Cuban troops and hundreds of thousands of citizens have paraded through Revolution Square in the capital in a traditional show of strength.



Schoolchildren wearing red and white pioneer uniforms kicked off the event in Havana by surrounding a replica of the Granma yacht, which carried the Castro brothers, Ernesto “Che” Guevara and others from Mexico to Cuba to start the revolution in 1959.

Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, waves at well-wishers. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters

Soldiers carrying automatic rifles were followed by a sea of flag-waving civilians, many of whom were bussed in by their employers.

The head of the University Students Federation, Jennifer Bello Martinez, opened the march with a fiery speech, as President Raúl Castro and other leaders watched and waved from the base of a monument to the independence hero José Martí.

Cubans take part in the parade. Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

“Cuba will not abandon a single one of its principles … not its independence and not its sovereignty,” she told the crowd.

The military parade and march takes place every five years on 2 December to mark armed forces day and commemorate the Granma landing, however it was postponed by a month due to the death of the Cuban leader Fidel Castro in November.

The event, announced last April, has taken on added significance since the US election.

Students surround a replica of the Granma yacht, which was used to transport revolutionary fighters from Mexico to Cuba. Photograph: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

The president-elect, Donald Trump, who will take office on 20 January, has threatened to abandon efforts by the Obama administration to restore trade and diplomatic ties with Cuba if the country does not offer the US a “better deal”.

“We are braced for conflict with the USA, we always have been, but I hope Trump will instead follow the path of Obama towards normalisation,” said 70-year-old Marcial Garcia, who does logistical work for the army, as he watched the parade.

A nurse carries a photo of Fidel Castro to the parade. Photograph: Ramon Espinosa/AP

The threat to US-Cuba relations could not come at a worse time for the Caribbean country, which slipped into recession last year for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago.

A tourism boom that brought 4 million visitors in 2016, in part sparked by political thaw and a relaxing of US travel restrictions, was not enough to overcome dwindling oil shipments from its ally Venezuela and less cash for Cuban doctors and other professionals working overseas.