Cuba hails 50th anniversary of revolution

SANTIAGO, Cuba — Arriving outside the old military barracks early Saturday in vintage American sedans, hundreds of Cuban schoolchildren wielding old BB guns re-enacted the armed attack that launched Fidel Castro's revolutionary battle 50 years before.

"Fidel! Fidel!" thousands of Castro's supporters chanted as he took his seat for a 50th anniversary celebration of the audacious armed attack he led on the Moncada barracks in this eastern provincial capital when he was just 26 years old.

Getting up to address the nation of 11.2 million people, Castro — who turns 77 next month — declared it "incredible" to think he was so young when led the attack five decades ago. Castro is now the world's longest-ruling head of government.

Despite more than four decades of American trade sanctions, and especially acrimonious U.S.-Cuba relations in recent months, the socialist system that Castro created two years after taking power in 1959 also has survived. Today, Cuba is among only four communist systems in the world and only one in the Western Hemisphere.

Castro's government is dealing with a severe cash crisis and widespread international criticism for imposing prison sentences of up to 28 years in prison for 75 dissidents and the rapid execution of three men who hijacked a ferry and tried to reach Florida.

Before the sun rose over this eastern city on Saturday, more than a dozen of the men who survived the attack at the same site five decades before attended the pre-dawn reenactment at the former barracks that now serves as a primary school.

Although they were initially caught off guard, Batista's soldiers gained control of the situation. Six attackers and 16 soldiers were reported killed during the resulting fire fight.

Cuban historians say 55 of the rebels who were captured were tortured to death, and the military killed 10 civilian bystanders.

Despite the mission's failure, it was a public relations success. Batista's violent response only brought Castro and his supporters more sympathy.

"Many great things in history after started out as crazy acts," Moncada attack survivor Pedro Trigo Lopez said of the audacious raid. "If Moncada had never occurred, we today would have been suffering from the same economic circumstances as our Latin American brothers," said the 75-yearold Trigo, one of 31 living survivors.