Fidel Castro, Cuba’s former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died aged 90, his brother has said.<\/p>\n
“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (03:29 GMT Saturday),” President Raul Castro said.<\/p>\n
Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took over in 2008.<\/p>\n
His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. But he was also accused of suppressing opposition.<\/p>\n
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 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
There would now be several days of national mourning on the island.<\/p>\n
Raul Castro ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Towards victory, always!”<\/p>\n
Barring the occasional newspaper column, Fidel Castro had essentially been retired from political life for some time, the BBC’s Will Grant in Havana reports.<\/p>\n
In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country’s Communist Party congress.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people “will be victorious”.<\/p>\n
“I’ll soon be 90,” the former president said, adding that this was “something I’d never imagined”.<\/p>\n
“Soon I’ll be like all the others, “to all our turn must come,” Fidel Castro said.<\/p>\n
Castro – who had survived many assassination plots – was the longest serving non-royal leader of the 20th Century.<\/p>\n
Castro temporarily handed over power to his brother in 2006 as he was recovering from an acute intestinal ailment.<\/p>\n
Raul Castro officially became president two years later.<\/p>\n
Cuba’s revolutionary leader<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Despised by his critics as much as he was revered by his followers, he outlasted ten US presidents and defied scores of attempts on his life by the CIA.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fidel Castro, Cuba’s former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died aged 90, his brother has said. “The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (03:29 GMT Saturday),” President Raul Castro said. Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":271864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[8273,13948],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThroughout the Cold War, Fidel Castro was Washington’s bete noire.<\/p>\n