinier Pero dedicated his Olympic boxing victory to Fidel Castro on Saturday, the day the revolutionary and former leader of the Caribbean country celebrated his 90th birthday.
State media showed images of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro arriving in Havana and a tribute was planned at a Havana theatre for Sunday evening.
In a letter published by the state-run newspaper, Castro thanked his countrymen for the well wishes and reminisced his early days as a youth in eastern Cuba, touched upon his father’s death and also criticised Obama.
Mr. Castro returned at the end to criticise U.S. President Barack Obama, who appeared to anger the revolutionary leader with a March trip to Cuba in which he called for Cubans to look toward the future. At the giant street party, a live band played Happy Birthday on the stroke of midnight and fireworks exploded on the other side of the bay.
“He lacked the words to ask for forgiveness for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people”, Mr Castro wrote.
“That’s why you have to stress the need to preserve peace and that no power has the right to kill millions of people”, Castro said.
Although mostly out of sight, Castro has not been out of the minds of ordinary Cubans.
In the article, the former head of Cuba reminisced about his childhood and youth on a family plantation in eastern Cuba, his father’s death and the revolution he led that overthrew USA -backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
“I laughed with the Machiavellian plans several US presidents had to eliminate me in any way”, added the Cuban leader.
Castro’s brother Raul restored diplomatic relations with Washington past year.
Considered more pragmatic, the younger Castro also introduced market-style reforms to the state-dominated economy and increased personal freedoms, such as the right to travel overseas.
Mr Castro has lent these policies only lukewarm support in public.
A Cuban cigar maker has broken his own record by rolling the world’s longest cigar at 90m, the length of a soccer field, dedicating the monster smoke to Fidel Castro ahead of the retired leader’s 90th birthday.
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Indeed, regardless of the present, many Cubans continue to revere Fidel for having freed Cuba from US domination and introduced universal, free healthcare and education.
