Historic Castro photographer dies
2013-01-07 17:50
Madrid - Enrique Meneses, the Spanish journalist who
scored a historic scoop photographing Fidel Castro and his rebels in the Cuban
mountains during their revolution, has died aged 83, his friends said on Monday.
Meneses's photographs of bearded Castro and Che Guevara
in the Sierra Maestra - where he camped with them for four months in 1957 to 1958
- made the cover of Paris Match magazine and became images of reference for the
uprising.
Meneses died on Sunday in Madrid's La Paz hospital after
a long illness, his long-time friend Annick Duval told AFP.
In his seven-decade career, Meneses covered conflicts
such as the Suez crisis and the Bosnian war as well as founding and editing
magazines and broadcasts.
"He was an extraordinary photojournalist but he was
not just a photojournalist. He was a great journalist in every sense,"
Duval said.
It was Meneses's photos of the young rebels, on horseback
and smoking cigars between skirmishes in the Sierra Maestra, that made his mark
on history, his friends said.
"The first photographs from there were his, and they
went around the world," Duval said.
"He was the one who made Fidel Castro's revolution
known."
- SAPA
