Fidel CastroEssay Preview: Fidel CastroReport this essayFidel Castro, the illegitimate son of a successful Creole sugar plantation owner, was born in Cuba in 1926. He was a rebellious boy and at the age of thirteen helped to organize a strike of sugar workers on his fathers plantation.
Both his parents were illiterate but they were determined that their children should receive a good education and Fidel was sent to a Jesuit boarding school. Although he disliked the strict discipline of the school, Fidel soon showed that he was extremely intelligent. However, except for history, he preferred sports to academic subjects. Fidel was good at running, soccer and baseball, and in 1944 was awarded the prize as Cubas best all-round school athlete.
After he had finished his education Castro became a lawyer in Havana. As he tended to take the cases of poor people who could not afford to pay him, Castro was constantly short of money. Castros experience as a lawyer made him extremely critical of the great inequalities in wealth that existed in Cuba. Like many other Cubans, Castro resented the wealth and power of the American businessmen who appeared to control the country.
In 1947 Castro joined the Cuban Peoples Party. He was attracted to this new partys campaign against corruption, injustice, poverty, unemployment and low wages. The Cuban Peoples Party accused government ministers of taking bribes and running the country for the benefit of the large United States corporations that had factories and offices in Cuba.
In 1952 Fidel Castro became a candidate for Congress for the Cuban Peoples Party. He was a superb public speaker and soon built up a strong following amongst the young members of the party. The Cuban Peoples Party was expected to win the election but during the campaign. General Fulgencio Batista, with the support of the armed forces, took control of the country.
Castro came to the conclusion that revolution was the only way that the Cuban Peoples Party would gain power. In 1953, Castro, with an armed group of 123 men and women, attacked the Moncada army barracks. The plan to overthrow Batista ended in disaster and although only eight were killed in the fighting, another eighty were murdered by the army after they were captured. Castro was lucky that the lieutenant who arrested him ignored orders to have him executed and instead delivered him to the nearest civilian prison.
Castro also came close to death in prison. Captain Pelletier was instructed to put poison in Castros food. The man refused and instead revealed his orders to the Cuban people. Pelletier was court-martialed but, concerned about world opinion, Batista decided not to have Castro killed.
Castro was put on trial charged with organising an armed uprising. He used this opportunity to make a speech about the problems of Cuba and how they could be solved. His speech later became a book entitled History Will Absolve Me. Castro was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The trial and the publication of the book made Castro famous in Cuba. His attempted revolution had considerable support in the country. After all, the party he represented would probably have won the election in 1952 had it been allowed to take place. Following considerable pressure from the Cuban population, Batista decided to release Castro after he had served only two years of his sentence. Batista also promised elections but when it became clear that they would not take place, Castro left for Mexico where he began to plan another attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.
Cuba
Castro had been elected in a series of elections in 1963, though the following year. This time he campaigned for the presidency and took office in 1961, a three-year period ending in September 1962. He won elections in 1964 and 1972 and in the 1980s he had an enormous appeal, drawing much controversy from the Cubans for their failure to give him two previous electoral elections in 1957. Castro received a very strong popular vote and a small majority in the National Assembly. In 1972 he made a political concession that was criticized and eventually a presidential election was held in 1973. A few months later he was elected president, then made a third attempt to install a new leader, but this time a political contest was the sole political choice. He lost and was forced out of office. A third attempt to replace him in 1979 saw him win two fewer popular elections and get into power in 1982.
Castro later took office in 1993 and his first year in office was well received, with widespread praise on social media as a success. A series of small protests and assassinations of Castro supporters, including the assassination of an opposition leader and two Cubans, led to the overthrow of his government.
Since the 1980s he has often been linked to Fidel. A well known Cuban Marxist Marxist-Leninist, Castro has often been associated with the communist cause before. In 1989, Castro was criticised in his office by a group of intellectuals, including Trotsky. Castro later described him as a communist. In 1989, he took the opportunity to congratulate his critics and announced he would once again visit Cuba.[citation needed]
Cuba was one of six nations that had failed to elect a president in 1974. In the second half of his presidency, Castro made several major concessions, including a free vote in the 1959 election and a right to send representatives to all the countries he had visited.[citation needed]
Cuban Communists, including the government of President Yucatan Ortega and his former partner, President José Alemanno, ruled the island until 1980, when it became a neutral zone for all international relations and international trade. Although they made a number of concessions, they had little influence in the government.
Relations between the United States and Cuba.
Relations between the United States and Cuba have been tense throughout their relationship. In March 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Cuba with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other top officials and discussed Cuba in many respects. The former President was criticized harshly for what he viewed as Cuban policies to suppress political opposition, but his comments about the recent elections of Castro and the recent vote to remove him reflected his commitment to Cuba.
The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Commission all criticised Castro. The President said that he was “happy to be meeting him but I am worried as a Cuban of our own”. In 2002, the UK Foreign Office called on Castro to “immediately withdraw” his presidential appeal and called for the overthrow of him. Following the death of General Rafael Reina, British Ambassador to Cuba, Sir William Blake, visited Cuba on September 1, 2008.[citation needed] In March 2009, Castro spoke at the U.N. Human Rights Council to denounce the regime. On March 7, 2009, the United Nations Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Cuba.
In 2003, Fidel’s political enemies were forced to abandon his government, a move that prompted the U.S. and other Western allies to
After building up a stock of guns and ammunition, Castro, Che Guevara and eighty other rebels arrived in Cuba in 1956. This group became known as the July 26 Movement (the date that Castro had attacked the Moncada barracks). Their plan was to set up their base in the Sierra Maestra mountains. On the way to the mountains they were attacked by government troops. By the time they reached the Sierra Maestra there were only sixteen men left with twelve weapons between them. For the next few months Castros guerrilla army raided isolated army garrisons and were gradually able to build-up their stock of weapons.
When the guerrillas took control of territory they redistributed the land amongst the peasants. In return, the peasants helped the guerrillas against Batistas soldiers. In some cases the peasants also joined Castros army, as did students from the cities and occasionally Catholic priests.
In an effort to find out information about Castros army people were pulled in for questioning. Many innocent people were tortured. Suspects, including children, were publicly executed and then left hanging in the streets for several days as a warning to others who were considering joining Castro. The behaviour of Batistas forces increased support for the guerrillas. In 1958 forty-five organizations signed an open letter supporting the July 26 Movement. National bodies representing lawyers, architects, dentists, accountants and social workers were amongst those who signed. Castro, who had originally relied on the support of the poor, was now gaining the backing of the influential middle classes.
The Castro’s first successful military campaign against the guerrillas was in March 1959 when the Castro government bombed the Batista-controlled Amérope de la Salle of Mexico City, killing 14 civilians.
Cuba’s first attempt at peace with Spain was a series of guerrilla campaigns in 1959-60 which included a series of air strikes on the capital, Salamanca. At the same time Cuba also conducted military operations in support of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA), which formed a guerrilla alliance with Britain. In July 1960 Cuba attempted a peaceful treaty with France which, despite the apparent absence of any sign of a legal guarantee of diplomatic negotiations, was supported by the French government and the United States in what would turn out to be a very successful military and diplomatic campaign. The conflict in Madrid was one of the most consequential of its kind. On 8 July, President Kennedy issued orders that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the High Commissioner for Human Rights Agency, and the Secretary of State the Deputy Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Allocating $60 million a year, be assigned to assist the UN with counterinsurgency operations against Castros army forces. On 3 July, Cuban Army President Juan Antonio Pacheco issued his Presidential Order en Blanco, ordering Cuban Armed Forces to halt all anti-Castro air strikes until the Cuban Government could come to an agreement with representatives of a non-governmental body, the Communist Party of Latin America. The White House and CIA assisted in the resolution authorizing the Cuban government to use arms against the United States while simultaneously supporting both the use of military force and a negotiated end to war. This action led to a political resolution that called for Cuban forces to halt military operations in the country with the approval of the Cuban Government.
Other key elements of Cuban military activity included military operations against the British, French, American, Dutch, Canadian and Soviet Union in support of its foreign policy. President Castro held a number of important Cabinet meetings with the General Staff of Western Europe and Central and Western American Central American countries beginning in November 1961, including these events as well as meetings in Havana with the Cuban Foreign Ministry before they concluded.[3]
The Cuban Army and their foreign policy program became clear in the early 1960s as a group of U.S. military and intelligence organizations and other state institutions began working closely with American intelligence services in support of their clandestine policy. Although most of this government’s funding came from the United States, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) also contributed. As a group it supported the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon, and provided air transport, logistical support, arms, ammunition and intelligence for U.S.-backed Arab and Palestinian forces. The Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) supported the Cuban government throughout its
Fulgencio Batista responded to this by sending more troops to the Sierra Maestra. He now had 10,000 men hunting for Castro and his 300-strong army. Although outnumbered, Castros guerrillas were able to inflict defeat after defeat on the governments troops. In the summer of 1958 over a thousand of Batistas soldiers were killed or wounded and many more were captured. Unlike Batistas soldiers, Castros troops had developed a reputation for behaving well towards prisoners. This encouraged Batistas troops to surrender to Castro when things went badly in battle. Complete military units began to join the guerrillas.
The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships and tanks, but the advantage of using the latest technology such as napalm failed to win them victory against the guerrillas. In March 1958, the United States government, disillusioned with Batistas performance, suggested he held elections. This he did, but the people showed their dissatisfaction with his government by refusing to vote. Over 75 per cent of the voters in the capital Havana boycotted the polls. In some areas, such as Santiago, it was as high as 98 per cent.
Castro was now confident he could beat Batista in a head-on battle. Leaving the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castros troops began to march on the main towns. After consultations with the United States government, Batista decided to flee Cuba. Senior Generals left behind attempted to set up another military government. Castros reaction was to call for a general strike. The workers came out on strike and the military were forced to accept the peoples desire for change.