Raul Castro has his tomb ready
Prepared for the afterlife: The pantheon made for Cuban President Raul Castro, where his wife Vilma Espin, deceased on June 2007 lies, as seen in Segundo Frente, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba on July 26, 2008. The communist island's 77-year-old head of state has already prepared his tomb: a 130-tonne public mausoleum in the eastern mountain town of Santiago de Cuba. Picture: AFP
Monday, August 4, 2008
CUBANS may not know the ultimate resting place of Fidel Castro, but there is no mystery surrounding the future repose of his brother and successor as president, Raul Castro.
The communist island's 77-year-old head of state has already prepared his tomb: a 130-tonne public mausoleum in the eastern mountain town of Santiago de Cuba.
It is dedicated to the "heroes of the revolution" that he and Fidel led five decades ago.
It is here that General Raul Castro's ashes will lie after his death and cremation alongside the urn of his wife and comrade-in-arms, Vilma Espin, whom he married days after the revolution's triumph in 1959 and who died last year. The couple had four children.
"The monolith is a symbol of the revolution's strength," Madelaine Venegas, a guide to the Mausoleum of the Frank Pais Second Front, told foreign reporters during a visit organised for the July 26 anniversary of the insurgency's beginning.
Adorned with flowers, the monument "Vilma's big passion," said Venegas was built in 2001 in the Sierra Maestra, the cradle of the revolution and the main theatre of battle for Fidel and his fighting force that eventually overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
The Frank Pais Second Front was a guerrilla unit named after a fallen comrade that Raul Castro led in 1958.
More than 69,000 Cuban and foreign tourists visited the quiet site surrounded by palm trees last year, making the 70-kilometre journey from Santiago de Cuba.
"Some are surprised to see Raul's name" alongside his wife's in the bronze plate set in the middle of the stone, said Angel Leonidas, another official guide.
"It's going to be some years yet" before he joins her, added the director of the site, retired colonel Alberto Vazquez, a former revolutionary.
He said that even when that day comes, he was not worried, "because the continuity of the revolution is guaranteed".
Raul Castro officially took over as Cuba's president in February, although he had been de facto leader since July 2006, when his iconic older brother, 82 next month, became gravely ill and handed over the reins of power.
In front of the monolith that will eventually house Raul is the tomb of Antonio Gades, a Spanish communist choreographer and flamenco dancer.
AFP
The communist island's 77-year-old head of state has already prepared his tomb: a 130-tonne public mausoleum in the eastern mountain town of Santiago de Cuba.
It is dedicated to the "heroes of the revolution" that he and Fidel led five decades ago.
It is here that General Raul Castro's ashes will lie after his death and cremation alongside the urn of his wife and comrade-in-arms, Vilma Espin, whom he married days after the revolution's triumph in 1959 and who died last year. The couple had four children.
"The monolith is a symbol of the revolution's strength," Madelaine Venegas, a guide to the Mausoleum of the Frank Pais Second Front, told foreign reporters during a visit organised for the July 26 anniversary of the insurgency's beginning.
Adorned with flowers, the monument "Vilma's big passion," said Venegas was built in 2001 in the Sierra Maestra, the cradle of the revolution and the main theatre of battle for Fidel and his fighting force that eventually overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
The Frank Pais Second Front was a guerrilla unit named after a fallen comrade that Raul Castro led in 1958.
More than 69,000 Cuban and foreign tourists visited the quiet site surrounded by palm trees last year, making the 70-kilometre journey from Santiago de Cuba.
"Some are surprised to see Raul's name" alongside his wife's in the bronze plate set in the middle of the stone, said Angel Leonidas, another official guide.
"It's going to be some years yet" before he joins her, added the director of the site, retired colonel Alberto Vazquez, a former revolutionary.
He said that even when that day comes, he was not worried, "because the continuity of the revolution is guaranteed".
Raul Castro officially took over as Cuba's president in February, although he had been de facto leader since July 2006, when his iconic older brother, 82 next month, became gravely ill and handed over the reins of power.
In front of the monolith that will eventually house Raul is the tomb of Antonio Gades, a Spanish communist choreographer and flamenco dancer.
AFP
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