Fidel Castro’s death: Donald Trump hopes for a free Cuba

• Posted on November 26, 2016
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

We’re wrapping up our live coverage of global reaction to the death of Fidel Castro. Here’s a summary of the main points.

• The Cuban government has now declared nine days of national mourning and announced Castro’s ashes would be interred at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba on 4 December.
• US president Barack Obama extended a hand of friendship to the Cuban people and said “history will record and judge the enormous impact” of Castro.
• US president-elect Donald Trump described Castro as a “brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades” and hoped his passing would lead to freedom for Cubans.
• Tributes have been paid by Latin American leaders including Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro; Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto; and Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa.
• Russian president, Vladimir Putin, praised Castro as the “symbol of an era”, and the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev also hailed him for “strengthening” his island nation.
• The Nelson Mandela Foundation sent its condolences to the people and government of Cuba, and South African President Jacob Zuma thanked Castro for his help and support in the struggle to overthrow apartheid.
• But celebrations broke out in Little Havana, the Miami neighbourhood home to many Cubans in exile in the US.
• And Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the first Cuban-American elected to Congress, said Castro was a “tyrant and thug” and hailed his death as an opportunity to “work for a Cuba that is free, democratic, and prosperous”.

-theguardian