Cuba: Cubans remember Reagan

HAVANA, June 10 (Reinaldo Cosano Alén / www.cubanet.org) - Representatives of 16 dissident organizations attended a requiem for Ronald Reagan in Havana June 9.

Monsignor Ricardo Santana, the highest-ranking prelate of the Orthodox Church in Cuba, officiated at the Mass.

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Hialeah Lourdes Exposito remembers how in Cuba there was never enough medicine to treat her asthma when she was a child and how her grandmother, who took care of her, would forego her government-controlled ration of meat so Exposito would have enough to eat.

"They would give you things through the libreta [ration book] but the food would not last the whole month," she said.

Those memories left Exposito, 49, with a distaste for the communist system under which she was raised. They're also why she so admired Ronald Reagan, a staunch anti-communist and the nation's 40th president, who died Saturday.

"He was an awesome president," she said, echoing the sentiments of many in South Florida's Cuban-American community. "He stopped communism in Nicaragua and Granada. He was just awesome."

Reagan won the hearts of many Cubans in exile with his strong words against communism in general and Cuba's government in particular. During a much-touted 1983 visit to the Little Havana section of Miami, he famously declared "Cuba sí, Castro no," cementing those warm feelings.

Many Cuban-Americans say Reagan gave Cuban exiles a voice, opening the White House to anti-Castro activists and starting Radio Martí broadcasts to the island which, in turn, led to TV Martí.

"He did a lot of things for Cuba and he helped Cubans a lot," said Exposito, who at 14 left the island in 1968.

For many, Reagan was the first president to cast his lot with Cuban exiles. That meant a lot to those who felt persecuted at home and embarked on a new life in the United States, but still felt betrayed or ignored by each successive president.

"It was the first time they heard us in Washington," said Mario Garcia, 60, who came to the United States in 1962. "He was the example of what one expects in a leader."