Veteran Party member Dennis Toner is joined by the Party’s International Secretary Gerry Grainger(left) and Ciaran McGeough of the Party’s Belfast Secretariat as he lays a wreath in recognition of the life and work of the late Fidel Castro

The Party’s International Secretary, Gerry Grainger has spoken of the ‘real Fidel Castro’ – not the one portrayed in the media over the past week.

‘Despite being a small country faced with a US led economic blockade Cuba has constructed a global programme of extensive development aid and humanitarian assistance and has sent thousands of teachers, doctors and medical staff across the world’ he said

He was speaking at a wreath laying ceremony in Belfast organised by the Workers Party to mark the life and work of the former Cuban president.

‘There will be no monuments, statues or busts of Fidel, no streets or parks named after him – because that is what he wanted – no personality cult’.

‘Fidel belonged not only to Cuba but to the entire world. He was our comrade. He was one of us and that is how we remember him’, Gerry said.