AREQUIPA, Peru – The dictator Raúl Castro reappeared publicly this Friday on the occasion of the visit to the Island of Vietnamese President To Lam. The official press of the Cuban regime showed a photo of the nonagenarian general in an attempt to dispel the rumors that had been circulating in recent days about his possible death.
In a meeting between Castro and the Vietnamese president, the leader of the Cuban regime spoke about the Asian country’s participation in “the National Plan for Economic and Social Development of Cuba until 2030,” state media reported. Cubadebate.
The rumors that were circulating, already denied by the official speech (although without evidence until this Friday), referred to the delicate state of health of the Army General and his consequent death. The recent reappearance caught on camera barely clarifies one of those statements.
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruzborn on June 3, 1931 in Birán, a rural neighborhood of the former Oriente province, now Holguín, turned 93 years old just over three months ago.
Younger brother and second in command of the dictator Fidel Castro, who died at 90 years of age in 2016, he is the fourth child of the immigrant peasant and former Spanish soldier, who became a landowner in Cuba, Ángel Castro Argiz with the peasant Lina Ruz González, originally from Pinar river.
As early as January 21, 1959, during a public rally, Fidel Castro “proposed” him as his successor, in case he died or was disabled from command in an attack. But actually Raul Castro He would assume leadership of the regime 47 years later, in July 2006, when his brother became seriously ill.
Although he already handed over the presidency of the country to Miguel Díaz-Canel at the end of the last decade, it is really Raúl Castro who continues to hold the reins of the Island as the head of the Castro military leadership.
Deaths of senior military officials in Cuba
Beyond the alleged death of Raúl Castro, in recent weeks the Cuban media has been a vehicle for disseminating the death of several high-profile military personnel (five general and a colonel).
The last to die, at 85 years old, was the Army Corps general Ramon Espinosa Martinfirst vice minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and one of the trusted men of Castroism.
Espinosa Martín was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the PCC and a deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power.
But he will undoubtedly transcend one of his “services” that best showed his loyalty to Fidel and Raúl Castro: in 1989 he presided over the military court in which Arnaldo Ochoa was tried, accused of international drug trafficking and executed by firing squad after a summary trial.
Without being a jurist or having judicial experience, he was appointed “president” of the Special Military Court that sentenced soldiers like himself to death.
In this context, the Cuban media this September have been the obituary of several soldiers of the regime (five general and a colonel).
