Revolution lives on for Cubans
60 years later, citizens still divided over effects of communist movement
HAVANA: On Jan 1, Cuba will mark the 60th anniversary of the communist revolution that brought the late and enigmatic leader Fidel Castro to power. Here, four Cubans talk about what the revolution still means to them.
The ex-combatant
For 97-year-old Alejandro Ferras Pellicer, the revolution is still alive. He was the oldest of a group of 100 rebels who joined Castro in a failed attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba in 1953, which is widely considered to have launched the Cuban revolution.
On Jan 1, 1959, Ferras Pellicer was an exile living in the United States as the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista fled his island homeland. Ferras Pellicer left his wife behind to take “the first plane” to Havana.
When confronted by the Batista dictatorship, “revolution was necessary” because it was about “fighting for the future”.
Castro died in 2016. His brother Raul took over as Cuba’s president from 2008 until earlier this year, when he passed the baton to the first non-Castro post-revolutionary leader, Miguel Diaz-Canel.
“We’re keeping Fidel alive,” said Ferras Pellicer, and “continuing the revolution” which “can last 50 more years” with public support.
The athlete
Ana Fidelia Quiros was a world champion and Olympic medallist in track and field. In 1993, she survived a stove explosion in her home that left burns over 40% of her body and killed the child she was expecting.
“It’s thanks to the revolution that I was able to train as an athlete, become a better person and let me get through what could have been a fatal accident,” said Quiros, now 55.
Two years later, the “Caribbean Storm” won her first world title in Gothenburg before repeating the feat in Athens in 1997.
Such a Lazarus moment “wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t live in a country like this one, where medicine is free”.
The revolution also helped make sport accessible “for everyone”, turning the island nation into an Olympic over-achiever.
The dissident
The son of a communist leader, Vladimiro Roca, 76, has nonetheless been one of the regime’s fiercest critics for many years.
Despite following in his father’s footsteps – Blas Roca was a Marxist theorist and parliamentary president from 1976-81 – he grew disillusioned with the revolution.
“I fought for a democratic revolution and not for a family dictatorship,” said the former fighter pilot, who was jailed for five years in 1997 for opposing the regime.
“People are afraid of repression,” he said. “The revolution will blow itself out.”
The doctor
Lourdes Garces was part of the Cuban humanitarian mission to Brazil that abruptly ended last month after Cuban authorities reacted with indignation to criticisms from Brazil’s far-right president-elect Jair Bolsonaro.
The 54-year-old doctor said the revolution is “developing and can still offer a lot more”.
“It has shown solidarity in every sector, be it in culture, education, sport or health.”
She refuted claims that Cuba uses its medics to indulge in political indoctrination known as “white coat diplomacy”.