MEDELLIN, Colombia _ Fidel Castro's death resonated across Latin America, where Cuba has played an oversize role in recent years, brokering peace, forging political alliances and influencing ideology.
Cuba hosted more than four years of peace negotiations between Colombia and its largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
On Thursday, President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC Commander Rodrigo "Timochenko" Londono signed a revised peace agreement with Cuba and Norway as guarantors.
That signing also marked an end of an era: The FARC drew inspiration from the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the group was seen as perhaps the hemisphere's last viable guerrilla army.
"Fidel Castro recognized at the end of his days that armed struggle wasn't the path," Santos wrote on Twitter. "He contributed to putting an end to Colombia's conflict."
The FARC's chief negotiator, Ivan Marquez, also thanked Castro for his "immense love for Colombia."
"May the Havana peace accords be a final homage," he posted on Twitter.
In Venezuela, Cuba's staunchest ally in the hemisphere, President Nicolas Maduro, said he spoke to Raul Castro early Saturday to offer his condolences. The two nations have been close since Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, forged deep personal and ideological ties with Fidel Castro.
"The invincible giant has gone on to meet with Che Guevara ... and the Eternal Commander Hugo Chavez," Maduro wrote on Twitter.
In Bolivia, where Ernesto "Che" Guevara died in 1967 trying to export the Cuban revolution, President Evo Morales said Fidel had taught the region to fight for national "sovereignty and dignity."
Ecuador's Rafael Correa also took to Twitter to honor the late Cuban leader. "A great one has left us. Fidel has died," he wrote. "Long live Cuba! Long live Latin America."
At the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which both Cuban presidents _ Fidel Castro and Raul Castro _ have insisted should be returned to Cuban sovereignty, a spokesman said U.S. flags were still flying at half staff for the late Richard Nixon-era Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, who died this month in Florida.
The U.S. Southern Command, which supervises troops in Latin America and the Caribbean, had no comment Saturday morning on Fidel Castro's death.
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(Miami Herald staff writer Carol Rosenberg contributed to this report.)
