Former Cuban Leader Fidel Castro Dies at 90.
GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): 4:00 am on the U.S. East Coast. Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. We are following the breaking news this hour, the death of Fidel Castro at 90 years old. I'm George Howell.</s>CYRIL VANIER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): And I'm Cyril Vanier. The former president and revolutionary leader was 90 when he passed away. For years, he had been out of the public eye. His brother, current president Raul Castro, made the announcement on Cuban television. Here it is.</s>RAUL CASTRO, PRESIDENT OF CUBA (through translator): Dear people of Cuba, with profound pain I have to sadly inform you, to our friends from America and to the world, that, today, November 25th, 2016, at 10:29 in the evening, the commander and leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, died. Following the explicit desires of leader Fidel, his remains will be cremated in the early hours of tomorrow, Saturday, 26th of November. The Organizing Commission of the Funerals will give our people detailed in fn about the organization of the posthumous tribute that we will give you to the founder of the Cuban revolution. Until victory, always.</s>VANIER: Let's go straight to Patrick Oppmann, our CNN correspondent in Cuba now. He is in the capital, Havana. Patrick, you've been covering this with us. You've been with us for four hours now throughout the night. What is the latest that you are hearing from the people who continue to just find out about this news?</s>PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An eerie silence; we sent one of our camera men and as you would expect, as he went about interviewing, there are a lot of people who said he was our commander, he was our hero. But as we talked about in previous hours, people really often don't talk about their true feelings. I remember coming here in the '90s and people wouldn't even say the name Fidel Castro in the street. They would go like this, and stroking their beard. And so there is perhaps a little bit more freedom to talk about it now that he has -- he has died. On the other side, though, government officials that I have talked to tonight were breaking down and crying. Very emotional. And I know the one time I ever saw Fidel Castro in person, if you loved him or hated him, as so many people did as well, when he would walk in the room, everyone took notice. He had that kind of presence that even few world leaders have. So even though he has been out of public eye now for some 10 years he was still casting a large shadow over this island. I think many people though still have yet to learn about Fidel Castro's death. Only now in the last hour or so, state media has released or picked up the reporting on his death. We have frankly done a lot more on CNN than they have done on Cuban television. And I think when the sun comes up and people turn on the radio and get their copy of the Communist Party daily, "Granma," they will remember for a long time where and when they were when they learned of Fidel Castro's death. It's a moment many people have been waiting for, many have been fearing and now it has occurred.</s>HOWELL: It is important to point out the context just to our viewers around the world who are watching this hour. Patrick Oppmann is the only U.S. correspondent live and based in Cuba who is live with us this hour. So very important to point out that he has a great deal of background and experience covering this. Patrick, I know that your team there on the ground has been gathering facts, talking to people. But what can you tell us about what happens next with this former leader? I do understand that he is to be cremated?</s>OPPMANN: Yes. So those were his express wishes, according to his brother, Cuba's current president, Raul Castro. And that planning will begin for what we can only expect will be a massive state funeral, where he will be ultimately buried or there will be a memorial in his honor. No one knows the number of sites where that could occur. But this will be a process that lasts for a while. I remember when Hugo Chavez died after being treated in Cuba. Of course he was a close ally of Cuba. It was such a blow to the government here. They ordered that there be no music. Even in my daughter's kindergarten class they were told they could not sing that day. I think the official mourning will go for quite a bit longer here. And whether it's real or not, but it will certainly be mandated by the state that hundreds of thousands of people will need to turn out and show their grief and some people will feel very real grief after all these years. I was talking with one woman who I knew, is not an admirer of Fidel Castro, and she began to cry when I told her the news --</s>OPPMANN: -- and it really struck me the weight of history of the end of an era, an era that changed Cuba and Cubans forever.</s>VANIER: Patrick Oppmann, CNN correspondent in the Cuban capital, Havana, thank you very much. We'll of course continue to cross back to you throughout the night. And we'll be particularly interested to know what kind of reactions Patrick gets as Cubans wake up. Some of them will only be getting the information a few hours from now. All right. Let me turn now to CNN correspondent, Rafael Romo. Rafael, the question I've been wondering as I was listening to Patrick and some of our earlier guests, is how long can the Cuban -- the current Cuban political system outlive -- how long can Castrismo outlive or survive after the death of Fidel Castro?</s>RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR: It's a very interesting question. And to answer that question, let me read to you a reaction that we just got from none other than Arturo Sandoval -- those who know he is one of the greatest musicians of all time, a Cuban and very proudly living in the exile. And he said, "The dictator of Cuba has died finally," all capital letters. "I've been waiting for this day for so many years in my life and, unfortunately, after 58 years of a horrible dictatorship, the damage that he did to our country, it's impossible to fix, at least in a few generations to come." And listen to this, "I think that he'll not even be admitted in hell." It gives you a pretty good idea about how the Cuban exile --</s>VANIER: -- resentment from --</s>ROMO: -- in Miami and elsewhere. But he raises a very good point. It is true. It is probably going to take a few generations for people to see real change in Cuba. And why is that? Because, starting in 2006, when Fidel first gave the power to his brother, when he -- after falling ill, this succession plan started. By this, I mean they started grooming and raising a new political generation of young Cuban leaders, who are essentially the mirror version of themselves, just about 20 to 30 years younger. And so it was very telling for me to see the last congress, when you essentially heard the very same political messages come from the congress, no dissension whatsoever. The same political discourse as we had heard for the last 60 years. Cuba has had to deal with reality, though, and we've been talking about how, after the USSR fell in 1991 and they stopped sending those $4 billion that they used to send to Cuba every year, they had to live on their own for about 10 years. And then Venezuela happened and then China happened and somehow they managed to live for an additional 20 years. But the reality is that the situation in Cuba is very, very bad. And one thing that I need to mention is that one of the greatest migration crises in the world right now has to do with Cuba. If you look at the numbers of Cuba -- of Cubans in Central America in the last couple of years, most of them are trying to get to the United States, fleeing from hunger, fleeing from political repression in Cuba. So it's very indicative of the reality that Cuba is living right now.</s>HOWELL: Rafael, if you would stand by and just -- we want to take a look at what's happening in Miami, if we have the images, just to talk about the reaction that we're seeing at this hour, 4:00 am, 4:08 in the morning on the U.S. East Coast, look at that. I mean, that is the situation right now just outside Versailles restaurant there in Little Havana. And you do get a sense. People are celebrating. People are dancing in the streets. It was raining just a bit earlier; not sure if it's still raining there but -- not but this is the sense, the reaction, now knowing that Fidel Castro has died. Many people have been waiting to hear this news.</s>ROMO: And you know what, a lot of people are doing this to honor their parents because I see a lot of young people there. My assumption is that a lot of them are Cuban Americans, who were born in the United States, but who probably had their parents flee at some point in the '60s or the '70s or the '80s because of one of the many reasons that we have described before. So they're probably doing this more for their parents, but themselves. But this is a very diverse group. We see all kinds of ages. And we're listening to people banging pots and pans. But then in the background, you would hear, "libertad, libertad," "freedom, freedom," which is something that they would like to hear people freely chant in Cuba. And that hasn't happened in the last 60 years.</s>VANIER: Rafael, I just want your take on this picture because the more I look at it and I do understand it's 4:00 in the morning East Coast time now but the more I look at it, this does not strike me as a huge group of people mobilizing. And I have covered similar situations before. This looks to me like there's a lot of media but also a hardcore group of political activists; possibly that you see cameras around them. I'm not seeing this as a massive wave of Cuban Americans taking to the streets right now.</s>ROMO: Yes, we probably need to wait until the sun comes up. And the other thing I will say is a lot of people -- let's remind our viewers that the death occurred at 10:26 pm Eastern. A lot of people didn't even hear about this before going to sleep. So I don't know. I cannot tell you anything about the number. But the reality is that, in Cuba, as Patrick was telling us, and in Miami, a lot of people don't even know that Fidel Castro has died yet.</s>HOWELL: It is interesting also, just noting that that camera shot is -- seems to be in focus on one particular group. I remember seeing just earlier it was wider.</s>VANIER: Yes, we did see more people earlier.</s>HOWELL: Yes, it seemed like it was a wider group of people. Maybe some have left and maybe some have come in. But again, this is the scene this hour, 4:11 on the streets of Miami, Florida. Let's now bring in Jose Rodriguez, who is in Miami, a senior correspondent for our sister network, CNN Espanol. And I believe that you are on the streets, on the ground there. What do you see? What do you hear?</s>JOSE RODRIGUEZ, CNN ESPANOL CORRESPONDENT: How are you, George? Good morning. What we see here in Little Havana is people marching, people hitting pots, people just went as soon as they knew that news of the death of Fidel Castro, you know, with flags. People is singing. People is dancing. People have been here, you know, coming all over the night, you know, just to express joy and celebration. You are able to see that people, you know, is absolutely happy here about the news. You see people from different generations that are coming here. People from Cuba came here in 1959 and you see people from different generations. Let's start with some of the people that came tonight. How do you feel about the death of Fidel Castro?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, this is a celebration but in a way not a celebration of death. It's celebration of the beginning of liberty, that we're all waiting for for many years. Many years we have been waiting for this type of situation. And the hope is that not just because Fidel died but also hopefully opens up to people in Cuba to open up a little bit more and going against whatever it is going on over there.</s>RODRIGUEZ: You were born in Cuba?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Your parents are alive?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of my parents are alive. And certainly they suffered total, as many families from Cuba, suffer the separation of families. It was a very hard thing to --</s>RODRIGUEZ: I imagine that they never came back to Cuba.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, they never have returned. They never have returned to Cuba. But hopefully someday. It's getting us closer and closer. Hopefully we do that some --</s>RODRIGUEZ: And do you think that after the death of Fidel Castro, there is some hope of political changes in Cuba?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hopefully. Not just so much as the death but, yes, hopefully, this is the beginning. That's why everybody is out here trying to celebrate that many years' suffering that we have been through and hopefully that will be a start. That will be a start.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Thank you very much, sir, for</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Yes. So how are you living?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that this is a great moment, not to celebrate the death of somebody but to celebrate freedom. There are many -- still many political prisoners in Cuba, many who live here in the United States and throughout the world. And to have somebody that perpetrated so many human rights abuses and enslaved a country, we still hope -- and hopefully this is -- Castro's death foreshadows political freedoms on the island.</s>RODRIGUEZ: So do you have any hope to one day go to Cuba with your parents, maybe with your grandparents, to enjoy the freedom in Cuba, if it's possible in the future (ph)?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely. I would love to go to Cuba, a free Cuba. Right now, Cuba is not free. And so the hope is -- and I think the real celebrations here show -- that everybody here hopes for a free Cuba soon and for human rights on the island to come to pass. And so that is my hope.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Thank you very much. This is the expression that we live here and we have at last another person --</s>RODRIGUEZ: -- who is celebrating with a flag. How do you feel tonight, sir?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god, there is no words. It's so emotional for my grandparents that are no longer, that they came for freedom and liberty to this country.</s>RODRIGUEZ: They never returned?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They never returned back to Cuba. They lost everything in Cuba, it was taken away by the government or businesses. Their homes that were paid for, owned by them and they worked hard, the Castro regime, they didn't just care. If you didn't want to give it to the government, they would have just -- they would execute you. The regime is still there. Raul Castro is going to keep going with the same system and the same ideas. But there is a day of celebration.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Yes, and with this separation, but there is a lot of emotion. It's a very emotional moment for many people here in this community.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, like I said, there's no words. We're happy. We're grateful, you know, that such a bad person -- you know, Fidel Castro is like -- for us, it's like a Hitler. You know, it's like a Hitler. He is a Communist. He depresses the people. You know, and there's no court system. If you don't agree with the government, they put you in jail for 30, 40 years or they execute you.</s>RODRIGUEZ: And do you expect that, after the death of Fidel Castro, some changes can occur in Cuba?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's something we hope for. It's not something we're seeing. You know, now with Trump coming into presidency, could tighten up a little bit stronger with Cuba and they got to give us human rights. Cuba has to have human rights for everybody and liberty and justice and peace for everybody. If we get that and then we can lift the embargo.</s>RODRIGUEZ: Thank you so much for this interview. George, this is the reaction that we can see. Many people celebrating here in Little Havana, the heart of the Cuban exile here in Miami. This is what you can see right now. It's 4:30 am and probably you will see people coming -- you know, new people coming, probably old people who are sleeping right now will come anytime soon to celebrate. And here at the corner of Cafe Versailles is one of the most traditional coffees in Miami that there were many people from the Cuban exiles come. You will see the celebration continues in the rest of the day. Back to you in our studios.</s>HOWELL: Jose Manuel Rodriguez is senior correspondent with our sister network, CNN Espanol. Jose, thank you so much. Stand by with us. We'll be back with you, I'm sure, through the hours to come. So again, that's what we're seeing there on the streets of Miami, Florida. That is the reaction. People are celebrating the fact that this former leader has died. A different reaction, though, from some world leaders. We're hearing from the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro. He tweeted the following, he said, quote, "I just talked with President Raul Castro to transmit the solidarity and love for Cuba before the departure of Commander Fidel Castro." So, again, that from the leader of Venezuela. You also got reaction?</s>ROMO: Yes, we're getting reaction just a few moments ago, a few minutes ago, from the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. He says, "My condolences to the government and authorities -- to the Cuban government authorities -- on the death of former president, Fidel Castro, a figure of historical significance."</s>VANIER: Rafael, stand by. We're joined now by Peter Kornbluh, he joins us from Washington. He is a CNN analyst. He has written extensively about Cuba. Peter, thanks for your time and thanks for being with us. I know it's the middle of the night. I want to ask you, people such as yourself, who have written about Cuba, you know, you've considered scenarios for what might happen after the death of Fidel Castro. He was the son around which all of Cuban politics orbited. What's your reaction?</s>PETER KORNBLUH, CNN ANALYST: Well, I think as your CNN correspondent in Havana, Patrick Oppmann, said, it's the end of an era not only for the Cuban people but on the international stage as well. Because regardless of the very deep and difficult feelings of Cuban Americans in Miami, around the world, Fidel has been seen as a rather substantive revolutionary statesman and that's because of his ability to transform a Caribbean island into a major actor on the world stage by supporting the anti-apartheid movement, becoming friends with Nelson Mandela, training doctors around the world and sending Cuban doctors around the world, the health care system in Cuba, the education system, et cetera. So it's certainly going to be a change for the world. And I think you're going to see quite a few condolences from major world leaders, including the presence of some of them at the tribute that Raul Castro said is being planned --</s>KORNBLUH: -- now for Fidel. In terms of, you know, the kind of significance, Fidel has been off the political stage in Cuba for a number of years now, almost 10 full years since he became gravely ill with diverticulitis in 2006. And the transformation of power went really smoothly in Cuba, much to the dismay of the Bush administration in 2006 and 2007. But there was a complete transformation and passage of power from one brother to another. And even though I think a lot of people will hope for that in Miami, and some in Cuba, but will hope that this opens the door to changing the system significantly, the truth of the matter is that the Cuban Communist Party is deeply entrenched in Cuba and has been since Fidel got sick and shows no sign of wavering.</s>HOWELL: Peter Kornbluh on the line for us, a CNN analyst in Washington, following this story. Peter, thank you for your insight and, of course, stay with us. We'll come back to you through the hours to come. Again, CNN following the breaking news this hour, the death of Fidel Castro. I want to show you as well this photo, this photo that was taken November 15th in Havana. This is when he met with the Vietnamese president. This image of Fidel Castro. Our breaking news coverage continues right after the break. Stay with us.</s>HOWELL (voice-over): An historic moment, the death of Fidel Castro. Castro, who basically led Cuba for half a century, he is dead at the age of 90 years old. He came into power in 1959 with a small band of revolutionaries. He overthrew an unpopular dictator and then rode tanks and Jeeps into Cuba's capital of Havana.</s>VANIER: For decades after that, he ruled Cuba with an iron fist, creating a one-party state and bringing the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere, aligning his country with the Soviet Union and denouncing the U.S. He swept away capitalism in Cuba and expanded education and health care. But he also clamped down on political and religious freedoms, banning free speech and executing or jailing thousands of political opponents. Now CNN's Matt Rivers joins us from Beijing as we try to get reaction from around the world right now. Matt, I'm going to assume that there is no -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- that there hasn't been official reaction yet from Beijing to the death of Fidel Castro. What is the reaction likely to be like? What are the thoughts likely to be like?</s>MATT RIVERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you are right. No official reaction yet from the Chinese government. Usually we get a statement or, even more frequently than that, the Chinese government will release a statement through state media here. And we expect the statement to kind of go in line with what we're seeing from other state leaders across the world and that would be offers of condolences and, frankly, the Chinese and Cuban relationship has been much stronger recently. And I will take you back to when these two countries were first started. You know, Fidel Castro and Chairman Mao Zedong, the founder of the current iteration of China, were two of the greatest larger- than-life socialist icons of the 20th century. And yet those two men really didn't get along that well. In fact, there was an interview in the late '70s that Fidel Castro actually criticized Chairman Mao, saying that while he agreed with him on an ideological standpoint, he said that he had done much harm to China. He said his ego was outsized and that he took too much power into his own hands and hurt his own people. And because of that, even though that they were two of the functioning Communist states in the world, China and Cuba did not have formal diplomatic ties until 1993. Which for those who might not follow this that closely that, that might seem surprising. But like so many other relationships that China has with other countries around the world, the economics really ended up winning out. So in 1993, both sides got more friendly with one another. Castro actually made a visit here to China in 1995. Trade between both sides really ramped up. You saw President Xi Jinping, the current leader of China, visit Fidel Castro in his home in 2014. China's second in command, Premier Li Keqiang, went to Fidel Castro just this year in fact, in late September. So both sides really warmed up their relationship. Both sides -- Fidel Castro actually won the Chinese version, called the Confucius Peace Prize. It's the Chinese version of the Nobel Peace Prize. Fidel Castro actually won that award just a few years ago. So things have gotten much better than where they were, say, 40 years ago. And right now China is actually the largest single country trading partner that Cuba has.</s>VANIER: Matt Rivers, reporting live from Beijing, thank you very much.</s>HOWELL: Matt, thank you. Let's take a look now at the reaction that we're seeing on the streets of Miami. We have seen these crowds that have been gathering for the last several hours. And this is the scene in Little Havana, Pequena Havana. It's what you would refer to it as. You see many people there that have come together to celebrate, many people who are dancing in the streets after they heard the news that Fidel Castro had died. Again, this is --</s>VANIER: We just heard the depth of their feelings over the last few hours.</s>HOWELL: We really have. We have a correspondent there on the ground, who is speaking to people. One person compared Castro to Hitler in that interview. There is a very sharp and strong reaction there on the streets of Miami. And just for context, this is just outside the Versailles restaurant. It's a very important restaurant; many people come together there, Cuban Americans, to talk about politics and at this hour coming together to mark a moment in history, the death of Fidel Castro. CNN will continue following the breaking just after the break. Stay with us.