Cuban exiles dance in Miami streets over Castro's news

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

MIAMI, Aug 1 (Reuters) Beating on cooking pots and honking car horns, hundreds of Cuban exiles streamed into the streets of Miami's Little Havana to celebrate news that Cuban President Fidel Castro had handed over power.

Calle Ocho, the main street of the Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Miami that is the heart of Castro's exiled opposition, was awash in Cuban flags and dancing people who had waited years, and in some cases decades, for this moment. Fireworks exploded over parts of Miami.

Castro announcement that he was handing over power provisionally to his younger brother and designated successor Raul Castro while he underwent surgery was greeted by Cuban exiles in Miami as a signal of his imminent demise.

''I am elated but I am sad at the same time, because there are so many of us who could not be here to see this,'' said Ana Maria Lamar, referring to exiles who spent their lives fighting Castro and the thousands of Cuban rafters believed to have perished trying to flee the communist-ruled Caribbean island.

An estimated 650,000 people of Cuban descent make their homes in Miami, the Florida city remade by Cubans who left the island in waves following Castro's 1959 revolution.

Lamar, 62, said her late father fought at the Bay of Pigs in the 1961 US-backed attempt to unseat Castro.

''He is celebrating in heaven,'' she said, tears in her eyes. She was wrapped in a red white and blue Cuban flag -- nearby were six of her relatives, representing three generations of her family.

Cars streamed along Calle Ocho, drivers honking horns as passengers leaned out windows, waving flags. Three men sat up on the back seat of a convertible, clenched fists raised in celebration.

All along the street, people danced and chattered excitedly into cellphones.

Some people beat pots with spoons as others videotaped or snapped pictures with camera-phones. A dapper man in a white suit, white fedora and red tie chanted: ''Cuba, yes, Castro is dead.'' 'WAIT-AND-SEE' US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who left Cuba as a child, said in a statement from her Miami office she hoped the news signaled the end of Castro's power.

''Fidel Castro has only brought ruin and misery to Cuba so if he is incapacitated, even for a short period of time, it is a marvelous moment for the millions of Cubans who live under his iron fisted rule and oppressive state machinery. I hope this is the beginning of the end for his despised regime.'' While the Miami celebration was noisy and joyful, many of the revelers were skeptical, remembering dozens of previous times when rumors of Castro's demise spread like wildfire through the community.

''I think it's a joke. I hope it's true but I think it's a joke,'' said Lazaro Lorenzo, 43, who waved a beach towel bearing a map of the island.

Lorenzo said he came to Miami in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, when south Florida took in more than 100,000 people who fled when Castro temporarily opened the port of Mariel and told Cubans they could leave.

''Even if he is dead, I don't think Cuba is going to be free. The US doesn't want Cuba to be free,'' said Lorenzo, who wore a T-shirt that said ''Fidel Castro. Dictator. Terrorist.'' Over a strong Cuban coffee at a popular Little Havana restaurant, Andres Blanco, who left Cuba as a child, said he was taking a wait-and-see attitude toward Castro's fate.

''Maybe it's a trap. We've been through this many times,'' he said. ''But this is the first time there's a statement from the Cuban government. He did not show up to read it so it tells you that something is going on.'' REUTERS MQA BD1115

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