Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Callejas, Gaesa’s Executive President, passes away
Major General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, executive president of the Business Administration Group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces in Cuba -known as Gaesa-, died this Friday, July 1, in Havana due to cardiorespiratory arrest.
The news was made public by the official media and it is a great uncertainty in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party, given that López-Callejas was known for pulling various strings within the Cuban government.
A few months ago López-Callejas had been presented as deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power for the municipality of Remedios and “he treasures a brilliant record of services to the Homeland and to the Cuban Revolution”, according to the media.
Although his visibility in the media was low, he had begun to be seen more recently in his position as advisor to the President of the Republic of Cuba.
According to the Cuban parliament’s website, López Callejas was born on January 19, 1960 in the municipality of Santa Clara, Villa Clara province.
During his student years he held various responsibilities in the Student Federation of Secondary Education (FEEM) and completed his higher studies in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) with a Gold degree. He was a member of the Young Communist League (UJC).
At the end of his university studies he joined the Ministry of Foreign Trade. He was called to Active Military Service in the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), where he served as liaison between the Minister of the FAR and the Directorate of Economic Collaboration of the same organization. In 1990 he served in the Military Counterintelligence and carried out an internationalist mission in the People’s Republic of Angola.
He held the position of Head of Section and of the V Department of Minfar and, at the same time, in 1996, he was appointed to head the Business System administered by the Business Administration Group, which groups together entities from the Tourism, Foreign Trade and Interior sectors, among others.
He was a member of the Economic Policy Commission since its creation in August 2006 and in 2011 he headed the Government Commission for the attention to the Mariel Special Development Zone. In October 2011 he was appointed president of the Cuban Institute for the Coordination of Collaboration and Investments with the Republic of Angola.
He was a member of the Party’s Central Committee since 2011 and of its Political Bureau since 2021.
He received numerous decorations for the results of his work, among which are: the Ignacio Agramonte medals first class, Combatiente Internacionalista second class, for the Cuba-RPA Victory, Combatiente por la Producción y la Defensa, as well as the distinctions For the Service of the FAR.
