Carlos Fernández Gondín

Gondín was born in Santiago de Cuba into a working class family. He joined the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces in 1958, which was led by Raúl Castro, and fought against Fulgencio Batista and later, against the United States in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was a founding member of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965. In 1975, Gondín helped Angola to gain independence from Portugal; he was one of the first Cubans to visit Angola, and was appointed second chief of the military mission there. Gondín was a Major general and counterintelligence chief of the Cuban Army. From 1989, Gondín was the First Deputy Minister, and in 1993, he became a representative of the National Assembly of People's Power, a role that he held until his death. From 2015 until his death, he was the country's Minister of the Interior, replacing Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, who resigned for health reasons; Gondín had previously been the Deputy Interior Minister. In 2015, Gondín met with then United States Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Gondín was awarded the titles "Hero of the Cuban Republic" and the Máximo Gómez Order.

In 2015, Gondín was reported to have had a stroke, and in 2016, Gondín did not attend a 55th anniversary celebration for the Cuban Interior Ministry, due to ill-health. Gondín died on 7 January 2017 from "complications of a long chronic disease." On 10 January 2017, Julio Cesar Gandarilla took over the role of Minister of the Interior.