10:00 a.m. November 17, 2007
HAVANA – The Castro brothers paid homage to fallen revolutionary comrade
Sergio del Valle Jimenez on Saturday, with Fidel recalling his help
during the Bay of Pigs invasion and Raul attending his military funeral.
"We have lived exceptional times," President Fidel Castro wrote in an
essay carried in state media. "Your lessons and your example will endure."
Raul, Cuba's defense minister and interim leader since his brother
stepped aside because of illness in mid-2006, attended Gen. Del Valle's
interment at Havana's Colon Cemetery.
Del Valle Jimenez died Thursday of undisclosed causes. State media did
not say how old he was, but he was at least in his 70s.
Del Valle joined Castro's revolution against dictator Fulgencio Batista
through a Havana underground movement in the mid 1950s, and entered the
rebel army as a physician and soldier fighting against Batista's troops
in eastern Cuba in 1957.
After Batista fled and the rebels took control of the island on Jan. 1,
1959, Del Valle held various positions in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.
He was army chief of staff when a U.S.-backed exile army tried
unsuccessfully to invade at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, as well as the
following year when the U.S. discovery of Soviet missiles on the island
pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. The Soviets eventually
removed the missiles.
Del Valle was also interior minister in the late 1960s and health
minister from 1979 to 1986.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20071117-1000-cuba-generalhonored.html
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