Raul Castro attends wake of deceased Cuban leader

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 28 (ACN) Cuban president Raul Castro attended the wake of the revolutionary fighter Armando Hart Dávalos, an essential figure in Cuban history, held at the headquarters of the Marti Studies Center on Monday morning.

Granma newspaper reports that at ten o'clock in the morning, the Cuban President, accompanied by other members of the Political Bureau of the Cuban Communist party, headed the last honor guard to whom he was a fervent follower of Marti and Fidel, who from a very young age put his life at the service of the Homeland.

In the Bolivar Hall of the institution, crowded by family, friends, comrades in struggle and work, the notes of the national anthem were heard and an overwhelming call of silence.

The central words of the posthumous homage were delivered by Miguel Díaz - Canel Bermúdez, first vice president of the Councils of State and Ministers, who evoked the courageous life of Hart, as well as the extraordinary example of loyalty, spirit of sacrifice, firmness and attachment absolute to the principles, which bequeathed to the present and future generations.

"The Marti sense of ethics invariably guided his behavior, always transparent, always implacable against those who used the Homeland as a pedestal," he said.

Díaz - Canel also spoke of Hart´s career as Minister of Education of the first revolutionary cabinet, from where he directed the Literacy Campaign and the admirable educational work that transformed our country.

A decade later - he said - he assumed the leadership of the newly created Ministry of Culture, "where he rectified errors, restored communication with the intellectual avant-garde, promoted artistic education and designed an institutional system that made people the protagonist of cultural events".

In his last stage of work he devoted himself to one of his central passions: the study and dissemination of the life and work of José Martí, "he was convinced that in Martí the Cuban ideology of emancipation, justice and anti-imperialism had reached its highest point".

"Until the last of his days he was a tireless intellectual and political fighter," said Diaz - Canel, "that is why" death is not true when the work of life has been well fulfilled. To that phrase of Martí, Hart would add ¡Hasta la Victoria, Siempre! ".