Jose Ramon Balaguer, one of the last remaining members of Cuba’s revolutionary vanguard, died this week, according to the Communist island’s official news reports.
Balaguer, 90, fought with former leader Fidel Castro in the rebel army that took over the island in 1959. He had more recently been the country’s health minister under whose watch thousands of Cuban doctors were sent to Venezuela and other developing countries.
No cause of death was given when his death was announced on Cuban television Friday.
Born in Guantanamo in 1932, Balaguer was in charge of ideology for the island’s Communist Party and held a seat in the country’s Politburo for decades.
He was appointed to the health ministry in 2004 and served until 2010. He was elected to the Communist Party’s Central Committee in April 2011, serving as head of international relations for the agency, though he gave up his seat on the more powerful Politburo.
With Post Wires