SANTIAGO: Fidel Castro’s ashes were laid to rest on Sunday, capping nine days of official mourning when hundreds of thousands of Cubans said farewell with a combination of tears, Castro-like defiance and choruses of “I am Fidel”.

A private ceremony was held at Santiago’s Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, state media reported. Castro’s cremated remains were placed a few steps from the mausoleum of independence hero Jose Marti, another towering figure of Cuban history who Castro admired.

Castro, who had been out of power for a decade but never far from the centre of public life, died on Nov 25 at age 90.

In his final years he wrote a periodic column on world and local matters and received foreign dignitaries at his home on the outskirts of Havana.

Castro gave Cuba an outsized influence in world affairs. He was feted by Nelson Mandela for helping to end apartheid at a time the West supported the racist system, but helped take the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis.

Forced to step down due to an intestinal ailment, Castro ceded power to his younger brother Raul, the current president, at first provisionally in 2006 then definitively in 2008. Cuba has not revealed the cause of his death.

In keeping with his wishes, Castro’s image will not be immortalised with statues and public places will not be named after him, his brother said on Saturday. Initially the ceremony at the cemetery was due to be carried live on television, but hours before official media announced it would be “solemn and private”.

Castro’s memorial at the cemetery is a large, round stone pla­ced close to, but dwarfed by, Marti’s mausoleum, according to a witness. It is a few steps from a monument to rebels who died fighting in failed 1953 attack on the Moncada barracks in Santi­ago, the start of the revolution.

Castro ruled for 49 years, longer than any contemporary except for Queen Elizabeth of England, after overthrowing a US-backed dictator in 1959. He went on to align Cuba with the Soviet Union and sustain a near-permanent confrontation with the US, sending both doctors and soldiers overseas to burnish Cuba’s revolutionary character.

In recent years, Cuban doctors have been widely praised for their quick deployment in international health crises, including the Ebola outbreak and the aftermath of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

Even after ceding power to his brother Raul, now 85, Fidel was a guiding light to leftists and anti-imperialists around the world. The impact of his long clash with the US is still being felt.

US President Barack Obama changed course on US policy towards Cuba in December 2014, agreeing on a prisoner exchange, declaring his intent to restore diplomatic ties and asking the US Congress to end a trade embargo.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2016