Even dissidents hold back as Castro's death casts a pall over Cuba
Cuba's most prominent dissident group called off its weekly protest march for the first time in 13 years on November 27 following the death of its nemesis Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader whose passing has cast a pall over the island.
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Castro, an icon of the Cold War who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and defied half a century of US efforts to topple him, died late on November 25 at the age of 90.
The Cuban government has declared a nine-day period of mourning and suspended alcohol sales and even baseball games.
The Ladies in White dissident group decided to avoid creating tensions this week.
"We're not going to march today so that the government does not take it as a provocation and so that they can pay their tributes," the group's leader, Berta Soler, said on November 27. "We respect the mourning of others and will not celebrate the death of any human being."
The group, originally formed in support of husbands jailed for political opposition, has called protest marches in Havana following Mass at a Roman Catholic Church each Sunday for the past 13 years.
The group is funded by Cuban exiles in the United States, and the government says its members are mercenaries doing the bidding of the US government.
