Vietnamese Ambassador to Cuba Duong Minh on November 10 paid last tribute to Raul Valdes Vivo, a former Cuban Party leader and a close friend of Vietnam, who passed away on November 9 at the age of 84.

Raul Valdes Vivo, former Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) Central Committee and former Director of the Party’s ideology school Nico Lopez, started his revolutionary career as a journalist in 1946.

In 1959, he was Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Hoy newspaper, which is now Granma newspaper, the official speaker of the CPC.

In 1965, Raul Valdes Vivo and Marta Rojas Rodriguez visited Vietnam as representatives of the Cuban Committee of Solidarity with South Vietnam . During the visit, they travelled to liberated areas under the control of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and wrote many articles on the Vietnamese people’s war for national freedom.

In the 1970s, he was Cuban Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the only foreign ambassador to the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam .

With experiences from decades working in Vietnam and many visits to the country, Raul Valdes Vivo authored many works on the nation and people of Vietnam, many of which have been translated into Vietnamese such as “Story of Southern Vietnam”, “Southern Vietnam: strategic weapon of the people”, “17 th Parallel and the Embassy in the Jungle” and “The Secret of Ho Chi Minh Trail”.

On behalf of the Party and Government of Vietnam, Ambassador Minh praised the significant contributions of Valdes Vivo to the special and traditional friendship between Vietnam and Cuba , saying that his death brings great sorrow to not only Cuban people but also his Vietnamese friends.-VNA