•Buhari, world leaders pay tribute

By Tony Nwankwo, with agency reports

 Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90.

With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Toward victory, always!”

Castro’s reign over the island-nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The bearded revolutionary, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died 10 years after ill health forced him to hand power over to Raul.

Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa.

His commitment to socialism was unwavering, though his power finally began to fade in mid-2006 when a gastro-intestinal ailment forced him to hand over the presidency to Raul in 2008, provisionally at first and then permanently. His defiant image lingered long after he gave up his trademark Cohiba cigars for health reasons and his tall frame grew stooped.

“Socialism or death” remained Castro’s rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism, leaving this island of 11 million people an economically crippled Marxist curiosity.

He survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence. Obama made a historic visit to Havana in March, this year.

Carlos Rodriguez, 15, was sitting in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood when he heard that Fidel Castro had died.

Fidel Castro Ruiz

“Fidel? Fidel?” he said, slapping his head in shock. “That’s not what I was expecting. One always thought that he would last forever. It doesn’t seem true.”

“It’s a tragedy,” said 22-year-old nurse Dayan Montalvo. “We all grew up with him. I feel really hurt by the news that we just heard.”

Fidel Castro Ruz was born August 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba’s sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labour for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own.

Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison.

Fidel turned his trial defense into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, “History will absolve me.”

Freed under a pardon, Castro fled to Mexico and organized a rebel band that returned in 1956, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba on a yacht named Granma. After losing most of his group in a bungled landing, he rallied support in Cuba’s eastern Sierra Maestra mountains.

Three years later, tens of thousands spilled into the streets of Havana to celebrate Batista’s downfall and catch a glimpse of Castro as his rebel caravan arrived in the capital on January 8, 1959.

The U.S. was among the first to formally recognize his government, cautiously trusting Castro’s early assurances he merely wanted to restore democracy, not install socialism.

Within months, Castro was imposing radical economic reforms. Members of the old government went before summary courts, and at least 582 were shot by firing squads over two years. Independent newspapers were closed and in the early years, homosexuals were herded into camps for “re-education.”

In 1964, Castro acknowledged holding 15,000 political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro’s daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta and his younger sister Juana.

Still, the revolution thrilled millions in Cuba and across Latin America who saw it as an example of how the seemingly arrogant Yankees could be defied. And many on the island were happy to see the seizure of property of the landed class, the expulsion of American gangsters and the closure of their casinos.

Castro’s speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 1960 set the world body’s record for length that still stood more than five decades later.

As Castro moved into the Soviet bloc, Washington began working to oust him, cutting U.S. purchases of sugar, the island’s economic mainstay. Castro, in turn, confiscated $1 billion in U.S. assets.

The American government imposed a trade embargo, banning virtually all U.S. exports to the island except for food and medicine, and it severed diplomatic ties on January 3, 1961.

On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist, and the next day, about 1,400 Cuban exiles stormed the beach at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba’s south coast. But the CIA-backed invasion failed.

The debacle forced the U.S. to give up on the idea of invading Cuba, but that didn’t stop Washington and Castro’s exiled enemies from trying to do him in. By Cuban count, he was the target of more than 630 assassination plots by militant Cuban exiles or the U.S. government.

The biggest crisis of the Cold War between Washington and Moscow exploded on October 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and imposed a naval blockade of the island. Humankind held its breath, and after a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them. Never had the world felt so close to nuclear war.

‘Towards the model he wanted’

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, most observers thought Castro would fall too. But it didn’t happen. Nevertheless, Cuba suffered an economic catastrophe in the so-called “special period” after the USSR’s breakup. This manifested itself not only in a massive decline in gross domestic product, but also in Cubans losing weight as a result of malnutrition. Economists consider Cuba’s “special period” to be one of the worst contractions of the 20th century.

But Castro remained devoted to doctrinaire socialism. “They talk about the failure of socialism,” the Cuban leader once said. “But where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?”

In the final years of his reign, Castro pushed Cuba to develop its tourism industry to make up for the financial troubles caused by the Soviet Union’s demise.

Buhari, world leaders pay tribute

World leaders have begun to pay tribute to Castro.

President Muhammadu Buhari consoled President Raul Castro and the people of Cuba on the death.

In a condolence message released by the presidential spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, President Buhari who expressed shock however stated that the deceased through his political and leadership pedigree had stamped his feet on the sands of history.

French President Francois Hollande said in a statement that Mr Castro embodied Cuba’s revolution in both its “hopes” and its later “disappointments”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed Mr Castro as the “symbol of an era”. In a telegram to the Cuban President cited by the Kremlin, he said: “The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history… Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia.”

Enrique Pena Nieto the President of Mexico, where Mr Castro fled and organised a rebel band that returned to Cuba 1956, said: “Fidel Castro was a friend of Mexico, promoter of a bilateral relationship based on respect, dialogue and solidarity.”

Salvador Sanchez Ceren, President of El Salvador, tweeted: “With deep sorrow we received news of the death of my dear friend and eternal companion, Commander Fidel Castro Ruz.”

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro echoed Mr Castro’s victory slogan in his tribute over Twitter, which referenced the yacht Fidel and Raul Castro sailed in to Cuba to begin their revolution.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev praised Mr Castro for “strengthening” his island nation.

“Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American blockade, when there was colossal pressure on him and he still took his country out of this blockade to a path of independent development,” Interfax news agency quoted Mr Gorbachev as saying.

Former Labour Cabinet minister and anti-apartheid leader Lord Peter Hain said: “Although responsible for indefensible human rights and free speech abuses,  Castro  created a society of unparalleled access to free health, education and equal opportunity despite an economically throttling USA siege.

“His troops inflicted the first defeat on South Africa’s troops in Angola in 1988, a vital turning point in the struggle against apartheid.”

Former London mayor Ken Livingstone called Mr Castro an “absolute giant of the 20th century”, and blamed the US for the restrictions on civil liberties under his leadership. He told BBC  Radio 4’s Today programme that Cuba could reform now it was not under the threat of American invasion “even if Trump goes a little bit bonkers”.

Castro was a friend of Africa–Fani-Kayode

In a tribute, yesterday, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation, described the late Castro as a friend of Africa, saying he admired the deceased’s defiant spirit.

In a statement, Fani-Kayode said: “I admired the defiant spirit, passion, strength, commitment and courage of Fidel Castro.

“He was a blessing to the oppressed people of the world and a friend to Africa.

“Under his leadership Cuba’s role in the struggle for black majority rule and the fight against apartheid in Zimbabwe and South Africa cannot be underestimated or downplayed.

“He played a similar role in the bitter struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism in Angola, Mozambique and Namibia.

“He was a warrior to the core and a great leader. He was also a blessing to the Cuban people and they really loved him.”