Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, one of the original Moncada combatants and a veteran central leader of the Cuban Revolution, died June 21 in Havana.
In 1953, Valdés was a 21-year-old helper to truck drivers hauling sugar cane when he heard young lawyer Fidel Castro denounce Batista on the radio. He met up with Castro and volunteered to join the battle to bring down the dictatorship. He learned to act in a disciplined and politically effective way and was selected by Castro to join the attack on Moncada.
Freed from prison in 1955, Valdés went into exile in Mexico with Castro. From there, he was one of 82 men who sailed on the Granma to Cuba in 1956 to resume the insurrection. Despite a surprise assault by Batista’s troops as they landed, he was one of the 12 survivors who succeeded in reaching the Sierra Maestra mountains to continue the fight by the Rebel Amy. He fought as deputy commander alongside Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine-born revolutionary leader, in the decisive Battle of Santa Clara after which Batista fled the country Jan. 1, 1959.
Valdés served as vice president of Cuba and won the honor of being a Commander of the Revolution. For decades he was the minister of the interior, responsible for Cuba’s security.
To defend the Cuban Revolution, he told Cuban children in Havana July 10 last year, “You have to know Fidel more and more.” Becoming a revolutionary “is not a career that you study for,” he often said. “You become a revolutionary because you rebel, you refuse to accept the conditions of life that you face” and draw inspiration from history and those who came before.