‘March Against Imperialism!’ Grenada Crowd Sings to Castro

A crowd welcomed Fidel Castro with cheers when he arrived Sunday in Grenada, the Caribbean island that is the only place where U.S. and Cuban forces battled it out directly in a bloody Cold War confrontation.

Leaving his airplane, Castro clasped his hands over his heart as an audience of more than 200 people began singing a revolutionary hymn, “Forward march, forward march against imperialism!” Some unfurled a gigantic banner reading in Spanish, “Long live the ideas of the Cuban revolution,” while others waved small Cuban and Grenadian flags.

The visit to Grenada signals Castro’s renewed acceptance among former foes in the Caribbean and their frustration with Washington’s policies.

At the airport, Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, once outspoken against Castro, called the early 1980s, when Cuba and the United States competed for influence on the island, a time of “hatred and divisiveness.”

Castro said it was time for the two countries to put the invasion behind them.

“It is a source of special satisfaction for the Cubans to observe the Grenadian people’s willingness to leave behind that chapter of their history and to look with their eyes to the future,” he said. “We are, and will forever be, brothers.”