Roj Bash Kurdistan

Fidel Castro, Cuba's leader of revolution, dies at 90

Cuba's former president Fidel Castro, one of the world's longest-serving and most iconic leaders, has died aged 90.

His younger brother and successor as president Raul Castro announced the news on state television.

Castro toppled the government in 1959, introducing a Communist revolution.

He defied the US for decades, surviving many assassination plots.

His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. Critics saw him as a dictator.

Ashen and grave, President Castro told the nation in an unexpected late night broadcast on state television that Fidel Castro had died and would be cremated later on Saturday.

"The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (03:29 GMT Saturday)," he said. "Towards victory, always!" he added, using a revolutionary slogan.

There is to be several days of national mourning on the island.

Barring the occasional newspaper column, Fidel Castro had essentially been retired from political life for several years.

In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country's Communist Party congress.

"I'll soon be 90," the former president said, adding that this was "something I'd never imagined".

"Soon I'll be like all the others, "to all our turn must come," Fidel Castro said.

Castro was the longest serving non-royal leader of the 20th Century.

He temporarily handed over power to his brother in 2006 as he was recovering from an acute intestinal ailment. Raul Castro officially became president two years later.

News of his death left some in Havana stunned.

"I always said it couldn't be," said one woman, a government employee. "Even though they said it now, I say it can't be."

How he defied the US

Throughout the Cold War, Fidel Castro was a thorn in Washington's side.

An accomplished tactician on the battlefield, he and his small army of guerrillas overthrew the military leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959 to widespread popular support.

Within two years of taking power, he declared the revolution to be Marxist-Leninist in nature and allied the island nation firmly to the Soviet Union.



Yet, despite the constant threat of a US invasion as well as the long-standing economic embargo on the island, Castro managed to maintain a communist revolution in a nation just 90 miles (145km) off the coast of Florida.

Despised by his critics as much as he was revered by his followers, he outlasted 10 US presidents and survived scores of attempts on his life by the CIA

How has the world reacted?

Latin American leaders have been quick to pay tribute.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Castro was a "great friend" of Mexico, while to El Salvador's President Salvador Sanchez Ceren he was an "eternal companion".

Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said "revolutionaries of the world must follow his legacy".

The Soviet Union's last leader Mikhail Gorbachev said: "Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American blockade, when there was colossal pressure on him".

Vladimir Putin described him as a "reliable and sincere friend" of Russia.

For French President Francois Hollande Castro embodied Cuba's revolution in both its "hopes" and its later "disappointments".

In Miami, where there is a large Cuban community, there have been celebrations in some parts of the city, with people banging pots and cheering.

A Cuban exile group, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, said Castro left "legacy of intolerance" and had set up a "vicious totalitarian regime".

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R I P Fidel Castro

I, and many of my friends, supported Castro - not because he was a communist but because he stood up against the bullying of America

The more America tried to assassinate Castro - the more people who were otherwise totally uninterested in politics - supported him

We all had Che Guevara t-shirts and posters - he was far better looking than Castro

Both were bloody killers and Castro was a dictator. And a supporter of Saddam also.

I read the memoir of Chi Guevara shortly after he was assassinated in Bolivia. One can say, by the standard of Caribbean and central American states, Cuba has rather done better. The reason Castro adopted communism was because America refused to loan money to Cuba after Castro took over. Castro went to America and met American President for help. But America refused to help Cuba. After that Castro straight went to Moscow for help. American economic blockade didn't help Cuba but helped Castro.

I often wonder who Ocalan and the PKK continue to push Communism and support loony left wing groups

Or perhaps it is just post-communist loony leftist groups which still support PKK. Most of media and common supporters praise their bla bla about democracy and feminism, took pics of fair YPJ's faces, but never look seriously their program… nor the complain of Kurds living in Rojava under their rule.

It is the same for Cuba : people wearing Che's t-shirt or mourning Castro had never lived under a Communist regime.

Piling wrote:Or perhaps it is just post-communist loony leftist groups which still support PKK. Most of media and common supporters praise their bla bla about democracy and feminism, took pics of fair YPJ's faces, but never look seriously their program… nor the complain of Kurds living in Rojava under their rule.

Glad you mentioned that because we know that the many Kurds in Syria are afraid of the PKK bullies

We also know that many young Kurdish females have joined the PKK - in it's many forms - to escape from the pressure of unwelcome marriages

Piling wrote:It is the same for Cuba : people wearing Che's t-shirt or mourning Castro had never lived under a Communist regime.

We were NOT supporting Castro - we were against American bullying

I don't defend American foreign policy but every years there are more people trying to escape from Cuba paradise to USA hell than the contrary.

Piling wrote:I don't defend American foreign policy but every years there are more people trying to escape from Cuba paradise to USA hell than the contrary.

Most of them are escaping the trade embargoes that have left Cuba short of many supplies for years - not the actual Cuban regime

Fidel Castro: Dodging exploding seashells, poison pens and ex-lovers

The exploding cigar plot to assassinate Fidel Castro is well known - but what about the other reported 637 plots against his life?

The outlandish projects included exploding seashells, a poisoned diving suit and poison pills hidden in face cream, according to a former bodyguard who wrote a book on the subject and a TV documentary.

The CIA and US-based Cuban exiles spent nearly half a century conspiring to do away with a leader whose country had the same effect on the US as "the full moon has on werewolves", according to former US Havana diplomat Wayne Smith.

The Cuban leader himself once remarked: "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."

Documents released during the administration of President Bill Clinton showed that the CIA at one point began researching Caribbean molluscs.

The plan was to pack a particularly spectacular one full of explosives to attract Castro, a keen diver, and to detonate it when he picked it up.

Another scuba-related idea was to create a diving suit infected with fungus that would cause a debilitating disease. Both plans were dropped.

Decades earlier in 1975, the US Senate Church Commission revealed details of at least eight plots on Castro's life, using devices which, the commission report said, "strain the imagination".

One plot using underworld figures twice progressed to the point of sending poison pills to Cuba and dispatching teams to "do the deed", it said.

At almost the exact moment that President Kennedy - who had authorised the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to overthrow Castro in 1961 - was assassinated, a CIA operative was apparently handing a poison pen equipped with a very fine needle to a Cuban agent.

The agent however was disappointed and asked for something "more sophisticated", the report said.

One of Castro's former lovers, Marita Lorenz, was also recruited. She was given poison pills to put in Castro's drink.

But Castro found out about the attempt and is said to have handed her his gun to use instead.

"You can't kill me. Nobody can kill me," he said, Ms Lorenz told the New York Daily News. "And he kind of smiled and chewed on his cigar. I felt deflated. He was so sure of me. He just grabbed me. We made love."

The most recent known attempt on Castro's life was in 2000, when a plan was hatched to put a large quantity of explosives under a podium he was due to speak on in Panama. The plot was foiled by Castro's security team.

Four men, including veteran Cuban exile and CIA agent Luis Posada, were jailed but later pardoned.

There were also plots to make Castro, also known as "The Beard", an object of ridicule rather than kill him.

One was to sprinkle thallium salt on Castro's shoes during as overseas trip in the hope that his famous beard would fall out. But it was foiled when Castro cancelled the visit.

Another involved spraying an aerosol of LSD close to him as he was about to make a TV broadcast in the hope that he would become hysterical on air.

Castro took myriad precautions to evade would-be assassins. But in 1979 as he flew to New York to address the UN he could not resist a bit of grandstanding.

Asked by journalists on the plane whether he wore a bulletproof vest, he pulled open his shirt and exposed his chest.

"I have a moral vest," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-38121583

But Castro found out about the attempt and is said to have handed her his gun to use instead.

Apparently she had a baby boy with Castro. When she went back to America, she was not allowed to take the baby with her. CIA told her Castro had killed the baby. So she volunteered to kill him to take revenge. When she met Castro, she asked him what happened to their baby. He replied the baby was taken care by his, Castro's, mother, grown up and was studying medicine. Later she met her son. After that she became full of rage against her CIA recruiter. I think her CIA recruiter was her mother or some one close to her. The recruiter killed herself after the plot failed.

How stupid to believe CIA (sounds like Mulder & Scully' s plot). A Latin macho culture man would have never killed his own child, especially a son (catholic culture also). And she never made any investigation by herself before ? lol.

Piling wrote:How stupid to believe CIA (sounds like Mulder & Scully' s plot). A Latin macho culture man would have never killed his own child, especially a son (catholic culture also). And she never made any investigation by herself before ? lol.

Sadly, there are many people who believe in propaganda and media lies especially if those lies come from a close trusted family member or friend

I remember one attempt on Castro - years ago - this will make you laugh but it really happened

The CIA tried to get someone to put something in his slippers that would get into his bloodstream and make his hair drop out - they thought that if he lost his hair he would look less masculine and people would stop following him

The CIA tried to get someone to put something in his slippers that would get into his bloodstream and make his hair drop out - they thought that if he lost his hair he would look less masculine and people would stop following him

Lol, Samson & Dalila revival.

I remember one attempt on Castro - years ago - this will make you laugh but it really happened

The CIA tried to get someone to put something in his slippers that would get into his bloodstream and make his hair drop out - they thought that if he lost his hair he would look less masculine and people would stop following him

Is it really CIA has men/women to make plans as stupid as this. I don't believe it!!!!