Cuba - Citizens celebrate May Day, await details of change

HAVANA (AP):

Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Havana and other cities yesterday to mark May Day in a demonstration touted as a vast show of support for economic changes recently approved by the Communist Party, even though the people holding placards and shouting slogans haven't seen the details yet.

Nearly two weeks after the party endorsed President Raúl Castro's bet to fix the island's broken economy through limited free-market reforms, the government has not released specifics of the 311-point guidelines, or said when it will do so.

The parade, always a big event on the communist-run island, has nevertheless been touted by the official party newspaper, Granma, as "the best chance for Cuban workers to ratify their backing for the accords."

Castro led a march in eastern Santiago de Cuba, the island's second-largest city, while the Havana parade was led by José Ramón Machado Ventura, the 80-year-old recently named second secretary of the party, the country's second most powerful position.

Salvador Valdés Mesa, the head of Cuba's only government-approved labour union, was the only dignitary to address the crowd.

"We are doing this (marching) because we support the agreements made at the Party Congress," Valdés Mesa said in his speech, as workers held up signs with photos of Raul and Fidel Castro and slogans like 'Socialism is and will be our hope'. Many wore the colours of Cuba's red, white and blue flag.

Still, many in Havana said they were impatient to see the actual details of the changes.

"I would like to know what the guidelines have that's new, because so far it seems to be a lot of noise and nothing concrete," said Manuel Pedrosi, 56, who was just a small boy when Fidel and Raul Castro's revolution succeeded in 1959. "But if we've waited 50 years, we can wait a little longer."