By DPA
Miami : The euphoria seen in Miami after Cuban leader Fidel Castro's first-ever transfer of power to his brother Raul has turned into outright disappointment one year after the handover.
On July 31, 2006, Miami was boiling with activity: Fidel had "temporarily" given up power to undergo surgery for intestinal bleeding.
Exiles in Little Havana, Hialeah and other parts of Southern Florida, carried Cuban flags, honked their car horns and shouted anti-Castro slogans, along with symbolic expressions like "Viva Cuba" and "Libertad" (freedom).
Others celebrated by the restaurant Versalles and its surroundings – a meeting point favoured by Cuban exiles – until late into the night and over the following days as the news spread like wildfire.
The jubilant mood has since changed.
"There has been a sort of let down, because people always expected that when (Fidel) Castro was no longer directly in power his absence would provoke more solid symptoms of some change in the country," said Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Democracy Movement.
The transfer of power in Havana led many in Miami to cheer, thinking it was a historic moment that would pave the way for the inevitable transformation of Cuba. But Sanchez believes Raul Castro has done little to open up the country.
"(Fidel) Castro is no longer directly giving orders … But the same crude policy continues, of repression against the civic opposition in the country," Sanchez said. "In fact, dissidents have been jailed, repudiation acts continue, so the iron policy against the peaceful opposition has not died down."
Twelve months have gone by since Fidel Castro underwent surgery, yet on both sides of the Florida Strait life goes on as normal. The 80-year-old Cuban president has made no public appearances and speaks only through the occasional video and articles in the state-controlled media.
But anti-Castro activists are not ready to give up hope just yet.
"We still think that this process is irreversible for this regime by now. I mean, the deterioration is going to continue. Those of (Fidel's) generation, who have done so much harm to Cuba, are going to disappear gradually," said Sanchez.
Sanchez has fought for the rights of Cuban exiles in the US and went on hunger strike several times in protest of the return of Cubans found at sea.
"Over 50 years the Cuban government has not managed to rejuvenate the revolutionary project it championed and never accomplished, because in Cuba there is really only a dictatorship that keeps the people in huge scarcity," Sanchez said.
"And although there have not been changes in Cuba, for us it is the beginning of the end of that tyranny which will force Raul to carry out reforms when Fidel Castro is not on the Cuban scene, due to internal and external pressures," he added.
The civil rights activist said that if the Cuban government does not introduce reforms that help the Cuban people, "conditions can worsen in such a way that they lead to a social explosion with incalculable consequences."
As Miami's Cuban exile community looks toward Cuba with one eye, they watch the United States with the other. There too, exiles see a danger in the fact that more and more people are speaking against the decades-long embargo the US has kept in place against Cuba.
While the embargo still stands, voices have risen over the past year against sanctions and in favour of opening up trade with Cuba. Another attempt to soften the embargo was defeated Friday in the US Congress.
Tomas Robaina, of the Domino Network association, said he recently travelled to Washington to "inform" members of Congress of those fears.
"We have to remind (the US) more than ever of the atrocities that are committed in Cuba. We feel that outside Miami there is not as much understanding," Robaina said.