SPECIAL REPORT FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA October 13, 1997 E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org http://www.radiohc.org LAST SESSION OF THE 5TH CONGRESS OF THE CUBAN COMMUNIST PARTY The 5th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party wound up Friday evening. After three days of intense debate the island's political organization elected a new Central Committee and a Political Bureau. The new Central Commitee elected by secret ballot by the 5th Party Congress ratified in its first plenary session Fidel and Raul Castro as first and second secretaries of the island's top political organization Melba Hernandez, Heroin of the 1953 attack on the Moncada Garrison, led by Fidel Castro, announced the decision on behalf of the newly elected Central Committe. Fidel Castro then preswented the 23 other members of the Political Bureau. The newly elected Central Committe, which now has 150 members also ratified Ricardo Alarco, Juan Almeida Bosque, Jose Ramon Balaguer, Concepcion Campa, Julio Casas, Leopoldo Cintra Frias, Abelardo Colome Ibarra, Yadira Garcia, Alfredo Jordan, Carlos Lage, Esteban Lazo, Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, Abel Prieto, Roberto Robaina, Ulises Rosales and Pedro Ross as Political Bureau Members. New members of the Political Bureau are party leaders in the provinces of Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas and Sancti Spiritus, Jorge Luis Sierra, Juan Carlos Robinson, Misael Enamorado and Pedro Saez, respectively, as well as Basic Industry Minister Marcos Portal, and Eastern Army Chief, Ramon Espinosa. The 5th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party culminates a process that involved the party's more than 700 thousand members islandwide. Its resolutions, and guidelines will set the pace for the stratregies and actions that the country will undertake in the final years of this century and into the new millenium. The 3-day event concentrated most of its time to discuss a matter of utmost importance for the country: the economy. During the event's last session on Friday, reflections on the country's economic reality were heard, as well as the challenges Cuba will have to face to overcome the special period. In his closing remarks to the event, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said he was impressed by the quality and depth of the views and experiences expressed during the congress. "Everything said is not only worthy because of its content, but also because of the opportunity that it provides at the moment when it's stated, and today socialism and revolutionary ideas need more than ever that kind of contribution" noted Fidel Castro. "Today -he added- the Cuban people are more conscious and responsible than before the Special Period. Never -he said- has Cuba enjoyed more glory and prestige around the world. "Sincerity has prevailed in the discussion of the matters, no one can question the honesty and the frankness of those who have had the time to express themselves, and we see that there are many possibilities for progress. I leave this congress more confident than ever. And we had to have strong convictions when we set the goal of saving the country, the revolution and socialism, and fighting without the socialist bloc or Soviet Union, and defending our ideas when everywhere people ran for cover, when in many places those who were communists began to swear that they had repented.....today, we defend the ideas that they abandoned, and life and history are showing that we were right, and are strengthening our convictions". In his closing remarks Fidel Castro spoke about the party's strategic interest in bringing into its top leadership young cadres "We have to take into consideration the need of seeing new Party cadres. We see that the amount of people that made up the 1st Central Committee have been reduced, then we have the intermediate generation which has grown with representative like Esteban Lazo, already a seasoned Party leader, when the Revolution triumphed he was a student. And today he has the great responsability of leading the party in Havana. Bringing in new generations is very important, and history has taught us what happens when leadership fails in a Revolutionary processes we have to guarantee the leadership, and guarantee that the leadership cannot fail, the party cannot afford to see its leadership fail, because it would amount to the destruction of the revolution. In his closing remarks to the 5th Party Congress of the Communist Party, the Cuban leader had words of praise for Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara. "Now that we have Che's mortal remains, I guess that we should have more than that, we must preserve his immortal ideals. When we lost Camilo, then we said that there many Camilos in the Cuban people, and we then repeated that when Che fell, when I said how relative that death w and how alive and ever present he is among ourselves" [c] 1997. Radio Habana Cuba All rights reserved Articles cannot be reproduced, reprinted or published in any system without the consent of RHC. This prohibition includes the distribution of this material via Usenet News, "bulletin board" services, e-mail lists, print media, radio and television. For the complete RADIO HAVANA CUBA NEWSCAST and other features, please write for our daily broadcast schedule. We welcome your comments and suggestions. 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