Fidel Castro
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Fidel Castro
Early life
Born in Birán, Cuba, near MayarÃÂ, Fidel spent his early years with his wealthy farming family. The son of ÃÂngel Castro y Argiz, an immigrant from Spain, and his cook Lina Ruz González), Castro was educated at Jesuit schools, including the preparatory school Colegio Belén in Havana. In 1945, he went to the University of Havana to study law, graduating in 1950.
Castro practiced law in a small partnership between 1950 and 1952. He intended to stand for parliament in 1952 for the "Orthodox Party" but a coup d'état led by General Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government of Carlos Prio Socarras, leading to the cancellation of elections. Castro charged Batista with violating the constitution in court, but his petition was refused. In response, Castro organized a disastrous armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in Oriente province on July 26, 1953. Over eighty of the attackers were killed, and Castro was taken prisoner, tried, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. (Castro used the closing arguments in the case to deliver "History Will Absolve Me" [1], a passionate speech defending his actions and explaining his political views.) He was released in a general amnesty in May 1955 and went into exile in Mexico and the United States.
He returned to Cuba with a number of other exiles, clandestinely sailing from Mexico to Cuba on the 60-ft pleasure yacht Granma. They were called the 26th of July Movement. At this stage Castro was not yet a communist or even a socialist. He described himself and his movement as believing in "Jeffersonian philosophy" and adhering to the "Lincoln formula" of cooperation between capital and labor. As late as 1959, Castro told U.S. News and World Report that he had "no intention of nationalizing any industries."
The 26th of July Movement's first action was in Oriente province on December 2, 1956. Only twelve of the original eighty men survived to retreat into the Sierra Maestra Mountains and from there wage a guerrilla war against the Batista government. The survivors included Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Castro's movement gained popular support and grew to over 800 men. On May 24, 1958, Batista launched seventeen battalions against Castro in Operación Verano. Despite being outnumbered, Castro's forces scored a series of stunning victories, aided by massive desertion and surrenders from Batista's army. On New Year's Day 1959 Batista and president-elect Carlos Rivero Aguero fled the country, and Castro's forces took Havana.
Religion
Castro is a confirmed atheist and has not been a practicing Catholic since his childhood. Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro on January 3, 1962. This was consistent with a 1949 decree by Pope Pius XII forbidding Catholics from supporting communist governments. For Castro, who had previously renounced his Roman Catholicism, this was an event of very little consequence, nor was it expected to be. It was aimed at undermining support for Castro among Catholics; however, there is little evidence that it did.
His relations with Pope John Paul II have been somewhat better. In the early 1990s Castro agreed to loosen restrictions on religion and even permitted church going Catholics to join the Cuban Communist Party. In 1998, Castro hosted the pope on his visit to Cuba, the first by a ruling pontiff to the island. Pope John Paul II was extremely critical of both the Castro regime and the USembargo.
Initially the United States was quick to recognize the new government. Castro became prime minister in February, but friction with the United States soon developed when the new government began expropriating property owned by major U.S. corporations (United Fruit in particular), proposing compensation based on property tax valuations that for many years the same companies had managed to keep artificially low. Castro visited the White House in April 1959, and met with Vice President Richard Nixon. Supposedly Eisenhower snubbed Castro, giving the excuse that he was playing golf, and he left Nixon to speak to him and discern whether or not he was a Communist. Castro's economic policies had caused some concerns in Washington that Castro was a Communist with an allegiance to the Soviet Union. Following the meeting Nixon remarked that Castro was "naive" but not necessarily a Communist.
In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon after. To the concern of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba continued to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union. A variety of pacts were signed between Castro and Soviet Premier Khrushchev, and Cuba began to receive large amounts of economic and military aid from the USSR.
Castro as a young revolutionary
On April 17, 1961, two days after bombardments by B-26c bearing false Cuban markings, and the day after Castro had described his revolution as a socialist one, the United States sponsored an unsuccessful attack on Cuba. Brigade 2506, a force of about 1,400 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by the CIA, and commanded by CIA operatives Grayston Lynch and William Robertson, landed south of Havana at Playa Girón on the Bay of Pigs. The CIA's assumption was that the invasion would spark a popular uprising against Castro. There was, however, no such uprising. What part of the invasion force made it ashore was captured, while President Kennedy withdrew support at the last minute. Two U. S. supplied support ships, the Houston and the RÃÂo Escondido were sunk by Cuban propeller driven aircraft. Nine were executed in connection with this action. Castro, who was personally calling the shots on the battlefield, gained even more support from ordinary Cubans due to his actions during the attempted invasion.
Later that year, in a nationally broadcast speech on December 2, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was going to adopt Communism.
During the sixties, several smaller-scale attempts to overthrow Castro were made. Cuban exiles, financed and equipped by the CIA tried to copy the style of Castro's revolution, forming small violent gangs operating mainly in the Sierra de Escambray, a remote region near Trinidad, Cuba, hoping for an uprise and causing a lot of civilian casualties.
According to Khrushchev's memoirs, the Soviet Premier conceived the idea of placing missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to further US aggression against the island (or against the Soviet Union directly) while he was vacationing in the Crimea in the spring of 1962. After consultations with his own military he met with a Cuban delegation led by Raúl Castro in July in order to work out the specifics. It was agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBM on Cuban soil, however, American U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed. The US government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons 90 miles south of Miami as an aggressive act and a threat to US security. The Cuban missile crisis resulted with the United States publicly announcing its discovery on October 22, 1962 and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island.
Khruschev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a US commitment not to invade Cuba and to remove American missiles from Turkey. After tensions were defused, relations between the United States and Cuba remained mutually hostile, and the CIA continued to sponsor a number of assassination schemes over the following years.
In 1976, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada, made one of the first state visits to Cuba by a Western leader during the height of the American blockade and personally embraced the Cuban leader. Trudeau provided $4 million in Canadian aid, and arranged a loan for another $10 million. In his speech Trudeau declared, "Long live Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. Long live Cuban-Canadian friendship."
Trudeau and Castro continued their friendship after the Canadian Prime Minister left office with Trudeau visiting the Cuban leader several times in the 1980s and 1990s. Castro travelled to Montreal in 2000 to attend Trudeau's funeral.
On March 28, 1980, a bus of asylum seekers crashed through the gates of the Peruvian Embassy in Havana. Over 10,000 Cubans fled to the embassy within 48 hours. Castro announced on April 20 that anyone could leave by boat at the port of Mariel in Havana. Cuban exiles began sailing to Mariel in what became known as the "freedom flotilla". According to U.S. Coast Guard figures 124,776 Cubans had fled their homeland when Castro closed Mariel on Sept. 26.
Although the vast majority of Cubans who fled during the Mariel Boat Lift, were legitimate asylum seekers, Castro used the event as an opportunity to expel an estimated 20,000 convicts and mentally disabled citizens.
Castro remains a vocal critic of United States policies, speaking against the continuing economic embargo and U.S. attempts to topple his government. He has also condemned what he sees as exploitation of developing countries by U.S. corporations and even the state of public health care in the United States. Recently, he has harshly condemned the migration policies of the United States, which severely limit travel of Cuban-Americans to their families in Cuba. Castro also opposes the policies of developed world vis-ÃÂ -vis the developing countries, including growing costs of servicing foreign debt.
Castro consolidated control of the nation by nationalizing industry, expropriating property owned by Cubans and non-Cubans alike, collectivizing agriculture, and enacting policies which he claimed would benefit the population. Many Cubans fled the country, most importantly to Miami, Florida, where they established a large, active anti-Castro community. Because of the embargo imposed by the United States, Cuba then became increasingly dependent on Soviet and eastern block subsidies, worth up to one quarter of the island's gross domestic product, to finance improvements to Cuba's economic conditions. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had severe repercussions on the Cuban economy.
The American economic sanctions, which include a general travel ban for American tourists to Cuba, have been cited by Castro supporters as major factor in Cuba's economic troubles. Supporters of the embargo reply that the United States is the only nation which has an embargo on Cuba, and that Cuba is still free to trade with all other nations. At the same time the United States attempts to forbid foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba, imposes sanctions on foreign companies that would benefit from properties which the United States alleges were taken without compensation, and restricts its own trade with smaller nations that would trade with Cuba.
Cuba is the second most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean (behind the Dominican Republic), providing it with much needed foreign currency. Cubans also receive large amounts of currency (with an estimated value of $850 million annually) from Cuban-Americans who send money back to their relatives or friends. Cuba also receives most of its energy needs in oil from Venezuela partly in exchange for Cuban medical personnel, replacing the previous long supply lines from Eastern Europe over a decade after these subsidies were cut.
In recent years, Castro has invested in biotechnology to support the Cuban economy and to find substitutes for foreign imports of medical supplies. Cuban developments in this area have stirred concern and fears around the potential for biological weapons. Thus in 2002 one of the goals of a visit by former US President, Jimmy Carter, was to inspect Cuban genetic engineering sites. Since then, the Cuban economy has benefited from both the export of medical technology and from "health tourism".
Fidel Castro and a crowd waving the Cuban flag
Education and health care were made available to all in Cuba. UNESCO statistics confirm that Cuba's rate of basic literacy is now among the highest in Latin America.
Infant mortality rates are the lowest in the region, health care is of very high quality and all Cubans receive free milk until the age of six. Besides entertainment, Cuban television broadcasts college-level courses for the adult population.
The Cuban media often highlight the contrast between contented Cuban children and children dealing in drugs, dragged into prostitution, or living in the shantytowns of Bogotá, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, the pueblos jóvenes of Peru, or the favelas of Brazil. In contrast, there is not a sizable population of Cuban children living on the streets.
About 20,000 doctors were dispatched by Cuba around the world to provide medical aid to more than 60 Third World countries.
Castro's leadership of Cuba has remained largely unchallenged. His supporters claim this is because the population believes Castro is responsible for improved living conditions. Castro's opponents believe his continued leadership is due to coercion and repression.
Supporters of Fidel Castro's regime point to Cuba's relatively advanced healthcare and medical system as a success of his government since it came to power in 1959. Much of the post-revolutionary rebuilding of the country focused on children. Cuban life expectancy as of 2002 is only slightly lower than that of the United States.
Critics of Castro's regime allege that although Cuba's infant mortality rate is now the lowest in Latin America, that was also the case before Castro -- when it was also the 13th lowest in the world. Other indicators, however, such as life expectancy that increased from less than 60 years at birth in 1959 to 76.13 years in 2004, clearly demonstrate significant quality of life improvements.
It is generally acknowledged that Cuba has made substantial progress in developing pharmaceuticals. Cuba has its own portfolio of related patents and tries to market its medicine around the world.
Cuba also has improved the literacy of its people. Castro's literacy campaign focused on rural areas where literacy was very low. In a fall 1960 speech before the United Nations, Castro had announced that "Cuba will be the first country of America that, after a few months, will be able to say it does not have one illiterate person." Nearly 270,000 teachers and students were sent across the country to teach those who wanted to learn how to read and write. By 1961, Cuba's illiteracy rate had been reduced from 20 percent to 4 percent. People who completed the course were asked to send a letter to Fidel Castro as a test. Cuba's National Literacy Museum archives more than 700,000 such letters. [1]
An apparent cult of personality around Castro has arisen despite his personal attempts to discourage it. In contrast to many of the world's modern strongmen, Castro has only twice been personally featured on a Cuban stamp. In 1974 he appeared on a stamp to commemorate the visit of Leonid Brezhnev, and in 1999 he appeared on a stamp commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Revolution. There has been a much stronger tendency to encourage reverence for Cuban independence hero José Martàand the "martyrs" of the Cuban revolution such as Camilo Cienfuegos. He rarely appears in public without his military fatigues. Castro himself is famous for his long and detailed speeches which often last several hours and contain lots of data and historical references.
The Castro regime has been frequently accused of numerous human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extra-judicial executions. Many argue that several thousand unjustified deaths have occurred under Castro's decades-long rule.
Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also criticize the censorship, the lack of press freedom in Cuba, the lack of civil rights, the outlawing of political opposition groups and unions, and the lack of free and democratic elections.
On the other hand, Castro sees this as an appropriate response to the United States continuing to engage in secret warfare and terrorism against Cuba using spies and mercenaries, and claims that many human rights activists are in fact agents of the United States. There has even been at least one incident of biological warfare against Cuba using swine fever. Declassified documents now evidence that the US has used such tricks in the past. Many Castro supporters feel that Castro's often harsh measures are justified to prevent the United States from installing a foreign or puppet leader. Opposition to the regime is thus frequently portrayed as illegitimate, and being a United States-led conspiracy.
Supporters also contend that Cuba's human rights record is by far better than that of many other countries in the Caribbean/Latin America region, particularly those that were ruled by U.S.-backed military regimes; this is widely debated, however, particularly in light of the many Latin American countries that returned to democracy during the 1980s and 1990s. They also argue that the human rights record and quality of life in Cuba is better than under his predecessor, Fulgencio Batitsta.
Fidel: A Critical Portrait by Tad SzulcForeign policy
Cuban Missile Crisis
Relations with Canada and Trudeau
Asylum issues
Critique of the United States
Economic policy
Education and health care
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Literacy campaign
Popular image
Human rights
Bibliography