Cuban Revolution Leader, Fidel Castro praised the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Monday as a champion of the poor and said the Cubans had lost their best friend.

In the first remarks by the Cuban leader following Chavez's death last March 5, Fidel Castro said the news, although not unexpected, had been a hard blow.

 "On the 5th of March, in the afternoon hours, died the best friend the Cuban people had in their history," Fidel wrote in a column published in Communist Party newspaper Granma.

"We have the honour of having shared with the Bolivarian leader the same ideals of social justice and of support for the exploited," he said, adding "the poor are the poor in any part of the world."

Chavez, 58, died of cancer at a hospital in Caracas Tuesday. During his two-year battle with cancer, he had undergone four operations in Cuba and spent months receiving treatment on the island.

 Venezuela had become Cuba's staunch economic and political ally since Chavez won his first presidential election in 1998.

Source: Radio Havana Cuba