Santiago, Cuba (CNN) Fidel Castro's remains were laid to rest Sunday morning in a private ceremony in Santiago de Cuba, the city where he launched his communist revolution, Cuban officials told CNN.

Castro's ashes were interred in the city's Santa Ifigenia Cemetery where Jose Marti, the Cuban revolutionary leader from the 19th century, is buried.

Earlier in the day, people lined the streets to see Castro's remains carried to the cemetery in a box placed on a simple trailer and towed by a military Jeep.

The press was not allowed to attend the burial but a mix of world leaders, royalty, Marxist guerrillas and Hollywood actors were invited.

French Environment Minister Segolene Royal told the BBC there were no speeches at the gravesite. "It was very simple," he said.

Cuban officials said they wanted to protect the privacy of Castro's family. Many Cubans didn't know Castro had a family because he kept them out of the public spotlight.

Castro died November 25 at age 90. The burial ends nine days of mourning for the charismatic but polarizing revolutionary who led Cuba for more than half a century.

Castro's ashes arrived Saturday in Santiago de Cuba after a four-day tour across the island nation. Santiago is located on the eastern end of Cuba, about 880 kilometers (546 miles) from Havana.

The private funeral service stood in contrast to the public mourning for Castro.

Cuban President Raul Castro, who took over when his older brother fell ill in 2006, spoke at the event and praised Fidel Castro's accomplishments, especially his willingness to stand up to the United States.

Presidents from Latin American nations and Africa paid their respects. No representative from the United States attended the memorial or the funeral, despite a thawing in relations with Cuba under President Obama.

Raul Castro said his brother insisted that no public spaces or monuments be named after him, saying he wanted to avoid "a cult of personality."

In 1953, a young Fidel Castro led a group of about 150 rebels who attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Castro later launched another revolt and declared victory January 1, 1959, from the balcony of the Santiago City Hall. He then made his way across the country to Havana. </s> SANTIAGO, Cuba - Fidel Castro will be laid to rest on Sunday alongside the mausoleum of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, ensuring that the polarizing nature of Castro's life will continue in death.



Castro and his leftist revolutionaries claimed Marti's mantle upon overthrowing a US-backed regime in 1959 and later married Marti's ideals to their brand of Soviet communism, enraging other nationalists, anti-communists and Cuban exiles who also claim Marti as their own.The interment ceremony, billed as solemn and simple, is due to start at 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT). Nine days of national mourning come to an end at noon (1700 GMT).



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`; document.getElementById("linkPremium").innerHTML = cont; (function (v, i){ }); </s> SANTIAGO, Cuba -- A wooden box containing Fidel Castro's ashes was placed by his brother and successor on Sunday into the side of a granite boulder that has become Cuba's only official monument to the man who ruled with absolute power for nearly a half century.

The private, early-morning ceremony was attended by members of Fidel Castro's family, the ruling Politburo of the single-party system he founded, and Latin American leaders who installed closely allied leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Brazil.

After nine days of fervent national mourning and wall-to-wall homages to Castro on state-run media, the government barred independent coverage of the funeral, releasing a handful of photos and brief descriptions of the ceremony later in the day.

The ceremony began at 6:39 a.m. Cuba time when the military caravan bearing Castro's remains in a flag-draped cedar coffin left the Plaza of the Revolution in the eastern city of Santiago. Thousands of people lined the 2-mile route to Santa Ifigenia cemetery, waving Cuban flags and shouting "Long live Fidel!"

The ashes were delivered to Castro's younger brother and successor, President Raul Castro, who wore his olive general's uniform as he placed the remains into a niche in the enormous grey boulder that will serve as Fidel Castro's tomb. The niche was sealed with a green marble plaque emblazoned with the name "Fidel" in gold letters.

The tomb stands to the side of a memorial to the rebel soldiers killed in an attack that Castro led on Santiago's Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953, and in front of the mausoleum of Cuban national hero Jose Marti.

As the funeral ended, martial music could be heard outside the cemetery, where Ines de la Rosa was among the mourners gathered. She said she would have liked to watch the interment on television, but "we understand how they as a family also need a bit of privacy."

The decision to keep the final farewell private came the morning after Raul Castro announced that Cuba would prohibit the naming of streets and monuments after his brother, and would bar the construction of statues of the former leader and revolutionary icon, in keeping with Fidel Castro's desire to avoid a cult of personality. In contrast, the images of his fellow revolutionary fighters Camilo Cienfuegos and Ernesto "Che" Guevara became common across Cuba in the decades since their deaths.

"All of us would like to put Fidel's name on everything, but in the end, Fidel is all of Cuba," said Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a 70-year-old retired economist in Cuba. "It was a decision of Fidel's, not Raul's, and I think he has to be respected."

Fidel Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. He inspired and supported revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa even as Cubans who fled to exile loathed him with equal measure.

One of those exiles, Armando Garcia, is a retired electronics salesman who left Cuba in 1963 for Little Havana in Miami. He said Sunday's funeral granted neither simple closure nor optimism for immediate change.

"It's a light at the end of the tunnel," Garcia said from the Versailles restaurant, a hub for exiles.

Garcia said it was painful to see leaders in some Latin American countries praising Castro "for supposedly liberating the poor, when in reality he has enslaved the poor."

He joked that there was no sadness at the restaurant about Castro's funeral: "It's the best funeral ever. Look at us. No one is crying, everyone is happy, no need for handkerchiefs. It's a party."

Jose Llanes, 70, said nobody should be fooled by any images from Cuba showing thousands of people mourning. "When people are oppressed, they are told what to do."

Aida Levitan, president of Artes Miami, a nonprofit organization that promotes Hispanic artists, said the funeral "instills a little bit of hope for the Cuban people that this is the beginning of the end."

"Many people are not optimistic because Raul Castro still runs the country, but Fidel was the mythical figure and so it feels there is a difference," she said. "Like a Spanish expression goes: There's no evil that survives 100 years."

Later Sunday, dozens of people gathered for a rally at the Cuban Memorial in Miami's Tamiami Park in honor of people who were victims of Castro's regime and those who died trying to overthrow him. People searched for names of deceased relatives on a black marble wall beneath an obelisk with a Cuban flag pattern.

Sylvia Iriondo, president of the group of Mothers and Women against Repression in Cuba, told the group that it was important to remember those victims and to remember that, "Fidel Castro, the dictator, was not a hero."

Information for this article was contributed by Fabiola Sanchez and Adriana Gomez Licon of The Associated Press. </s> As a new day dawned Sunday in this city, the launching site for the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro was being laid to rest in a private ceremony for family and friends.

His ashes were to be interred in a crypt next to the 85-foot mausoleum of Cuban patriot José Martí in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery.

Castro’s remains will join those of fallen rebels who took part in the assault on the Moncada Barracks, the attack that marks the start of the revolution, and other Cuban historic figures also are buried in the cemetery.

Thousands of mourners had kept vigil at the plaza overnight and then fanned out to surrounding streets to watch the passing of Castro's ashes one last time as the sun began turning the sky pink early Sunday.

“I've been here since yesterday morning,” said Ernesto Echevarria, 44, a who works at the University of Oriente. “I just left for some coffee and now I'm back to watch the funeral procession. I didn't sleep a bit.”

Echevarria, who sported a 26th of July armband made by university students, said he decided to keep the vigil because of a “sense of commitment. How could you miss a day like this?”

Just before 7 a.m., Cuban state TV described a somber morning, with mourners of all ages waving Cuban flags, chants heard in the background. “ That’s what we’re hearing on this sad day,” the correspondent said while the screen showed a rudimentary map of the procession route.

On the ground, the funeral procession arrived at the cemetery at 6:50 a.m., following the short 10-minute trip from the plaza. The Cuban military kicked off the private ceremony with a 21-gun artillery salute.

Just before 8 a.m., Cuban television showed images of his ashes, in a box wrapped in a Cuban flag, carefully being lifted from atop an olive-green trailer towed by a military jeep. Two soldiers, goose-stepping, carried the ashes into the cemetery in front of a row of saluting officials.

The cemetery is located in the northwestern part of Santiago, close to the bay. Castro's tomb had been a long-guarded secret. Construction began about two years ago, according to those who live nearby.

Cuban officials have said nothing about future access to Castro’s tomb, but its apparent location alongside Marti’s, a grand site heavily visited by tourists and Cubans alike, indicates that there will be some form of public access to the grave.

“It’s a privilege to have him here,” Cruz Maria Pardo, 64, who worked at the cemetery cleaning the mausoleums for more than 20 years and said she had seen trucks bringing in materials for a little over a year, told the Associated Press.

Beyond Cuban patriots, martyrs, celebrities and other important figures, Santa Ifigenia also houses the remains of prominent members of families who fled after the revolution such as Emilio Bacardi Moreau, who managed his family’s rum dynasty and died in 1922. The Bacardi family left Cuba in the early years of the revolution after their properties were nationalized by the Castro government.

The funeral service followed a night in which leaders of Cuban mass organizations from the Cuban Federation of Women to the Federation of University Students rose one by one to remember Castro at the Plaza of the Revolution Antonio Maceo.

Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who took over for his brother when Castro fell ill in 2006, was the final speaker of the homage Saturday night.

He told the tens of thousands of Cubans gathered in the plaza that his brother wasn't one who wanted a cult of personality to develop after his death. Even as the four-day caravan transporting Castro’s ashes across the island was broadcast live on national television, the burial was not. International media were also barred from the private ceremony.

“The leader of the revolution rejected any manifestation of a cult personality and was consistent with that through the last hours of his life, insisting that once dead, his name and likeness would never be used on institutions, streets, parks or other public sites, and that busts, statues or other forms of tribute would not be erected,” Raúl Castro said at the Saturday rally.

He added that legislation would be introduced in the next session of the National Assembly of People's Power, Cuba's parliament, to that effect.

But the interlude since Castro's death, announced by Raúl Castro on Nov. 25, gives the impression that a cult of personality has already developed. Cubans who lined the highways to watch the passage of a caravan carrying Castro's ashes from Havana to Santiago hugged portraits of Castro and painted " " (Fidel Lives) on their faces.

“ [I am Fidel] has become a national mantra since Castro's death.

“Why ? Fidel did everything for this country. Even though he's now dead, we would die for the same causes,” said Ernesto Lao, a technical professor. “My name is Ernesto, but now my name is Fidel.”

Miami Herald staff writer David Ovalle contributed to this report from Miami. </s> Fidel Castro's ashes will be buried at a ceremony on December 4 in Santiago de Cuba. (Photo: AP)

Havana: Cuba declared nine days of public mourning Saturday for its late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and said his ashes will be buried at a ceremony on December 4 in Santiago de Cuba.

From November 26 to December 4, "public activities and shows will cease, the national flag will fly at half mast on public buildings and military installations," a statement from the state executive said.

Castro's ashes will be buried in the historic southeastern city of Santiago on December 4 after a four-day procession through the country, it added.

President Raul Castro earlier said that his older brother Fidel was to be cremated early Saturday.

Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 US presidents during his half century rule, died at age 90 in Havana.

His demise was announced by his brother and current President Raul Castro on national television. "The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening," the president announced. </s> The ashes of Fidel Castro leave the Antonio Maceo plaza for its burial in a private funeral ceremony at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago, Cuba Sunday Dec. 4, 2016.

MIAMI — In the heart of Miami's Little Havana, Cuban exile Armando Garcia said Sunday's funeral of Fidel Castro granted neither simple closure nor optimism for immediate change, but was a glimmer of hope for democracy in Cuba.

Garcia, 76, a retired electronics salesman who left Cuba in 1963, sipped espresso as others smoked cigars at the Versailles restaurant, a hub for exiles who fled political oppression or other hardships since Castro's communist revolution of 1959. Huge, noisy crowds had gathered for days after word spread last weekend of Castro's death, but had dissipated by Sunday.

"It's a light at the end of the tunnel," Garcia said of Castro's death, but he said he was not counting on moves toward democracy any time soon.

Garcia said it was painful to see leaders in some Latin American countries praising Castro "'for supposedly liberating the poor, when in reality he has enslaved the poor."

He joked that there was no sadness at the restaurant about Castro's funeral. "It's the best funeral ever. Look at us. No one is crying, everyone is happy, no need for handkerchiefs. It's a party," Garcia said.

Jose Llanes, 70, said nobody should be fooled by any images from Cuban showing thousands of people mourning. "When people are oppressed, they are told what to do."

Later Sunday, dozens of people gathered for a rally at the Cuban Memorial in Miami's Tamiami Park in honor of people who were victims of Castro's regime and those who died trying to overthrow him. People searched for names of deceased relatives on a black marble wall beneath an obelisk with a Cuban flag pattern.

It was important to gather here - Slyvia Iriondo, president of the group of Mothers and Women against Repression in Cuba, told the group - to remember those victims and to remember that, "Fidel Castro, the dictator, was not a hero."

The older generations of Cuban exiles have generally backed a hard line toward U.S. relations with the island, including an embargo and strict limits on engagement until the island shows moves toward democracy, but that view has softened among the younger generation.

Giancarlo Sopo, 33, founder of Miami-based CubaOne Foundation, which arranges trips for younger Cuban-Americans to visit the island, said in a telephone interview that for five decades Fidel Castro dominated the way people viewed Cuba. "It is now my hope that when people now think of Cuba they think of the hopes and dreams of the 11 million people who live there," he said.

"Both younger and older Cuban Americans care about Cuba, but we express that passion in different ways. My father was a Bay of Pigs veteran," Sopo said. "For his generation caring about Cuba meant supporting sanctions. My generation has taken a different approach. My generation wants to go to the island, meet their peers, reconnect with their families and learn about the cultural affairs. The focus has broadened, but we still very much respect their pain."

Aida Levitan, president of Artes Miami, a nonprofit organization that promotes Latino artists, said that the funeral "instills a little bit of hope for the Cuban people that this is the beginning of the end."

"Many people are not optimistic because Raul Castro still runs the country, but Fidel was the mythical figure and so it feels there is a difference," she said. "Like a Spanish expression goes: There's no evil that survives 100 years." </s> Castro and his leftist revolutionaries claimed Marti's mantle upon overthrowing a U.S.-backed regime in 1959 and later married Marti's ideals to their brand of Soviet communism, enraging other nationalists, anti-communists and Cuban exiles who also claim Marti as their own.

The interment ceremony, billed as solemn and simple, is due to start at 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT). Nine days of national mourning come to an end at noon (1700 GMT).

Castro, who survived five decades of U.S. attempts to kill or overthrow him, died on Nov. 25 age 90, a decade after resigning from office due to an intestinal illness and ceding power to his brother, current President Raul Castro, 85.

Even in retirement, Fidel Castro was beloved by leftists and anti-imperialist's around the world and hated by political opponents who believe he ruined Cuba with a one-party state and socialist folly.

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans flooded plazas and lined highways in tributes to Castro as a funeral cortege drove his cremated remains some 600 miles (1,000 km) from Havana to Santiago, the city where Castro launched his revolution in the 1950s. Raul said "millions" came out to pay respects.

Marti, a leading poet and writer who penned the lyrics to the song "Guantanamera," provided intellectual heft behind the reasons for breaking from Spain and safeguarding Cuban sovereignty and national identity from foreign powers such the United States.

He died in battle in 1895 during Cuba's war of independence from Spain.

"The union of two ideas was very important for the Cuban people," said Maria Martinez, 50, who works in a museum. "Fidel is a follower of Marti's ideas."

Castro's cremated remains will be entombed next to Marti's castle-like mausoleum in Santiago's Santa Ifigenia cemetery.

Busts of Marti appear everywhere in Cuba, Havana's international airport is named after him, and there is a towering monument to him in Havana's Revolution Square.

But Fidel Castro will not receive similar treatment. Raul Castro announced on Saturday that, respecting Fidel's wishes, no streets, plazas nor public buildings will bear Fidel Castro's name, and no statues nor monuments will be built in his honor. </s> Cuba will observe nine days of mourning for Fidel Castro, including a three-day journey by his ashes along the route taken by the rebel army he led on a victorious march across the island in 1959.

The plans were announced Saturday by the Organizing Committee of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, State and Government, which is one of the most powerful organs of the single-party state put in place by Castro.

It said Cubans can show their respects for Castro beginning at 9 a.m. Monday at the Havana memorial to national hero Jose Marti, a poet and leader of Cuba's 19th century fight for independence from Spain. Mourners will be able to pay their respects until 10 p.m. Monday and again on Tuesday at the memorial in the Plaza of the Revolution as well as specially designated sites across the country.

Cubans will be able to "pay homage and sign the solemn oath of fulfilling the concept of revolution ... as an expression of the will to continue Castro's ideas and our socialism," the committee said.

Officials say Castro will be cremated, but offer no details about how or when.

The committee said Cubans will be called to a demonstration at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Plaza of the Revolution, which was the site of a series of huge rallies led by Castro as he consolidated power in the years after the revolution.

On Wednesday, Castro's ashes will begin traveling eastward across Cuba following in reverse the route taken by his rebels from the Sierra Maestra mountains to the capital, Havana. The cortege is to take three days.

At 7 p.m. Dec. 3, a mass commemoration will be held at the Antonio Maceo plaza in central Santiago de Cuba, the largest city in the east.

Castro's ashes are to be interred at 7 a.m. the following day at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where Marti is also buried. </s> Fidel Castro returned Saturday to the city where he and a band of rebels staged an assault on the Moncada Barracks, the beginning of the Cuba Revolution, and the place where he began his march into the history books.

Castro, the historic leader of the revolution, died Nov. 25, at the age of 90 after a lingering illness that resulted in his ceding power to his brother Raúl Castro in 2006.

A caravan carrying Castro's ashes arrived Saturday afternoon in Santiago — the "heroic city" and so-called cradle of the Cuban Revolution — on the final leg of a journey across Cuba that began on Wednesday from Havana. The journey retracked, in reverse, the triumphant march into the capital that made after the ouster of dictator Fulgencio Batista.

On Saturday night, tens of thousands of Cubans are expected to turn out for a final farewell to Castro at the Antonio Maceo Plaza on the eve of his internment at Santa Ifigenia Cemetery. He will be laid to rest next to the mausoleum of 19th century Cuban patriot José Martí, who fought for Cuban independence from Spain.

Cuban leader Raúl Castro was expected to give the main address at the nationally televised homage, which begins at 7 p.m.

Many in the plaza, which had begun to fill by mid-day, planned to spend the night in vigil and then fall into a funeral procession accompanying Castro's ashes to the cemetery where a private funeral is planned.

"We think Santa Ifigenia is a fitting place for him because Santiago is the city of heroes — Carlos Manuel de Cespedes (another independence hero from nearby Bayamo), José Martí and now Fidel," said Norma Arias, who runs a bed and breakfast overlooking Parque Cespedes.

From the balcony of the blue and white municipal building on one end of the park, Castro addressed all Cubans on Jan. 1, 1959, the day Batista was defeated.

"This time the revolution is for real," Castro said. "The revolution will not be an easy task; the revolution will be a tough enterprise and full of dangers..."

As she sat on a balcony of her home where she could get a clear view of the passing caravan that carried Castro's ashes in a small flag-draped chest, Arias became overcome with emotion.

"Really, his death has affected me a lot. Fidel was everything, everything," Arias said tearfully. "We feel like orphans, like something is missing."

For many Cubans, the only government they have known has been run by a Castro.

"Fidel is part of every one of us — an entire generation, more than 50 years," said Manuel Rondón Medina, Arias' husband.

But Cuba is also very much a nation divided with many of its former residents in exile in Miami and around the world decrying its revolution as one of betrayal.

Those in exile point to human rights abuses, firing squads after the revolution and imprisonment of Castro opponents, and the losses they suffered after the nationalization of their homes and businesses.

Cubans who turned out to see the remains of Castro pass in the "Caravan of Liberty" chose to focus on advances in education, free medical care and other social benefits of the revolution.

Thirty foreign delegations were expected to attend the events in Santiago, including a Haitian delegation led by Interim President Jocelerme Privet. But the United States isn't among them. U.S. officials attended an homage at the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana earlier in the week but said they wouldn't be in Santiago.

Ex-presidents from around Latin America also are flying in for Castro's funeral service and even former Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona came.

"I come to be with my second father," he told Cuba state television. "There are many players but he was the leader of the [World Cup] team of politicians."

There was palpable excitement in Santiago and in the small towns along the Central Highway from Bayamo, where Castro's ashes spent the night. On Friday, people were busy arranging white rocks on hillsides along the route that spelled out " " (Fidel lives), "Fidel will always be among us" and other revolutionary slogans.

Buildings and curbsides were being painted and townspeople were sweeping the streets, hacking away brush and sprucing up their yards in anticipation of the passage of the caravan as it headed to Santiago. En route, it passed El Cobre where the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Cuba's patron saint, is located.

Santiago is full of landmarks weighted with revolutionary significance. But the Moncada Barracks where the Castro brothers and a group of rebels attacked at dawn on July 26, 1953 tops the list.

The plan was to capture the barracks, distribute arms to the population and begin a nationwide insurrection.

The attack failed miserably but it is the event that set in motion the Cuban Revolution.

In memory of Castro, some Santiago residents have been wearing homemade versions of the red and blacks arm bands of the 26th of July Movement.

Now the mustard-colored barracks has been converted into a museum and a scholastic center, housing several primary and secondary schools.

School kids and their teacher lined the blocks around the barracks to watch the passage of the caravan. Some had written "I am Fidel" and "Fidel Lives" on their foreheads and cheeks with marker.

Yoaleni Martínez, a teacher at another elementary school, carried a sign reading: "Who says Fidel has died? He lives, grows and multiplies himself. He lives in the heart of every Cuban."

"Here at this barracks we have the blood of many Cuban revolutionaries and today it is a school. Imagine that," said Martínez. "And this girl standing next to me, how much would the medicine that saved her life have cost elsewhere? She had a serious bacterial infection and the medicine was free. Now she's 12 years old."

Just after the caravan passed the barracks, the military vehicle pulling the trailer containing Castro's ashes stalled, and members of his honor guard jumped off to give it a push. The caravan continued through the streets of Santiago.

Even those who chose not to witness the passage of the caravan, remembered Castro in their own ways.

Ninety-six-year-old María Estrella Estévez Blanco dug out an old picture of Castro who lived in a blue and yellow house next door to hers at 6 Gen. Jesús Rabí St. when he was sent to Santiago to study as a child.

She didn't know him as a youngster, but met him several times over the years.

"He always liked to visit that house when he came to Santiago," she said. "This is a picture with my grandchildren from the last time he visited."

In the image, Castro can be seen leaning toward the porch of Estévez's home to talk with her. It was 2003 — three years before Castro took ill.
The remains of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro are interred beside independence leader José Martí.