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Cuba will observe a 9-day mourning period for Fidel Castro, including a three-day journey with his ashes taken along the route marched by the guerrillaarmy he led on a victorious parade 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, one of the most powerful organs of the single-party state put in place by Castro.
The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. on Monday at the Havana Memorial dedicated to the country’s 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. on Monday and again Tuesday at the memorial in the Plaza of the Revolution, as well as the 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 offered no details about how or when.
The committee said Cubans will be called for a gathering at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in the Plaza of the Revolution, the site of a series of huge rallies led by Castro 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 guerrilla forces from the Sierra Maestra mountains to the capital, Havana. The cortege is to take three days.
On 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.
