Dictator of the Month: December, 2004Dictator of the Month: December, 2004
| Fidel
Alejandro Castro Ruz
Take me to the picture gallery Fact Sheet Name: Dr. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
|
Biography
Dr. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, commonly known as
Fidel Castro, (born August 13, 1926) has ruled Cuba since 1959, when he
overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista and turned his country into
the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere. He held the title of
premier until 1976, when he became president of the Council of State and
the Council of Ministers. He has been the First Secretary of the Communist
Party of Cuba since its inception in 1965. His brother Raúl, is the
number two official in the country. As of October, 2004, Fidel Castro
stated that Raúl would assume authority over Cuba should he become ill. Early life and rise to power Born in Birán, near Mayarí, in the modern-day
province of Holguín (then a part of the now-defunct Oriente province),
Fidel spent his early years with his wealthy farming family. The son of Ángel
Castro y Argiz, an immigrant from Galicia, 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, from where he graduated 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 Prío Socarrás, after which
the elections were cancelled. 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. 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 point, Castro
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." Many people (both critics and supporters of Castro)
contend that the revolution never had anything to do with Jeffersonian
philosophy, and that Castro was concealing his true aims. 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 an 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 US embargo. Foreign policy 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 Dwight D. 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 Soviet Union when the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to
process the oil they said were expropriated. 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 Soviet Union. On April 17, 1961, two days after bombardments by
B-26s 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 Río 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 1960s, 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 uprising and causing a
lot of civilian casualties. Cuban Missile Crisis 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 U.S.
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. In a personal letter to Khrushchev written on October
27, 1962, Castro urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike against
the United States if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first
strike response. Soviet field commanders in Cuba were, however, authorized
to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. 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 600, according to Cuban
sources) over the following years. Relations with Canada and Trudeau 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 U.S. 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. Relations with The Soviet Union Usually described as cordial and cooperative,
Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union was at times strained. After
a trial in Cuba of thirty five members of a pro-Moscow “microfaction”
charged with activities including “clandestine propaganda against the
Party line”, Petrovich Shlyapnikov, the chief KGB advisor to the General
Intelligence Directorate was sent back to Moscow as part of the alleged
conspiracy with the “microfaction”. This coupled with what Moscow saw
as wasteful use of Soviet aid, and a perception of an increasingly haughty
and indignant demeanor, led to Soviet threats of cutting off aid to Cuba. As soon as he returned from Havana, Shlyapnikov
immediate lobbied for a reduction in oil exports to Cuba. Shipments were
cut by 40%, which slowed Cuban industrial output drastically. On August 23, 1968 Castro made a public gesture to
the Soviet Union that reaffirmed their support in him. Two days after the
Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Castro took to the airwaves and
publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people
about the Czechoslovakian “counter-revolutionaries”, who “were
moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of
imperialists”. He called the leaders of the rebellion “the agents of
West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble”. In return for his public
loyalty to the Soviet Union when many traditional Soviet allies were
questioning the brutal putdown of the Czechs, the Soviets bailed out the
Cuban economy with extra loans and an immediate increase in oil exports. 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 September 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, homosexuals and
mentally disabled citizens. Criticisms of the United States 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-à-vis the developing
countries, including growing costs of servicing foreign debt. Castro claims that, during the Cold War, the United
States engaged in a variety of covert, and often deadly attacks against
Cuba in order to weaken the entire country as a way of weakening Castro's
government. He points out the alleged infection of Cuban pigs by
anti-Castro organisations supported by the CIA in 1971 with African swine
fever, a disease of pigs not previously reported in the Americas. This
started an epidemic which forced the Cubans to destroy half of all the
pigs on the island in order to get it under control. He also claims that, in 1981 the CIA started a Dengue
fever epidemic that killed 158 people. Between 1956 and 1958 the US Army
tested whether mosquitos of the type Aedes Aegypti - which are carriers of
Dengue fever could be used as weapons of biological warfare. During a
trial in New York in 1984 a Cuban exile said that in the late 1980s a ship
travelled to Cuba "with a mission to carry some germs to introduce
them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy
... which later on produced results that were not what we had expected ...
and it was used against our own people, and with that we did not
agree". There may have been CIA efforts at sabotaging crops
using pathogens. Fidel Castro has definitely been the target of several
CIA-sponsored attempts at his life, but none have occurred since the early
1960's. Economic policy 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,
many to Miami, Florida, where activists established a large 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 dissolution of the Soviet
Union in 1991 had severe repercussions on the Cuban economy. The U.S. economic sanctions, which include a general
travel ban for American tourists to Cuba, has been cited by Castro
supporters as a 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." On October 25, 2004, Castro announced that USD
currency in Cuba would be banned on November 8. The dollar was legalized
in Cuba in 1993 following the fall of the Soviet Union, which had deprived
the country of its primary source of economic aid and resulted in a
general decline of living standards. 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. In a recognition of his
efforts, on April 12, 1988, Castro became the only head of government to
receive the Health for All medal from the World Health Organization. United States government sources reject the claims of
significant achievements by Castro's regime and argue that "Cuba has
at best maintained what were already high levels of development in health
and education". 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, and, according
to the CIA World Factbook, it is the highest life expectancy in Latin
America. 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. Education and the literacy campaign 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 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. Popular image 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 Martí and 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. On October 20, 2004, Castro fractured a knee and an arm when he tripped and fell at the end of a televised public speech in Santa Clara. A government statement added: "His general health is good, and spirits excellent." There has been speculation about his health since he apparently fainted during a lengthy speech in June, 2001. Human rights and relationship with the United States The Castro regime has frequently been 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. Justifying his actions, Castro sees this as an appropriate response to his claims that the United States is continuing to engage in covert activities against Cuba using spies and mercenaries, and claims that many human rights activists are in fact agents of the United States. Declassified documents now evidence that the US has used such tactics in the past, including counterfeiting Cuban currency, covert military actions, diversions and sabotage. Opposition to Castro's regime is thus frequently portrayed as illegitimate, and the result of an ongoing conspiracy fostered solely by Cubans with ties to the United States or the CIA. Many Castro supporters thus feel that Castro's often harsh measures are justified to prevent the United States from installing a foreign or puppet leader, which is assumed to be Washington's ultimate goal. Castro's opposition, though, maintains that he uses the United States as an excuse to justify his continuing political control. The United States government maintains the continuing
US foreign policy goal in regards to Cuba is to bring democracy to the
nation. The Cuban-immigrant population of the US state of Florida, which
holds considerable political clout in US electoral politics, has
significant influence in US relations with Cuba. Supporters also contend that Cuba's human rights record is by far better than that of many other countries in the Caribbean or Latin America, typically referring to those that were ruled by US-backed anti-Communist military regimes, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. They also argue the human rights record and quality of life in Cuba is better than under his predecessor, Fulgencio Batista. Opponents of Castro point out that around the time of
the Soviet Union's collapse, several Latin American countries made a
successful transition to democracy, and that Cuba is the only remaining
dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere. Castro's Health Recently, rumors have grown about the state of Castro's health. In January 2004, Luis Eduardo Garzon, the mayor of Bogota, said that Castro "seemed very sick to me" following a meeting with him during a vacation in Cuba. In May 2004, Castro's physician denied that his health was failing, and speculated that he would live to be 140 years old. Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein said that the "press is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem," but maintained that Castro was in good health On October 20, 2004, Castro fell off a stage following a speech he gave at a rally. The fall fractured his knee and arm. He underwent three hours of surgery to repair his kneecap. After his fall, Castro wrote a letter that was read on Cuban television and published in newspapers. In it, he assured the public that he was fine and would "not lose contact with you Asked if he wished Castro a speedy recovery, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher responded "No," and urged for a change in Cuban leadership. This article is from www.wikipedia.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro and is subject to GNU-FDL license for free documentation List of authors at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fidel_Castro&action=history
|
Back
to English Main
Diese Seite auf Deutsch
anzeigen!
Cast your vote!