Santiago de Cuba - Cuban intellectuals and artists expressed total identification with the ideas of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, when they rendered posthumous tribute in this city east of the island.

Miguel Barnet, president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba described Fidel Castro as a political genius and authentic revolutionary committed with his people, who broke the traditional political scheme, speaking at the Revolutionary Square Antonio Maceo. He asserted he was a great defender of peace and his ethics made him a paradigm of the 20th and 21st centuries, and defined for Cuba a new concept of nation.

Fidel was a real revolutionary leader with Marti vocation, he said. Nobody went as far as he, because he could combine his virtues of military strategist with those of statesman and his extensive culture, he asserted.

After highlighting his internationalist vocation, he said his geopolitical vision was his most efficient weapon to win the battle against all his enemies.

He also extolled that Fidel Castro recognized from the beginning the importance of culture, reason why one of the first achievements of the Revolution was the literacy campaign, and the creation of institutions to carry forwsard the cultural development of the island.

The book was no longer a privilege to become an article of first need, he explained.

He also asserted that Cuba would not be what it is today if Fidel had not existed, that is why Cubans identify themselves with his ideas and follow his legacy.