BY DAVID OVALLE

  Juan Durque: killed Feb. 5, 1959, in Matanzas. Eliecer Delgado: killed Jan. 15, 1962, in Las Villas. Miguel Almeida Valle: killed January 1985.

  The names of the dead stretched across decades, and on Friday stretched across a sea of white foam crosses and pinpricks of candlelight in a symbolic graveyard erected at   Tamiami Park in West Miami-Dade County.

  Hundreds of people, most dressed in black, gathered for a memorial to honor those they say died during more than four decades of rule under Cuban President Fidel Castro.

  The event carried special meaning because it fell just days before Feb. 24, the eighth anniversary of the day Cuban fighter jets shot down two planes piloted by Miami exiles, killing four people.

  South Florida's Cuban-American U.S. Congress members -- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart -- attended Friday's solemn ceremony. So did House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

  And so did America Castillo of Miami, whose brother was killed by a firing squad in Cuba in 1960. On Friday, she wore a black blazer as she walked away from the cross bearing her brother's name.

  She keeps a black-and-white photo of her brother next to her bed, a glass of water always at its side. When Castillo travels, she takes the photo with her.

  ''This memorial is important because people have to remember what happened to us,'' said Castillo, who fled the island in 1969.