Fidel Castro's eldest son commits suicide
Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, the son of Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro has committed suicide after a battle with depression, Cuban state-run media has reported.
Diaz-Balart, 68, the oldest son among Fidel's many children, was being treated by a group of doctors for the depression he suffered in the final months of his life. Diaz-Balart was a doctor of sciences, the Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, and served as scientific advisor to the Council of State.
Diaz-Balart was the only son of Fidel and his wife of seven years Mirta Diaz-Balart, who has survived both her late husband and son at 89.
"Fidelito," as he was popularly known in Cuba, was the author of 11 books and over 150 scientific articles on nuclear physics, energy and its relation to environmental studies. In a 2013 interview with RT, he said his interest in the sciences was boosted by the revolution, and that he had studied nuclear physics in the former Soviet Union.
Diaz-Balart appeared on several of RT's programs. The son of the world's most famous revolutionary spoke out against the so-called color revolutions and military interventions masked as promoting democracy to people being “oppressed” by “regimes.”
“Nowadays, you can name whatever you want in a way convenient for your political strategy,” he told 'Worlds Apart' host Oksana Boyko.
Diaz-Balart believed in letting Cuba choose its own path, and rebuffed external criticism about the "slow pace" of Cuban reforms.
“We are used to receiving a receipt from outside. When something is not in place, it should be in place, when something is in place, it’s not enough, if it’s enough, it’s not so fast... The right way of changing things is the way the Cuban people are going to decide to do it.”
WATCH RT's last interview with late 'Fidelito' Castro, Fidel's eldest son
From 1980 to 1992, "Fidelito" was the head of Cuba's nuclear program and lead the efforts to construct a nuclear power plant. Construction froze in 1992, however, when funds ran out after financial arrangements with the now-collapsed Soviet Union were disrupted. Diaz-Balart made few public appearances after that.
His father Fidel, the icon of the Cuban Revolution that shaped the modern communist island state, died aged 90 just over a year ago in November 2016. Fidel served as Cuba's president for 32 years,
