Fidel Castro Says He Will Die Soon...."I'll be 90 years old soon," Castro said

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN  Apr. 19, 2016 

HAVANA (AP) — Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro delivered a valedictory speech Tuesday to the Communist Party that he put in power a half-century ago, telling party members he is nearing the end of his life and exhorting them to help his ideas survive.

Fidel Castro sits as he clasps hands with his
 brother, Cuban President Raul Castro, right, 

"I'll be 90 years old soon," Castro said in his most extensive public appearance in years. "Soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them."

Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party's highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command. That announcement and Fidel Castro's speech together delivered a resounding message that the island's revolutionary generation will remain in control even as its members age and die, relations with the U.S. are normalized, and popular dissatisfaction grows over the country's economic performance.

Fifty-five years after Fidel Castro declared that Cuba's revolution was socialist and began installing a single-party system and centrally planned economy, the Cuban government is battling a deep crisis of credibility. more