HAVANA (SW): Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, has died, state-run Cuban Television announced.
"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 his younger brother Raul took over in 2008. 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.
In a dispatch, the Reuters has noted that Castro 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. Transforming Cuba from a playground for rich Americans into a symbol of resistance to Washington, Castro outlasted nine US presidents, it added.
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, the BBC has reported. 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. His alliance with Moscow helped trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a 13-day showdown with the US 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 US.
At home, he swept away capitalism and won support for bringing schools and hospitals to the poor. He also created legions of enemies and critics, concentrated among Cuban exiles in Miami who fled his rule and saw him as a ruthless tyrant.
In his final years, Fidel Castro did not hold leadership posts and only occasionally appeared in public. He wrote newspaper commentaries on world affairs and occasionally met with foreign leaders, but lived in semi-seclusion.
Fidel Castro had nine children from five women
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