Rumors are running rampant
on the Internet that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has died. U.S. Senior officials
have not confirmed his death, saying that his health is poor, but he is still
alive.
Fidel Castro has not been
seen for over a year because of declining health. He had transferred power to
his brother, so it would not be a surprise if he was dead.
Although Miami is preparing
to celebrate, no news or unusual activity has happened around Havana. Can we say
smoking cigars, Fido!
According to Wikipedia, Castro led the revolution
overthrowing dictator
Fulgencio
Batista in 1959 and shortly after was sworn in as the Prime
Minister of Cuba.Castro
became First Secretary of the Communist
Party of Cuba in 1965, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party
socialist
republic. In 1976 he became president of the Council
of State as well as of the Council
of Ministers. He also holds the supreme military rank of Comandante
en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban
armed forces.
It would not surprise me to see
Cuba denying his death just because of the powerful image and control that
Castro possesses just by being alive. He instills fear just by his
presence.
Outside of Cuba, Castro has been
defined by his relationship with the United States and the former Soviet Union, both of whom courted Cuban
attentions as part of their own global political game. After the failed
Bay of Pigs
invasion of
Cuba in 1961 by U.S. backed forces, the Castro-led government has had an openly
antagonistic relationship with the U.S., which encouraged a closeness with the
Soviet bloc. The collapse of the Soviet Union in
1991 forced Castro to seek alliances regionally to counter U.S. and find
like-minded partners in regional nationalist figures such as
Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia.
(Wikipedia)
The sad thing is this all could
be a rouse. Rumors were on the Internet a few weeks ago that The Patriots top
football player, Tedy Bruschi, had died in a car accident. The rumor had become
so big on the internet that Fox News reported it
accidentally.
That is the bad thing about
this technology-news travels at such a high speed that sometimes it can not be
verifiable. So as sites across the net report, don’t light your cigars just yet.
I would wait for official White House word or from Cuba
itself.
