Fidel Castro says he quit as Cuba Communist Party chief in 2006

[News_Editor]

Fidel Castro says he quit as Cuba Communist Party chief in 2006

2011-03-23 01:21:56 GMT+7 (ICT)

HAVANA (BNO NEWS) -- Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday he resigned from all his official positions, including First Secretary of Cuba's Communist Party, after falling ill in 2006.

"When I became sick, I unhesitatingly renounced all my state and political responsibilities, including that of first secretary of the Party," Castro wrote in his regular editorials published by state media.

"I never attempted to exercise them after the proclamation of July 31, 2006, not even when I partially recovered my health more than a year later, even though everyone continued to affectionately address me in that way," he added.

He vowed to remain "a soldier of ideas, as long as I can think or breathe."

Castro, who led Cuba for almost 50 years after the 1959 communist revolution, handed over the presidency to his younger brother Raúl in 2006. In 2008, Raúl became president after Castro announced his intention not to run for president again.

This is the first time Castro says publicly that he is no longer the leader of the party he founded. Cuba plans to hold its first Communist Party Congress in almost 14 years next month.

The revelation came in his latest editorial in which he criticizes U.S. President Barack Obama, who is currently on a Latin American tour, for remarks he made in a speech in Santiago, Chile, on Monday.

"When the President looked anxiously at the audience after mentioning the perfidious Cuba, expecting an explosion of applause, there was a glacial silence," Castro wrote.

The 84-year-old former leader also said that Obama began to stutter after being questioned about the coup d'état against the former Chilean President Salvador Allende.

"Obama now has before him a visit to El Salvador. There he will have to invent a lot, because in that sister Central American nation the weapons and advisors that it received from his country were responsible for much bloodshed," Castro added.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-03-23

[bangkokeddy]

"When the President looked anxiously at the audience after mentioning the perfidious Cuba, expecting an explosion of applause, there was a glacial silence," Castro wrote.

True or not? Not implausible but did it really happen?

At least the old man had a moment of amusement.

[elcent]

is he in a time-machine now?

[powderpuff]

I'm sure we all wish this mass murderer all the best. Die soon.

[bangkokeddy]

I'm sure we all wish this mass murderer all the best. Die soon.

Obama or Pinochet?

[dananderson]

Hardly newsworthy. He handed the reigns over to his brother when he was in critical condition. The USA has never forgiven him for a number of reasons. I still wonder why an ordinary USA citizen can not travel to Cuba. We can go to Vietnam and China but not Cuba, Maybe they still hold a grudge over the mariel boat lift.....