Anti-Castro activists carry a sculpture of Cuban leader Fidel Castro during a ceremony in Little Havana, Miami, November 8, 2006. Cuban exiles tossed a giant sculpture of Castro's head into a garbage truck in a mock burial of the ailing Cuban leader in Miami's Little Havana district.. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Tom Brown

MIAMI (Reuters) - In a typically south Florida end to a dispute between a Connecticut sculptor and Miami's often-tempestuous Cuban exiles, a giant head of ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro was relegated on Wednesday to "the dustbin of history."

The clay sculpture of Castro that artist Daniel Edwards originally intended to display in New York's Central Park was dumped in a garbage truck in a mock send-off of the Cuban leader in "Little Havana," the heartland of anti-Castro sentiment.

"Fidel Castro is where he belongs," exile and activist Ninoska Perez told about 200 people gathered for the ceremonial trashing of the sculpture, an event promoted on a popular local Spanish-language radio station.

"He's gone from the street to the dustbin of history," Perez said.

"Only in Miami, right?" Perez later added in remarks to Reuters as pulsating music from a salsa band kicked off a raucous celebration of what many exiles see as the near end of Castro's communist government.

Castro, 80, has only been seen in photographs and videos since temporarily handing power to his brother Raul after having intestinal surgery on July 31. A recent video of the veteran revolutionary, looking unsteady and frail, has many exiles talking hopefully about his death.

The oversized grey-green sculpture of Castro's head -- peering out from behind prison-like bars -- was dumped in the truck by mock pallbearers.

"There will be people who will hail him as a revolutionary and a social vindicator (when he dies)," said Ramon Saul Sanchez of an anti-Castro group called "Democracy Movement."

"But the people who really seek the truth ... and really care about the facts will dump him in the trash can of history for sure," he said. "He murdered too many people."

The ceremony ended a dispute that began last month when community leaders learned Edwards planned to unveil the head of Castro in Central Park.

The plan was announced in an Oct. 24 news release that said the sculpture was dedicated "to the man some revere as a champion of human rights" -- angering anti-Castro activists and Miami Cubans who suffered under his rule.

Edwards, who also created a life-size nude of Britney Spears giving birth on a bearskin rug, distanced himself from the statement on Wednesday as he prepared to witness what he called the "deconstruction" of the head.

"My feelings were not that he was a civil rights leader. I was raised to know that he was the opposite of that," he said.