Ramiro Valdés Menéndez (born 28 April 1932) is a Cuban politician. He became a Government Vice President in the 2009 shake-up by Raúl Castro.

Biography

A veteran of the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...

, Valdés fought alongside

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

at the

attack on the Moncada Barracks The Moncada Barracks were military barracks in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba named after General Guillermo Moncada, a hero of the Cuban War of Independence. On 26 July 1953, the barracks was the site of an armed attack by a small group of revolutiona ...

in 1953 and was a founding member of the

26th of July Movement The 26 July Movement (; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, part of an at ...

. He was one of the revolutionaries on the ''Granma'' expedition and one of the 12 who survived the initial landing. He has been a member of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the highest organ of the central committee in communist parties. The term is also sometimes used to refer to similar organs in socialist and Islamist parties, such as the UK Labour Party's NEC or the Poli ...

of the

Communist Party of Cuba The Communist Party of Cuba (, PCC) is the sole ruling party of Cuba. It was founded on 3 October 1965 as the successor to the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution, which was in turn made up of the 26th of July Movement and Popu ...

since October 1965, and has held many important governmental posts, including those of Interior Minister and Vice-Prime Minister. On 31 August 2006, he was named Minister of Informatics and Communications. In 1960, he was a member of Raúl Castro delegation that visited Czechoslovakia where he received intelligence training. He is the father of the Cuban composer Ramiro Valdés Puentes, awarded Cuba's First National Prize of Composition, who currently lives in Miami and in 2004 was the protagonist of a Telemundo 51 news series titled "The Commander's Son".

Minister of the Interior

By 1969, the Politburo, the former central policy-making and governing body of the Cuban Communist party, decided to remove Valdés from the Ministry of the Interior, replacing him with

Sergio del Valle Jiménez Sergio may refer to: * Sergio (name), for people with the given name Sergio * Sergio (carbonado), the largest rough diamond ever found * Sergio, the mascot for the Old Orchard Beach Surge baseball team * ''Sergio'', a 2009 documentary film about ...

, a comandante and MINFAR's first deputy minister. In 1978, Fidel removed del Valle and brought back Valdés as Minister of the Interior. Expectations for improvement failed, and personal rivalries and tensions increased. By the time of the Third Party Congress in 1986, Valdés was again gone as Minister of the Interior and as a member of the Politburo and it seemed as if his political career was over. But then, he landed a new job as director of national electronics (Copextel). In the beginning, it was a very small project, but soon it became the hub for the development of Cuba's telecom, software and IT industry—in growing association with Japanese, Korean, and Chinese enterprises. The 1990s was Copextel's coming-of-age and also heralded the creation of Cuba's Industrial Group for Electronics, attached to the Ministry of Steel and Machinery (SIME). Later this Industrial Group of Electronics came under the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications. In less than 10 years, Valdés' group had become the single most important entity within the new ministry, obviously becoming the man to replace the outgoing minister. In February 2007, Valdés defended Internet restrictions as a response to US aggression. The Internet "constitutes one of the tools for global extermination" he said, referring to US policies, "but is also necessary to continue to advance down the path of development." At an international conference on communications in Havana, Valdés defended Cuba's "rational and efficient" use of the Internet but warned that "the wild colt of new technologies can and must be controlled." He was once again readmitted to the Politburo after Raúl's official nomination as President of the Council of State in February 2008. In February 2010 Valdés, based on declarations from Cuba and Venezuela, visited Venezuela as part of a Cuban delegation that was intended to "help Venezuela reduce energy consumption".

Retirement

In April 2021, it was agreed that Valdés would not rejoin the Politburo of the Cuban government.

References

External links

Biography by CIDOB
(in Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Valdes Menendez, Ramiro 1932 births Living people People from Artemisa Politicians from Havana Interior ministers of Cuba Information ministers of Cuba Cuban revolutionaries Cuban soldiers Communist Party of Cuba politicians People of the Cuban Revolution