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Cuba‘s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Tuesday bid farewell to the Communist Party that he put in power a half-century ago, telling party members in a valedictory speech that he will soon die.
He said:
‘I’ll be 90 years old soon. Soon I’ll be like all the others.’
‘The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them.’
Castro spoke as the government announced that his 84-year-old brother, Raul Castro will retain the Cuban Communist Party’s highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura.
Ventura, 85, who fought alongside the Castro brothers to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, is known as an enforcer of Communist orthodoxy and voice against some of the biggest recent economic reforms.