The Cuban Revolution Has Lost Its Founder and Leader
Fidel Castro, who survived more than 600 assassination attempts and remained in power longer than any other leader in the history of Cuba, died Friday night at the age of 90.
Visibly moved, President Raúl Castro, his younger brother, made the announcement in a brief televised speech. The president said Fidel died at 22:29 local time, and provided no further details. He said his brother’s remains would be cremated.
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Since the triumph of the revolution on Jan. 1, 1959, there has been no significant event or development in Cuba that has not borne Fidel’s distinctive mark. Even while he was ill, he remained a public presence in the country through dozens of articles published in the government-controlled press.
“My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute my own experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era that I had the privilege of living in,” he wrote in one of his articles, published in December 2007.
Fidel Castro was born Aug. 13, 1926 in the remote village of Birán in eastern Cuba. The son of Ángel Castro, a Spanish-born landowner who produced sugarcane, and Lina Ruz, he first attended a rural school.
He completed his primary education in Catholic private schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana, and attended the Belen Jesuit preparatory school, which is now the Military Technical Institute. In 1945 he began his studies at Havana University, and became actively involved in the organised student political struggles.
On Jul. 26, 1953, leading a group of 165 young people, he stormed the Moncada barracks, a strategic military fort in Santiago de Cuba. The armed action failed and he and dozens of the young men were jailed.
He had completed his studies to become a lawyer in June 1950, and defended himself in the trial, where he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In court, he charged that the regime headed by Fulgencio Batista (1951-Jan. 1, 1959) was unconstitutional, and revealed his political plans, in his address that became famous under the title “History Will Absolve Me”.
He left prison on May 15, 1955, thanks to an amnesty for those involved in the attack on the Moncada barracks. He founded the 26th of July revolutionary movement, and on Jul. 7, 1955 he went into exile in Mexico to organise an armed rebellion to overthrow Batista.
From the Sierra Maestra mountains he led the revolutionary movement that triumphed on Jan. 1, 1959. A dove landed on his shoulder and another on the rostrum as he delivered a speech on Jan. 8 in Havana, which gave rise to the popular belief that he was protected by the orishas – deities of African origin worshiped by many in Cuba.
He was sworn in as prime minister on Feb. 16, 1959, a position he stepped down from on Jul. 17, to once again assume the position after a nine-day crisis that led to the resignation of President Manuel Urrutia (1901-1981) and his replacement by Osvaldo Dorticós (1919-1983).
On Apr. 16, 1961, during the funeral for eight victims killed the day before by the bombing of two Cuban airports, he announced that the revolution was Socialist. The next day, he led the forces that defeated, in less than 72 hours, the Bay of Pigs invasion orchestrated by the U.S.
Washington had broken off diplomatic ties with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961. From that point on, the history of relations between the two countries was one of constant conflict, marked by U.S. hostility and moments of serious tension.
Fidel Castro refrained from commenting on the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, on Dec. 17, 2014, but reached with irritation to a speech delivered to the Cuban people by U.S. President Barack Obama during his historic visit to Cuba in March this year, to consolidate the thaw in bilateral relations.
“We don’t need the empire to give us anything,” Castro wrote, rejecting the U.S. leader’s call to forget about the past, without mentioning the more than half-century-old embargo and multiple attacks on Cuba..
Fidel Castro was one of the main protagonist of the Cuban missile crisis, which broke out after U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1960-1963) gave a televised speech on Oct. 22, 1962 announcing that Soviet nuclear warheads had been detected in Cuba.
Castro reacted with indignation to the agreement reached by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and Kennedy for the withdrawal of the missiles without consulting Cuba’s leaders. Kennedy pledged not to attack Cuba. But according to the Cuban government, each new U.S. administration threw that commitment into doubt. (IPS)