Cuba's Fidel Castro steps down after half a century

In Miami, the heartland of exiled opposition to the Castro brothers, reaction was subdued.

"It's very good that Fidel resigns. But if Fidel dies, it's better," said Juan Acosta, a Cuban who left the Caribbean island in 1980, as he stopped to buy a newspaper on Calle Ocho, the main street in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

The Democratic hopefuls vying to represent their party in the November U.S. election, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, suggested they might lift the trade embargo if Cuba pursued democratic reforms. Republican front-runner John McCain said the United States must keep up the pressure.

European governments said Castro's retirement could open the door to democratic change.

"Fidel Castro's resignation is the end of an era that started with freedom and ended with oppression," said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt.

CHARISMATIC GUERRILLA

The charismatic Castro led the bearded and cigar-chomping guerrillas who swept down from the mountains of eastern Cuba to overthrow U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

He then turned Cuba into a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and became the world's longest-serving head of state, barring monarchs.

Castro survived a CIA-backed invasion of Cuban exiles at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, as well as assassination attempts, the continuing U.S. trade embargo, and an economic crisis in the 1990s after the collapse of Soviet bloc communism.

He played a role in taking the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962 when he let Moscow put ballistic missiles in Cuba, leading to a 13-day stand-off between U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Famous for long speeches delivered in green military fatigues, Castro is admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States but considered by his opponents a dictator who suppressed freedom and wrecked Cuba's economy.

Castro was close to death in 2006 and has looked gaunt and frail in the few videotapes of him broadcast since his surgery, but Cuba's leadership has showed no sign of collapse.

"Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process," Castro said in Tuesday's statement. He will continue to write his newspaper columns.

"This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas ... It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard."

Frank Mora, a political scientist at the National War College in Washington, said Castro's successors will likely be forced to head down paths he would not approve.

"He will not go into some sunset nor will he become that crazy uncle in the attic, but they are pushing him up those stairs," Mora said.

(Additional reporting by Rosa Tania Valdes in Havana, Deborah Charles in Rwanda, and Michael Christie in Miami; Editing by Kieran Murray and Patricia Zengerle)