Two aging leaders dismissed in Cuba shake-up

HAVANA (Reuters) - Two aging leaders dating back to the Cuban revolution were among those dismissed in a government reshuffle earlier this month, an official publication said on Tuesday.

The Official Gazette said Osmany Cienfuegos and Pedro Cimet had been removed from their posts as vice presidents in the Cabinet of Ministers, which was not publicly disclosed when the shake-up by President Raul Castro was announced on March 2.

Cienfuegos, 78, is the older brother of Camilo Cienfuegos, who was one of the leaders and most revered figures of the revolution that put Fidel Castro in power in 1959. Camilo Cienfuegos died in an October 1959 plane crash.

Miret, 82, participated in two of the signature events of the revolution -- the 1953 rebel assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba and the voyage of the yacht Granma, which brought Castro's small army to Cuba from Mexico in 1956.

Eight ministers were replaced in the reshuffle, which the ruling Council of State and Castro said was aimed at making the Cuban government more compact and efficient.

Those dismissed included Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Cabinet chief Carlos Lage -- Cuba's most prominent young leaders.

(Reporting by Rosa Tania Valdes and Nelson Acosta; editing by Jeff Franks and Mohammad Zargham)