By Anita Snow, .c The Associated Press
HAVANA, 1 (AP) - The millennium never arrived in communist Cuba.
The government of Fidel Castro officially shunned millennium events Friday night and Saturday, arguing that the new century and the new millennium won't start until one minute after midnight of Dec. 31, 2001.
Instead, what began here at the start of 2000 was the ``Year of the 40th Anniversary of the Decision of Fatherland or Death.''
In a country where every year gets a political and historical name, this year remembers Castro's 1960 coining of the slogan used regularly during speeches: ``Fatherland or death! We will overcome!''
The government's announcement last week that millennium events being held around the world were one year premature apparently dampened enthusiasm for big New Year's parties - which are never that big here, anyhow.
No official events were scheduled, even though New Year's Day marked the 41st anniversary of the revolution that brought Castro to power.
Traditional holiday celebrations were low-key, mostly intimate family dinners of roasted pork, black beans, yucca and green salad - along with plenty of rum.
Tourists celebrated the new year with special holiday meals and shows in the plaza outside old Havana's towering cathedral, at the Tropicana nightclub and at hotel restaurants and discos.
Swigging beer and swinging their hips to drum beats, practitioners of Cuba's Santeria religion celebrated the arrival of 2000 with African rites and rhythms that slaves brought to the Caribbean island centuries ago.
At Hamel Lane, a closed-off street converted into a Santeria cultural Center, hundreds danced to rumba bands whose musicians pounded out rhythms on squarish wooden drums and sang centuries-old odes to Cuban orishas, or saints.
Inside a bamboo hut populated by representations of Yemaya, Ochun and other orishas, a woman dressed all in white lighted the first of 2,000 candles to burn throughout the night in honor of the new millennium.
Havana's streets were quiet, with the exception of honking horns at midnight. Just a few nuzzling couples were found when the clock struck 12 on Havana's famous Malecon seawall, often a gathering site for spontaneous celebrations.
Mostly, the three-day government holiday that began Friday was a respite for Cubans increasingly wearied by daily demonstrations aimed at getting the United States to return Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy rescued in November off the coast of Florida. The boy's mother died during their
attempt to reach the United States.
The U.S. government turned Elian over to his great-uncle in Miami, who says he can provide him a better life off the communist island. Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has demanded that the boy be returned to him in Cuba and Castro's government has made the fight its own.
``In these heroic days, the revolution has once again shown its solidarity and extraordinary capacity for mobilization,'' the communist government said in a message transmitted on radio and television in the wee hours of Saturday.
The fight to return Elian to his father in Cuba has become ``a symbol, a dignified banner,'' and his return to the island is ``our goal,'' said the message read on government-operated stations.
AP-NY-01-01-00 1535EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |