Julio Casas Regueiro

Julio Casas Regueiro (born February 16, 1936 in Bombí ( Oriente Province ), † September 3, 2011 in Havana ) was a Cuban military and politician .

Life

Casas grew up in a wealthy rural bourgeois family and completed his school years in the capital of the Oriente province , Santiago de Cuba . He then did a commercial training at the local business school and worked in a grocery store and later in a bank. He took an active part in the resistance against President Fulgencio Batista , who came to power in a coup in 1952, which resulted in the Cuban Revolution . In June 1957, Casas gave up his job as a bank clerk and returned to his parents' estate in the village of Bombí (in today's Municipio El Salvador ), from where he made contact with the armed movement of July 26th led by Fidel Castro (Ejército Rebelde). When Castro's brother Raúl set up the Segundo Frente Oriental " Frank País " combat group in the nearby Sierra Cristal in March 1958 , Casas joined him and became one of his closest collaborators and personal adjutant . He founded Unit No. 6 (Columna Número 6) within the Segundo Frente . In the rebel troops, Casas excelled in the areas of organization and logistics in that he successfully secured his combat group with a tax-based supply and training system.

After the victory of the revolution on January 1, 1959, he was first adjutant to the chief of the National Revolutionary Police ( Policía Nacional Revolucionaria , PNR) and then in June 1959 head of the administrative department of the PNR. In January 1960 he was appointed head of the Department of Procurement in the Ministry of Defense (Ministro de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias ).

In the following years he took on other important positions within the Revolutionary Armed Forces ( Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias ), including head of the rearguard directorate , and completed several military training courses, including at the Voroshilov Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR . In 1969 he was promoted to Vice Minister.

As Deputy Head of the Cuban Military Mission in Ethiopia ( Ogaden War ) responsible for the rearguard , he made a significant contribution to their success in 1978 by organizing the long supply routes. He was then appointed commander of the FAR in Eastern Cuba (Ejército Oriental) and in 1982 took command of the air defense forces (Defensa Antiaérea de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias, DAAFAR). In this role he carried out the first extensive restructuring and rationalization within the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. The military-run company Gaviota SA emerged from the rededication of aircraft of the air transport regiment for non-military transports, which subsequently grew to become the largest tourism group in the country. Casas later became the official representative of the Ministry of Defense for economic activities and was responsible for the rest of his life for the GAESA holding company ( Grupo de Administración Empresarial SA ) which he founded, in which all market-based military companies and thus essential parts of the Cuban economy are brought together .

Since 1986 he was a member of the State Council . In 1989 he was a member of the special military tribunal that sentenced General Arnaldo Ochoa , General Arnaldo Ochoa, and three other defendants to death, among other things, accused of high treason and drug trafficking . In 1990 he was appointed Deputy Minister of Defense. In 2001, he was promoted to the rank of three-star general (General de Cuerpo de Ejército) - in Cuba Raúl Castro alone has four stars.

After Raúl Castro had succeeded Fidel Castro as Chairman of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers on February 24, 2008 , Casas Regueiro took over the office of Minister of Defense and was elected one of the Vice-Presidents of the Council of State. He was considered his right hand.

Casas was a founding member of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) , a delegate to all party congresses, a member of the Central Committee since the 1st Party Congress and a member of the Politburo since the 4th Party Congress . In addition, he was since 1981 a member of the National Assembly ( Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular ) for the constituency Encrucijada ( province of Villa Clara ).

Julio Casas' older brother Senén (1934-1996) was also an active fighter in the rebel army and later a general, minister (for transport), member of the State Council, member of the National Assembly, and a member of the PCC Central Committee.

Casas died on September 3, 2011 of heart failure. Immediately after his death, the State Council awarded him the honorary title of “Labor Hero of the Republic of Cuba”, and a half-day state mourning was ordered. Two months later, his urn was ceremoniously buried at the memorial of the Segundo Frente Oriental "Frank País" combat group near his birthplace in Mayarí Arriba (Municipio Segundo Frente ) in eastern Cuban in the presence of President Raúl Castro and numerous guests of honor in a state funeral.

Web links

• Members of the Council of Ministers
• Fallció el General de Cuerpo de Ejército Julio Casas Regueiro In: Cubadebate of September 3, 2011, accessed on September 8, 2011 (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Fernando Ravsberg: El general "tacaño" in the blog Cartas desde Cuba on BBC Mundo from September 8, 2011, accessed on September 8, 2011 (Spanish), English translation here
2. ↑ Rafael del Pino: Julio Casas  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the blog Café Fuerte from September 4, 2011, accessed on September 8, 2011 (Spanish)  
3. ↑ ^{a b} Vicente Botín: Los árboles mueren de pie ( Memento of the original of September 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Infolatam of September 5, 2011, accessed September 8, 2011 (Spanish) 
4. ↑ Brian Latell: El ejército cubano y la dinámica de la transición ( Memento of the original on 11 October 2011 at the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link is automatically inserted and not yet tested. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 343 kB) Cuba Transition Project (University of Miami), 2003 (?), Accessed on September 9, 2011 (Spanish) 
5. ↑ Senén Casas Regueiro In: EcuRed , accessed on September 8, 2011 (Spanish)
6. ↑ http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=320535&Itemid=1
7. ↑ Cuban Minister of the Armed Forces General Julio Casas Regueiro Passes Away in Havana  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Juventud Rebelde from September 6, 2011, accessed on November 7, 2011 (English)  
8. ↑ Julio, de vuelta al II Frente ( Memento of the original from May 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Granma of November 7, 2011, accessed on November 7, 2011 (Spanish)