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- Send Your Wishes To The New Administration
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- Two Women Thrown From Boat When It Hits I-75 Bridge
- Judge Imposes Stay On Lethal Injections
- Poll: More Coastal Residents Would Not Evacuate For Hurricane
- Robbers In Ninja Garb Strike Hampton Inn
- Deputy Is Accused Of Domestic Battery
- 2 Men Burst Into Home, Steal More Than $7,000
- Temple Terrace Man Wounded In Shooting
- Polk Deputies Charge 17 Men After Weekend Cockfight
- Baby Dropped Off At Fire Station
- Jury Awards $21.1 Million In Wrongful Birth Case
- Deputies Investigate Bank Robbery
- Grandpa Robbed; Grandson Charged
- Composite Sketch Of Armed Carjacker Released
Barbara Abreu pulls out of her parking spot after shopping in West Tampa today. JAY NOLAN/Tribune
By CHRIS ECHEGARAY
The Tampa Tribune
TAMPA - At the Florida Bakery, near the corner of Himes and Columbus in Tampa, Cuban president Fidel Castro’s surgery is the only topic of conversation. In between sips of Cuban coffee, customers drape a huge Cuban flag over a van. Everyone agrees, never has an impending death been such cause for celebration.
“I’ll see you in Cuba, if it falls,†says Barbara Abreu, the van’s owner. “God willing, he’ll die. Fortunately, and unfortunately, a lot of us left the island because of him.â€
Castro’s communist regime took over the island in 1959, and many Cubans lost vast amounts of wealth to the government. Older Cubans who remember that, and those oppressed under the new regime who escaped, make assessing Castro’s health a favorite pastime.
Tampa is home to generations of Cubans pre-dating Castro. Now there’s talk of revolution again, one that would overthrow the communist regime now that its figurehead is ailing.
“Many of the people in his regime have had a taste of a capitalist, free society,†says Carlos Rojas, a former high school history teacher in Cuba. “This is going to pose problems†for Raul Castro, Fidel’s brother, who temporarily has power pending the surgery’s outcome.
I’m so happy for my cuban friends that maybe this way they can now see justice
for all the bad they have seen and lived under castro’s power i don’t wish bad to any one but castro has done bad this to his own people and now he will have to answer to god…..
WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!! 
I DONT WISH DEATH ON NO ONE BUT THIS DOG “FIDEL CASTRO” HAS PUT CUBA THROUGH HELL!!!
CUBA ONE DAY WILL BE FREE AT LAST!! CANT WAIT FOR THE THAT DAY 2 COME…
The way I see it…if the old adage is true, “If only the good die young,” then Fidel Castro will make it on the front cover of a Smucker’s Jar as a centurian. He’s too mean to die. He can’t possibly be human.
The fact he has been torturing those poor, desperate and defenseless people for forty-seven years and has gotten away with it defies all logic, reason and human comprehension.
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Posted by Brigitte B. Jaeger, Riverview, FL on 08/01 at 05:20 PM
I have been watching Channel 8 for years now and the reporting has always been fair and square. there is one thing, however, that upsets me.
I am a US citizen, however, I was born and raised in Germany and I would never ever call myself a ‘German-American’ only an ‘American of German descend’. At my swearing-in ceremony the INS offical conducting the ceremony said ‘You are AMERICANS now’.
I strongly object to your referring to former Cuban nationals as ‘Cuban Americans’ - you can only be one or the other. And yes, I hope Cuba soon gets the freedom its people deserve!