Via the BBC: Cuban Defence Minister Julio Casas Regueiro dies
Cuban Defence Minister Julio Casas Regueiro, a veteran of the revolution, has died of heart failure, aged 75.
He oversaw the Cuban military’s economic activities until 2008, when President Raul Castro made him defence minister.
Julio Casas Regueiro was an accountant who fought under Raul Castro’s command against Fulgencio Batista, who was ousted in January 1959.
What strikes me about this is that the revolutionary generation is passing in Cuba, and even the days of the Castro brothers are numbered.
This also means that expatriate Cuban community in the US is aging and passing as well. One wonders (and, indeed, hopes) that as both the revolutionaries and the expats all age and shake off this mortal coil that perhaps we can finally reach a rational place for US-Cuban relations.
Such stories also always make we wonder what US policy-makers in the 1960s would have thought if they have known what kind of longevity the revolution would have in Cuba.
And, speaking of Fidel:
Fidel Castro, who no longer holds any official positions, is 85.
He has not been seen in public since April and has not written any of his newspaper editorials for the past two months.
