Cubans in Miami Dancing in the Streets Over Castro

Cuban exiles in Miami don't understand why they are reviled by nearly everybody who lives around them.

They left their country with their tails between their legs, came to the U.S. where they got handed money left and right by the U.S. taxpayer, and now, they delusionally believe that if Castro dies, their magical dreams of going back to the Cuba of the 50s will come true.

The 'hate Castro' Miami Cubans have always assumed that “being tough” on Castro will lead to his demise.

Despite much evidence to the contrary, for 40 years they have continued to demand policies (like embargoes) to hurt this one man, as if somehow he were the sole inhabitant of the island, regardless of the suffering they caused the millions of others on the island.


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[link to www.heraldtribune.com]

MIAMI -- The streets of the city's Little Havana neighborhood erupted in celebration as word spread that Cuban President Fidel Castro had temporarily relinquished power, with hundreds of people waving flags and many talking hopefully of returning to their home country for the first time in years or decades.

People waved Cuban flags on Little Havana's Calle Ocho, shouting "Cuba, Cuba, Cuba," hoping that the end was near for the man most of them consider a ruthless dictator. Lighting cigars, banging pots, cheering and dancing, they recalled their own flights from the communist island or those of their parents and grandparents. Tens of thousands of Cuban exiles and their descendants live in South Florida.

Armando Tellez, 33, as he sat on the hood of his red truck and watched as hundreds of cars clogged the streets of Hialeah, a heavily Cuban-American city northwest of Miami.

Orlando Pino, 34, was steering his bicycle down a Hialeah street with one hand and waving a Cuban flag with the other. He said that when he Castro dies he wants to return to Cuba, where he believes people are likely unsure of their future.

"There's a lot of people in Cuba who are home crying," said Pino, who arrived in the Miami area two years on a religious visa. "There's a lot of confusion over there because many people loved him.


White House spokesman Peter Watkins said the administration was monitoring the situation.

"We can't speculate on Castro's health, but we continue to work for the day of Cuba's freedom," Watkins said.

Coast Guard officials said they were on standby, awaiting further orders. U.S. officials have long had plans in place to head off any possible mass exodus from Cuba by sea in case that the government suddenly opened the island's borders as occurred during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and again during the rafter crisis in 1995.

Arturo Cobo, a Cuban exile activist who once ran the home for Cuban rafters in Key West, said it seemed strange to him that the Cuban government was disclosing Castro's operation because of its secretive nature.

While watching the news from his Miami home, Cobo speculated that the "practice" could be a way for Castro to test who his enemies are and who his friends are within the island.

Cobo said that the exile community had been waiting for this "forever."

"There is exultation and joy in the exile community tonight," Cobo said.

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