FIDEL Castro, who led the country of Cuba for nearly half a century, died Friday at the age of 90. With a shaking voice, his younger brother, Raul Castro, announced on state television that his brother died at 10:29 p.m. on Friday night.
Castro’s death comes just months after the Communist revolutionary predicted he would die soon. He made his last official appearance before the country’s Communist Party in April, asking party members to help his ideas survive after he died. ‘The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need,’ he told them.
Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party’s highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command. It was a resounding message that communism would retain its hold on Cuba, even as its leaders began to die and age and relations with the US continued to thaw. Castro handed power to his brother Raul after he required emergency surgery for intestinal bleeding.
His death comes the same year Cuba and the United States announced they would restore diplomatic and economic ties. Castro survived a number of US-backed assassination plots, as well as numerous media reports throughout the years that claimed he was dead or nearly there. But Castro, who four years ago bragged he didn’t ‘even remember what a headache is’, remained active even in his final months.
This summer he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and in August celebrated his 90th birthday. The leader of the 1959 revolution thanked fellow Cubans for their well wishes and lambasted his old foe the United States in a column carried by state-run media. Cuba went into overdrive to honor the retired ‘El Comandante,’ who built a Communist-run state on the doorstep of the United States.
Even in his old age, Castro remained as critical as ever of President Obama and frequently spoke out against him in his published opinion pieces. Castro blasted Obama’s visit to Hiroshima in May, saying the president ‘lacked the words to ask for forgiveness for the killings of hundreds of thousands of people’. In his last opinion piece, in March, the “Historic Leader” accused Obama of sweet-talking the Cuban people during his visit to the island – the first by a US leader in 88 years – and of ignoring the accomplishments of Communist rule.
Many Cubans feel Fidel is no longer in step with the times. Raul’s most broadly feted accomplishment since taking power has been implementing a detente with the United States after a half century of confrontation. Considered more pragmatic, the younger Castro also introduced market-style reforms to the state-dominated economy and increased personal freedoms, such as the right to travel abroad.
Fidel has lent these policies only lukewarm support in public. But many Cubans still revere Fidel for freeing Cuba from US domination and introducing universal, free healthcare and education.
Courtesy : Dailymail.co.uk
The revolution must never end. I pray to the people of Cuba that they turn to the corporate whore USA with their eyes well open and that they resist selling their state owned assets with all their gorgeous might!