Raúl Castro attended the tribute, seated in the audience next to his brother’s widow, Dalia Soto del Valle
14ymedio/EFE, Madrid, August 14, 2026 / Cuba marked the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth (1926-2016) this Thursday with a political-cultural spectacle at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, attended by his brother and former president Raúl Castro (2008-2018), his widow Dalia Soto del Valle, and other relatives of the leader of the Cuban Revolution.
Raúl Castro, retired from his official posts and currently the “leader at the helm of the Cuban revolution,” according to official terminology, was accompanied by President Miguel Díaz-Canel and senior representatives of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal party), the government, and relatives of both brothers.
At the cultural event, headlined by the Cuban children’s theater company La Colmenita, which presented a journey in images and songs through the life of the man who was president of the Caribbean country for nearly half a century, Díaz-Canel spoke to highlight the figure of Fidel Castro, saying he dedicated his life “to fighting for every just cause.”
The president noted that Castro “lives forever” as a “warrior, rebel, and righteous man of Humanity”
The president noted that Castro “lives forever” as a “warrior, rebel, and righteous man of Humanity,” and that Cuba can count on his legacy of “independence, revolution, and the values and achievements that socialism represents.”
On these premises, he said, “we are undertaking a process of economic and social transformations,” referring to the package of 176 reforms approved this past June, aimed at liberalizing and decentralizing the economy of the island, which has been mired in a deep crisis for more than six years.
Díaz-Canel once again attacked the United States government, accusing it of being a “fascist regime” that is “intensifying” its actions against the Caribbean nation with a “brutal and immoral imperial blockade that seeks the extermination of our people.”
The event also marked the closing of the First International Colloquium Fidel: Legacy and Future, which had been underway since this past Monday at the Convention Palace in the capital and was attended by more than 1,000 national and international delegates.
“With tremendous wisdom” and with “that experience, that persistence, and the discipline and his fight for freedom,” Castro said, reaffirming how he remembered his father.
During the opening yesterday of a collective photography exhibition in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolución, which brought together about 30 portraits of the different moments when Fidel Castro was present at that site, one of his sons, Alex Castro, said this Thursday that his father “always had the wisdom to face difficulties” and “an answer in mind,” when asked how he would have reacted to the crisis the island is suffering and to the strong pressure from the US to push for political and economic change in the Caribbean country.
“With tremendous wisdom” and with “that experience, that persistence, and the discipline and his fight for freedom,” Castro said, reaffirming how he remembered his father. Miguel Díaz-Canel attended the exhibition, which was part of the centenary commemoration, along with other representatives of the government and the Communist Party of Cuba. Díaz-Canel stated that Castro “embodies the values and ideas that today sustain” the Cuban people and described this day as one of those on which “very particularly in Cuba we feel that Fidel is a country.”
The exhibition also featured photographs by Liborio Noval, Roberto Chile, Raúl Corrales, Jorge Oller, Raúl Abreu, Juvenal Balán, and Gilberto Rabassa, who shared their experiences working with Fidel Castro. “Fidel was very photogenic, and really his look, his history, his figure, his physique (…) helped him come out well in every photograph,” Chile told EFE. For some 25 years, he accompanied, through film and photography, the man who was one of the best-known and most controversial political figures of the twentieth century.
Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party considered that the legacy of the leader of the Cuban Revolution “remains alive”
For her part, Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, installed by the United States following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in early January, highlighted Fidel Castro’s “commitment to dignity, social justice, sovereignty, and the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
“President Fidel Castro is among the leaders who transcend time and remain in the collective memory,” Rodríguez said in a message posted on Telegram. She also said Castro was a “man of integrity” who set a standard for the “free peoples of the world.” Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) considered that the legacy of the leader of the Cuban Revolution “remains alive.”
This week on the island has been marked by various activities centered on the figure of Fidel Castro, and the presidents of countries such as Russia, China, and Brazil sent letters to the Cuban government to mark the occasion.
Sandinistas in Nicaragua also marked the occasion, fittingly, in front of the new monument installed in Managua in memory of Fidel Castro.
Public employees, members of the military and police, and members of the Sandinista youth gathered on “From Bolívar to Chávez” Avenue, where the enormous metal sculpture was installed, bringing Cuban flags and bouquets of flowers to pay tribute to Fidel Castro on the centenary of his birth.
“Here lives Fidel, in his people and in our peoples and in this America of ours, of burning suns, of intense souls, of brave human beings”
“Here lives Fidel, in his people and in our peoples and in this America of ours, of burning suns, of intense souls, of brave human beings, who thrill to the splendor of our loftiest ideals, feelings, and fight for justice, for real truth, for the peace that demands, that calls for dignity,” Nicaragua’s co-president, Rosario Murillo, said through official media.
For her part, the mayor of Managua, Sandinista Reyna Rueda, said that “Comandante Fidel remains that beacon of inspiration for all of us as militants, as revolutionaries, inspiring us to keep strengthening our peace and our deep sense of being Nicaraguan.”
Murillo, wife of co-president Daniel Ortega, lashed out on Tuesday at those who criticize the sculpture her government installed in honor of Castro to mark the centenary of the birth of the leader of the Cuban Revolution (1926-2016), calling them “traitors and cowards” who “always show signs of deep darkness, of wickedness and malice.”
This week on the island has been marked by various activities centered on the figure of Fidel Castro
This week on the island has been marked by various activities centered on the figure of Fidel Castro, and during the day on Thursday, the centenary of his birth prompted tributes to him from countries such as Russia.
Hundreds of Russians gathered today in front of the statue of the leader of the Cuban revolution in Moscow, where the leader of the Communist Party of Russia (CPRF), Yevgeny Ziuganov, said that “Fidel Castro is a model and an example to follow (…) in these difficult times, in order to achieve victory over the most evil forces in history.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent letters earlier this week to Raúl Castro and Díaz-Canel, in which he described Fidel Castro as “a symbol of freedom, justice, and patriotism, both for Cubans themselves and for millions of people in different countries around the world.”
For his part, Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi Jinping, also sent a congratulatory message to the island for the centenary of Castro’s birth, in which he highlighted his role “in laying the foundation for and driving forward” bilateral relations, which, he said, “have become a benchmark for cooperation between socialist countries.”
Likewise, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva thanked Fidel Castro the day before for “the encouragement” he gave to his political career and expressed hope that “fraternity and justice will persist amid adversity” for the people of Cuba, in a message sent to Havana through the intellectual and theologian Frei Betto.
Translated by GH
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