Raúl Castro Ruz (born June 3, 1931) is a Cuban politician and revolutionary, the brother of Fidel Castro. He has been the Second Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba since 1965 and First Vice-president of the Councils of State and Ministers, Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, since 1959.
He participated actively in student fights from before the beginning of the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship. He was a member of the group of attackers to the Moncada Quarter and spent 22 months of prison as a result of this action. During his exile in Mexico, he participated in the preparations of the expedition of the ship Granma, disembarking in Cuba on December 2, 1956. As combatant of the Rebel Army he took part in the campaign of the Sierra Maestra mountain range and in February of 1958 was assigned the mission to cross the old province of Oriente at the front of a column of guerrillas to open, to the northeast of that territory, the Eastern front "Frank País". Together with his brother he finally conquered Santiago de Cuba on January 8, 1959, completing the overthrow of the Batista regime.
Raúl Castro Ruz integrated the National Direction of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations and the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba. He is the Second Secretary of the Party's Central Committee since its constitution in October 1965 and Delegated Committee to the National Assembly of the Popular Power from its creation in 1976.
Raúl has been mooted as a possible successor to his brother. As Armed Forces minister, he controls much of the Military Forces in Cuba, prompting speculation that if he were to launch a power grab after his brother's death, it might be difficult to stop him.
Raúl Castro, however, is widely regarded as more hardline than his brother — along with Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, he was one of only two communists involved in the original Granma expedition.
RaulCastro (R), head of Cuba's army and brother of Cuba's President Fidel Castro, stands near Cuba's Minister of Communication Ramiro Valdez during a meeting of the National Assembly in Havana December 22, 2006.
RaulCastro, who is considered more of a practical administrator than his more ideological brother, said he encouraged a series of recent newspaper articles criticizing bureaucracy and corruption in the food supply system.
RaulCastro said his brother was continuing to recover from an undisclosed illness.
Castro returned to Cuba and married Mirta DÃaz Balart, a student from a wealthy Cuban family where he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite.
Although there is disagreement over why Castro and his brother, Raúl, were not executed on capture as many of their fellow militants were, there is evidence that an officer recognized Castro from his university days and treated the captured rebels compassionately, despite the unofficial order to have the leader executed.
Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and attended Trudeau's funeral in October 2000 to mourn the passing of his friend.
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