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Revision as of 06:43, 9 February 2002 by 213.105.195.101 (talk) (most wanted)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Fidel Castro (August 13, 1926 - ) has been ruler of Cuba since 1959.
Born in Mayari, Cuba into a wealthy farming family. He was educated at Jesuit schools and then the Jesuit preparatory school Colegio Belen in Havana. Leaving school in 1945 he went to the University of Havana to study law, graduating in 1950.
He practiced law in a small partnership, 1950-52. Castro intended to stand for parliament in 1952 for the Ortodoxo Party but the coup d'etat of General Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government of Carlos Prio Socarras and canceled the election. Castro charged Batista with violating the constitution in court but his petition was refused. In response Castro organized an disasterous 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. He was released in a general amnesty in May 1955 and went into exile in Mexico and the United States.
He returned to Cuban with a number of other exiles as the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. The group of eighty men in their first action in Oriente province on December 2, 1956 were massacred, only twelve survived to retreated flee into the Sierra Maestra mountains and from there wage a guerrilla warfare against the Batista government, the survivors included Che Guevara, Raul Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. His movement gained popular support and grew to over 800 men. On May 24, 1958, Batista launched seventeen battalions against Castro in Operación Veran, despite being outnumbered Castro's forces scored a series of stunning victories, aided by massive desertion and surrender amongst Batista's army. On New Year's Day 1959 Batista fled the country, and Castro's force took Havana.
Initially the United States was quick to recognized the new government. Castro assumed the position of premier in February and soon friction occurred when the new government began expropriating American-company owned properties for little compensation (United Fruit in particular). In February 1960, Cuba made overt moves towards the USSR, and signed an agreement to buy Russian oil. The United States broke diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon after.
The United States then sponsored an unsuccessful attack on Cuba. On April 17, 1961, a force of 1,300 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by the CIA, land in the south at the Bay of Pigs. The assumption was that the invasion would spark a popular rising against Castro. There was no rising and what of the invasion force that made it ashore were slaughtered as President Kennedy withdrew support at, literally, the last minute.
In October, 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. After which relations remained mutually hostile, the CIA continued to sponsor a number of daft assassination schemes over the following years.
Castro nationalized industry, confiscated property owned by non-Cubans, collectivized agriculture, and enacted policies to benefit the workers. Many Cubans fled the country, some to Miami, Florida where they established a large, active anti-Castro community. Cuba became increasingly dependent on USSR subsidies, which financed large improvements in Cuba's social conditions. The collapse of Russia in 1990 brought real economic hardship to Cuba.