Aging veterans of the revolution sporting their medals mingled with thousands of schoolchildren for the ceremony at Ciudad Libertad, or Liberty City, an educational center created out of the military headquarters of ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista.
From the old military reviewing stand where Castro made his first major speech in Havana as Cuba's new leader on Jan. 8, 1959, Otto Rivero, president of the Union of Young Communists, spoke of the lasting power of Castro's movement.
He said the goals of the revolution that triumphed in 1959 had been ``shared with three generations of Cubans'' and said they would continue even after those present have died.
An a capella group sang ``Guantanamera'' and doves wheeled in the sunny sky -- a reminder of the bird that famously landed on Castro's shoulder during that 1959 speech.
Cuba's 40th anniversary celebrations have been relatively muted, and Castro did not appear Friday. But Rivero echoed the Cuban leader's recent warnings against crime and decadence that officials link to free-market reforms and tourism.
``We cannot turn our backs to the manifestations of individualism and privileges that appear in certain youths, to delinquency and economic crimes against state property, to prostitution and its effects, to the consumption of drugs, to the proliferation of children begging from tourists, to the use of foreign symbols,'' Rivero said.
The event capped an eight-day youth caravan across Cuba recreating Castro's advance from the eastern city of Santiago. The caravan stops featured schoolboys in little military uniforms, black yarn beards pasted to their chins, reciting Castro's speeches.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press