• Vice - President of the Council of State of Cuba Juan Almeida Bosque, 1927

   

Juan Almeida Bosque (February 17, 1927 – September 11, 2009) was a Cuban politician and one of the original commanders of the Cuban Revolution. After the 1959 revolution, he was a prominent figure in the Communist Party of Cuba; at the time of his death in 2009, he was a Vice President of the Cuban Council of State and was its third ranking member. He received several decorations, and both national and international awards, including the title of "Hero of the Republic of Cuba" and the Order of Máximo Gómez.

Almeida was born in a poor area of Havana. He left school at the age of eleven and became a bricklayer. Whilst studying law at the University of Havana in 1952, he became close friends with the revolutionary Fidel Castro and in March of that year joined the Cuban Revolution. In 1953 he joined Fidel and his brother Raúl Castro in the assault on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago, and was arrested and imprisoned with the Castro brothers in the Isle of Pines Prison. During the amnesty of May 15, 1955, he was released and transferred to Mexico.

Almeida returned to Cuba with the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and 78 other revolutionaries on the Granma expedition, and was one of just 12 who survived the initial landing, during which Cuban government forces killed most of the rebels. During the battle, Almeida shouted "No one here gives up!" (alternatively "here, nobody surrenders") to Guevara, which would become a long lived slogan of the Cuban revolution. Almeida was also reputed to be a good marksman. Following the landing, Almeida continued to fight Fulgencio Batista's government forces in the guerilla war in the Sierra Maestra mountain range. In 1958, he was promoted to Commander and head of the Santiago Column of the Revolutionary Army. During the revolution, as a black man in a prominent position, he served as a symbol to Afro - Cubans of change from Cuba's discriminatory past.

After the success of the Cuban revolution in January 1959, Almeida commanded large parts of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba. In April 1961, during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, as Major Juan Almeida, he was head of the Central Army, with headquarters in Santa Clara, Cuba. Later, he was promoted to General, and was chosen as a member of the central committee and political bureau, and he has held a number of other government positions.

He was honored with the title of Commander of the Revolution, and at the time of his death was one of just three living holders of that title, the others being Guillermo García and Ramiro Valdés.

In 1998, Almeida was named a "Hero of the Republic of Cuba" by Fidel Castro. Almeida also headed the National Association of Veterans and Combatants of the Revolution. His interests included writing and music, of which several books and recordings have been made, including the popular trilogy Military prison, Exile and Disembarkation. He was also a songwriter and one of his songs, "Dame un traguito" (English:"Give me a Sip") was popular in Cuba for several years.

On September 11, 2009, Juan Almeida died of a heart attack, aged 82. On September 13, a memorial ceremony was held in the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, with several other memorials occurring across Cuba. A national day of mourning was also declared, with flags flown at half mast. The memorial service was attended by tens of thousands of his countrymen, who queued across the Plaza to view a large photograph of Almeida. The service was initiated by President Raúl Castro, who placed a pink rose in front of the photograph, but did not make a statement. Fidel Castro, who at the time had not been seen in public since he resigned as president in 2008, did not attend the ceremony, but did release a statement praising Almeida's "exemplary conduct during more than half a century of heroic and victorious resistance". Fidel Castro also sent a wreath to the memorial, that was placed alongside that of Fidel's brother, Raúl's. Other senior government and Communist Party members also attended the ceremony.

Internationally, there were several tributes. The President of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, sent a message to Raúl Casto, in which he expressed his sadness, describing Almeida as a great friend of the Vietnamese people who contributed to the ties of solidarity between the two nations. In Bolivia, the Coco and Inti Peredo Foundation (named after two brothers who died alongside Che Guevara) paid tribute as well. The Secretary of the Colombian Communist Party, Jaime Caicebo, also expressed his condolences. Additionally, a musical homage was held in Moscow where the collection of Almeida's songs entitled "El Bolero Cubano" (Cuban Ballads) were to be released for the first time in Russian translation.

Almeida did not want his body to lie in state. He was given a military funeral at a mausoleum in mountains near to Santiago de Cuba, an area in which he fought during the revolution.