HAVANA A garden dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales opened here Saturday in one of the capital's oldest and most beautiful sites overlooking the ocean. The central feature of the Diana Garden is a fountain symbolizing an island surrounded by flowers and trees. Diana, killed in a Paris car crash August 31, is buried on an island in an ornamental lake at her family estate in Britain. The fountain incorporates a five-meter-high (16.5-feet-high) obelisk made by renowned Cuban sculptors Alfredo Sosabravo and Rene Palenzuela, who sought to portray the triumph of life over death, according to the city's official historian Eusebio Leal. Another sculpture by artist Juan Escamilla depicts a radiant sun that rises above the petty annoyances of death and oblivion, Leal said.

British Ambassador to Cuba Philip McClean called the garden a special sanctuary for Havana, adding its inauguration was a noble act, an offering of dignity, respect, love and friendship. Although Cubans rarely saw the magazines and newspapers covering Diana during her lifetime, her death had a big impact here, with some 1,000 people waiting in line to sign condolence books opened by the British Embassy. (AFP)