Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary leader, dies at 90

Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader, died on Friday might, his younger brother Raul announced to the nation. He was 90.

Castro's body will be cremated, according to his wishes. Cuba declared nine days of mourning, during which time the ashes will be taken to different parts of the country. A burial ceremony will be held on December 4th.

A towering figure of the second half of the 20th Century, Castro stayed true to his ideology beyond the collapse of Soviet communism, and retained an aura in parts of the world that had struggled against colonial rule and exploitation.

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Fidel Castro during an interview in Havana in July 1964. Photograph: The New York Times

He ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took over in 2008.

Fidel Castro built a communist state on the doorstep of the US and for five decades defied US efforts to topple him

He had been in poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006. He formally ceded power to his younger brother two years later. Wearing a green military uniform, Cuba's president Raul Castro appeared on state television to announce his brother's death.

“At 10.29 at night, the chief commander of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, died,” he said, without giving a cause of death.

“Ever onward, to victory,” he said, using the slogan of the Cuban revolution. Tributes poured in from world leaders including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro, who said “revolutionaries of the world must follow his legacy.”

The streets were quiet in Havana, but some residents reacted with sadness to the news, while in Miami, where many exiles from the Communist government live, a large crowd waving Cuban flags cheered, danced and banged on pots and pans, a video on social media showed.

“I am very upset. Whatever you want to say, he is public figure that the whole world respected and loved,” said Havana student Sariel Valdespino.

Tributes have been paid by Latin American leaders including Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto and Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa.

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi said the news was “tragic”.

The bearded Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and ruled Cuba for 49 years with a mix of charisma and iron will, creating a one-party state and becoming a central figure in the Cold War.

Demonized

He was demonized by the United States and its allies but admired by many leftists around the world, especially socialist revolutionaries in Latin America and Africa. After Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990, he repeatedly thanked Castro for his firm efforts to weaken apartheid.

In April, in a rare public appearance at the Communist Party conference, Fidel Castro shocked party apparatchiks by referring to his own imminent mortality.

“Soon I will be like all the rest. Our turn comes to all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain,” he said. Transforming Cuba from a playground for rich Americans into a symbol of resistance to Washington, Castro outlasted nine US presidents in power. He fended off a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 as well as countless assassination attempts.

His alliance with Moscow helped trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a 13-day showdown with the United States that brought the world the closest it has been to nuclear war. Wearing green military fatigues and chomping on cigars for many of his years in power, Castro was famous for long, fist-pounding speeches filled with blistering rhetoric, often aimed at the United States.

At home, he swept away capitalism and won support for bringing schools and hospitals to the poor. But he also created legions of enemies and critics, concentrated among the exiles in Miami who fled his rule and saw him as a ruthless tyrant.

Although Raul Castro always glorified his older brother, he has changed Cuba since taking over by introducing market-style economic reforms and agreeing with the United States in December 2014 to re-establish diplomatic ties and end decades of hostility.

Six weeks later, Fidel Castro offered only lukewarm support for the deal, raising questions about whether he approved of ending hostilities with his long-time enemy. He lived to witness the visit of US president Barack Obama to Cuba earlier this year, the first trip by a US president to the island since 1928.

Castro did not meet Obama, and days later wrote a scathing column condemning the US president’s “honey-coated” words and reminding Cubans of the many US efforts to overthrow and weaken the Communist government.

“With Castro’s passing, some of the heat may go out of the antagonism between Cuba and the United States, and between Cuba and Miami, which would be good for everyone,” said William M. LeoGrande, co-author of a book on US-Cuba relations.

US-Cuba relations

However, there was uncertainty whether US president-elect Donald Trump will continue to normalize relations between the two countries, or revive tensions and fulfil a campaign promise to close the US embassy in Havana once again.

His death - which would once have thrown a question mark over Cuba’s future - seems unlikely to trigger a crisis as Raul Castro (85) is firmly ensconced in power.

In his final years, Fidel Castro no longer held leadership posts. He wrote newspaper commentaries on world affairs and occasionally met with foreign leaders but he lived in semi-seclusion. Still, the passing of the man known to most Cubans as “El Comandante” - the commander - or simply “Fidel” leaves a huge void in the country he dominated for so long. It also underlines the generational change in Cuba’s communist leadership.

Raul Castro vows to step down when his term ends in 2018 and the Communist Party has elevated younger leaders to its Politburo, including 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, who is first vice-president and the heir apparent.

Others in their 50s include foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez and economic reform czar Marino Murillo. The reforms have led to more private enterprise and the lifting of some restrictions on personal freedoms but they aim to strengthen Communist Party rule, not weaken it. “I don’t think

Fidel’s passing is the big test. The big test is handing the revolution over to the next generation and that will happen when Raul steps down,” Cuba expert Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute in Virginia said before Castro’s death.

Timeline of key dates in Fidel Castro’s life:

1926: Born in the south-eastern Oriente Province of Cuba

1953: Imprisoned after leading an unsuccessful rising against Batista's regime

1955: Released from prison under an amnesty deal

1956: With Che Guevara, begins a guerrilla war against the government

1959: Defeats Batista, sworn in as prime minister of Cuba

1961: Fights off CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles

1962: Sparks Cuban missile crisis by agreeing that USSR can deploy nuclear missiles in Cuba

1976: Elected president by Cuba's National Assembly

1992: Reaches an agreement with US over Cuban refugees

2006: Hands over reins to brother Raul due to health issues, stands down as president two years later

Agencies