Lebanese officials mourn the death of Fidel Castro

Lebanese officials  mourned on Saturday the death of former Cuban President Fidel Castro  and offered condolences to Cuba and Casrto’ s  family .

Lebanese President Michel Aoun sent a cable  to Cuban President Raul Castro and the Cuban people mourning the loss of whom he called “the supreme commander of the Cuban revolution.”

Aoun said Fidel Castro had “left his print on the conscience of the world for nearly a whole century,” adding that Castro’s “political stances and nationalist propositions formed a unique path.”

Speaker Nabih Berri also sent cables to the Cuban president and Cuban Speaker Esteban Lazo Hernandez, offering sympathies on his and the Lebanese Parliament’s behalf.

The Lebanese Communist Party issued a statement expressing sorrow for the loss of  Castro ” whom our peoples will not forget”.

“He supported with all the might of his country the nations of Africa, Palestine and Arab nations for liberation and independence,” the  Communist statement added.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt mourned Castro as the “legend that confronted colonialism and siege… the historical leader of liberation movements.”

Earlier Hezbollah official Ammar Musawi called the Cuban embassy in Beirut to convey the party’s sorrow over the loss of what they called the “historical figure whose life was a herald for freedom fighters around the world.”

Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90.

Castro’s reign over the island-nation 90 miles from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The bearded revolutionary, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died eight years after ill health forced him to formally hand power over to his younger brother Raul, who announced his death late Friday on state television.