Castro had been in
poor health since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006 and he
formally ceded power to his younger brother Raul Castro two years
later.It was Raul Castro who announced his brother died on Friday evening:-"The
commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this
evening," the president announced on national television just after
midnight Friday (0500 GMT Saturday)."In compliance with Comrade
Fidel's expressed will, his remains will be cremated early in the
morning" on Saturday, said Raul Castro, who took power after his elder
brother Fidel was hospitalized in 2006.
The government on Saturday decreed nine days of mourning.
From
November 26 to December 4, "public activities and shows will cease, the
national flag will fly at half mast on public buildings and military
installations," a statement from the state executive said.
Castro's
ashes will be buried in the southeastern city of Santiago on December 4
after a four-day procession through the country, it added. Santiago was
the scene of Castro's ill-fated first revolution attempt in 1953.
The
bearded Fidel Castro took power in a 1959 revolution and
ruled Cuba for 49 years with a mix of charisma and iron will, creating a
one-party state and becoming a central figure in the Cold War.
He was demonized by the United States and its allies but admired by many around the world, especially socialist revolutionaries in Latin America and Africa.
Transforming
Cuba from a playground for rich Americans into a symbol of resistance
to Washington, Castro outlasted nine U.S. presidents in power.He fended off a CIA-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 as well as countless assassination attempts.His
alliance with Moscow helped trigger the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, which resulted in a
13-day showdown with the United States that brought the world the
closest it has been to nuclear war.
Wearing green military
fatigues and chomping on cigars for many of his years in power, Castro
was famous for long, fist-pounding speeches filled with blistering
rhetoric, often aimed at the United States.In Cuba he got rid of capitalism and won support for bringing schools and
hospitals to the poor. But he also created legions of enemies and
critics, concentrated among Cuban exiles in Miami who fled his rule and
saw him as a ruthless tyrant.
In the end it was not the efforts of
Washington and Cuban exiles nor the collapse of Soviet communism that
ended his rule. Instead, illness forced him to cede power to his younger
brother Raul Castro, provisionally in 2006 and definitively in 2008. Raul since taking over has introduced market-style economic reforms and
agreeing with the United States in December 2014 to re-establish
diplomatic ties and end decades of hostility.
Fidel Castro himself offered only lukewarm support for the deal, raising
questions about whether he approved of ending hostilities with his
longtime enemy.He lived to witness the visit of U.S. President
Barack Obama to Cuba earlier this year, the first trip by a U.S.
president to the island since 1928.
Castro did not meet Obama, and
days later wrote a scathing column condemning the U.S. president's
"honey-coated" words and reminding Cubans of the many U.S. efforts to
overthrow and weaken the Communist government.
In his final years,
Fidel Castro no longer held leadership posts. He wrote newspaper
commentaries on world affairs and occasionally met with foreign leaders
but he lived in semi-seclusion.
His death - which would once have
thrown a question mark over Cuba's future - seems unlikely to trigger a
crisis as Raul Castro, 85, is firmly ensconced in power.
Still,
the passing of the man known to most Cubans as "El Comandante" - the
commander - or simply "Fidel" leaves a huge void in the country he
dominated for so long. It also underlines the generational change in
Cuba's communist leadership.
A Jesuit-educated
lawyer, Fidel Castro led the revolution that ousted U.S.-backed
dictator Fulgencio Batista on Jan 1, 1959. Aged 32, he quickly took
control of Cuba and sought to transform it into an egalitarian society.His
government improved the living conditions of the very poor, achieved
health and literacy levels on a par with rich countries and rid Cuba of a
powerful Mafia presence.
But he also tolerated little dissent, jailed opponents, seized private businesses and monopolized the media.Castro's opponents labeled him a dictator and hundreds of thousands fled the island.Many
settled in Florida, influencing U.S. policy toward Cuba and plotting
Castro's demise. Some even trained in the Florida swamps for the
disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. But they could never dislodge him.
We should not forget others who did not agree with him , dissidents, seen as
usurpers of the Revolution, imprisoned
without trial in the dungeons of Cabana
Fortress and subjected to inhuman treatment and sometimes killed.Political activists some to the left of Castro imprisoned.Nor should we forget the injustice inflicted on homosexuals during his rule in the 60's and 70's,like other Cubans, including some priests, considered “ideological
deviants,” homosexuals in the 1960s were sent to labour camps for
re-education and rehabilitation. Discrimination continued in the 1970s,
with gays, in particular gay artists and writers, disgraced, marginalised, in some cases who were driven into exile.Later Castro would regret this that he himself did not pay enough attention to
the plight of gays during an era of sabotage, armed attacks and
assassination plots against him. Yes, there were moments of great injustice – great injustice,” Castro said.“I am trying to narrow my responsibility in all of this, because of
course personally I have no such prejudice” against homosexuals, he
said,
"If someone is responsible, it's me,"
In the 1960s and 70s, many homosexuals in Cuba were fired, imprisoned or sent to "re-education camps". In 1979, homosexuality was decriminalised and, more recently, there have been efforts to legalise same-sex unions.The situation has since thankfully improved greatly for gays and lesbians
in Cuba, where Castro’s niece Mariela – the daughter of President Raul
Castro – heads the National Sex Education Centre and has been
campaigning for years for greater rights for gays and transsexuals.
Despite this for generations
of Latin American people Castro has been applauded for his socialist policies
and for thumbing his nose at the United States from its doorstep just 90
miles (145 km) from Florida.Castro claimed he survived or evaded hundreds of assassination attempts, including some conjured up by the CIA.In
1962, the United States imposed a damaging trade embargo that Castro
blamed for most of Cuba's ills, using it to his advantage to rally
patriotic fury.
Over the years, he expanded his influence by
sending Cuban troops into far-away wars, including 350,000 to fight in
Africa. They provided critical support to a left-wing government in
Angola and contributed to the independence of Namibia in a war that
helped end apartheid in South Africa.
He also won friends by
sending tens of thousands of Cuban doctors abroad to treat the poor and
bringing young people from developing countries to train them as
physicians Fidel was also a staunch advocate of the Palestinian quest for freedom and independence. The PLO and Cuba were natural allies,
as both championed what their leaders saw as a struggle against imperial
and colonial powers.Indeed, Castro conflated Cuba's "strife to fight imperialism"
with the Palestinian quest for independence from Israel's occupation.Palestine has now lost one its oldest and closest friends and few leaders, with the exception of the late South African
leader Nelson Mandela, gave such vocal and unstinting support to the
Palestinian people and their decades-long struggle for justice.
Born on Aug 13, 1926 in Biran in eastern Cuba, Castro was the son of a Spanish immigrant who became a wealthy landowner.Angry
at social conditions and Batista's dictatorship, Fidel Castro launched
his revolution on Jul 26, 1953, with a failed assault on the Moncada
barracks in the eastern city of Santiago."History will absolve me," he declared during his trial for the attack.He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released in 1955 after a pardon that would come back to haunt Batista.
Castro
went into exile in Mexico and prepared a small rebel army to fight
Batista. It included Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, who
became his comrade-in-arms.
In December 1956, Castro and a rag-tag band of 81 followers sailed to Cuba aboard a badly overloaded yacht called "Granma".Only 12, including him, his brother and Guevara, escaped a government ambush when they landed in eastern Cuba.Taking
refuge in the rugged Sierra Maestra mountains, they built a guerrilla
force of several thousand fighters who, along with urban rebel groups,
defeated Batista's military in just over two years.
Early in his
rule, at the height of the Cold War, Castro allied Cuba to the Soviet
Union, which protected the Caribbean island and was its principal
benefactor for three decades.The alliance brought in $4 billion
worth of aid annually, including everything from oil to guns, but also
provoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the United States discovered
Soviet missiles on the island.Convinced that the United States was about to invade Cuba, Castro urged the Soviets to launch a nuclear attack.Thankfully cooler
heads prevailed. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. President
John F. Kennedy agreed the Soviets would withdraw the missiles in return
for a U.S. promise never to invade Cuba. The United States also
secretly agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey.
When
the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, an isolated Cuba fell into a deep
economic crisis that lasted for years and was known as the "special
period". Food, transport and basics such as soap were scarce and energy
shortages led to frequent and long blackouts.
Castro undertook a series of tentative economic reforms to get through the crisis, including opening up to foreign tourism.The
economy improved when Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who
looked up to Castro as a hero, came to the rescue with cheap oil. Aid
from communist-run China also helped, but an economic downturn in
Venezuela since Chavez's death in 2013 have raised fears it will scale
back its support for Cuba.Plagued by chronic economic problems,
Cuba's population of 11 million has endured years of hardship, although
not the deep poverty, violent crime and government neglect of many other
developing countries.
For most Cubans, Fidel Castro has been the ubiquitous figure of their entire life.Many
still love him and share his faith in a communist future, and even some
who abandoned their political belief still view him with respect.Solidarity with the people of Cuba in their time of mourning.
Goodbye Commandante flawed and authoritarian as he may have been, Castro stood up to the
world's biggest bully for almost six decades, and certainly leaves his mark on history.Charismatic, outspoken, defiant who did try to devote his life, his knowledge and his struggle not only to the Cuban people but to all the people of the world.Fidel's commitment to internationalism leaves a lasting legacy around the World.Fidel Castro is beloved by the free people of Africa, Asia and South
America because he always stood with them against the tyranny of Empire.While Britain and America were supplying arms to help Africa's apartheid regimes, Cuba was busy sending its men to fight them.Under Castro, Cuba had the best literacy rate in the world because it
spent five times as much on education than war - the opposite of what
America does. In fact, Cuba achieves the same health care system
outcomes as the United States at only 5% the cost.Lest we
forget, Cuba was the biggest single provider of healthcare workers to
the Ebola crisis in West Africa, more than all richer nations. Cuba has
sent more doctors throughout the world to minister to the poor than even
the World Health Organization despite Cuba's small size and meager resources.
From Cubas support fighting Apartheid in South Africa, to training doctors from Latin America and its international medical brigades caring for the victims of earthquakes from Pakistan to Haiti, Cuba's model has shown that another world is possible. Condolences to the family and friends of Fidel Castro in their time of mourning. The best tribute we can now make is to continue the struggle to end the immoral and unjust blockade of Cuba and for the return of the illegally occupied land at Guantanamo Bay. R,I,P
