Cuban Revolutionary Figure Ramiro Valdés Menéndez Dies at 94

Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, a former vice president and participant in the 1953 Moncada barracks attack, died Sunday at age 94. Cuba’s Communist Party and government issued a joint statement confirming the death. Valdés joined Fidel Castro’s 1953 attack on the Moncada military barracks at age 21.

He later fought under Ernesto “Che” Guevara and received the honorary title of Commander of the Revolution.

Valdés served as interior minister until a 1986 dispute with Fidel Castro removed him from the inner circle of power. He returned to the Council of State in 2003. In 2006, Raúl Castro appointed him to lead the telecommunications ministry. Valdés was elevated to vice president three years later and, in 2011, became the Communist Party’s number-three leader.

Valdés rarely appeared in public and never spoke to the press.

In 1997 he led a mission to Bolivia to locate and repatriate Guevara’s remains.