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Atlantic slave trade

2007-09-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

Atlantic slave trade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the Transatlantic slave trade, was the trade of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 15th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to the New World. Some slaves were captured through raids and kidnapping, although most were obtained through coastal trading by the Europeans.[1] Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million[2][3] Africans arrived in the New World, although the number of people taken from their homestead is considerably higher.[4][5] The slave-trade is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning "holocaust" or "great disaster" in Kiswahili. The slaves were one element of a three-part economic cycle—the Triangular Trade and its Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and millions of people.

Beginnings and the Atlantic systems

When the first Africans were shipped to the New World, relying on African slaves to keep a plantation economy running wasn’t new to the Europeans. Most prominently, Portuguese islands off the African coast, like Madeira, had already established this system.

There are two main eras of the Atlantic system.

The First Atlantic system was the trade of African slaves to mostly South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502[6] and lasted until 1580, when Portugal was occupied by the Spanish empire. While the Portuguese traded slaves themselves, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade slaves to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era, although some Dutch, English, Spanish and French traders also participated in the slave trade.[7] After the occupation, Portugal stayed formally autonomous, but was weakened, with its colonial empire being attacked by the Dutch and English.

The Second Atlantic system was the trade of African slaves by mostly English, Brazilian, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as a number of European countries built up economically slave-dependent colonial empires in the New World.

Only slightly more than 3 percent of the slaves exported were traded between 1450 and 1600, 16% percent in the 17th century. More than half of them were exported in the 18th century, the remaining 28.5% in the 19th century.[8]

[edit] Triangular trade

See main article, the Triangular Trade.

European colonists initially practiced systems of both bonded labour and Indian slavery, enslaving many of the natives of the New World. For a variety of reasons Africans replaced Indians as the main population of slaves in the Americas. In some cases, such as on some of the Caribbean Islands, disease and warfare eliminated the natives completely. In other cases, such as in South Carolina, Virginia, and New England, the need for alliances with native tribes coupled with the availability of African slaves at affordable prices (beginning in the early 18th century for these colonies) resulted in a shift away from Indian slavery. It is often falsely claimed that Indians made poor slaves compared to Africans, explaining the shift to using Africans. The reasons had more to do with economics and politics.
"The Slave Trade" by Auguste Francois Biard, 1840
"The Slave Trade" by Auguste Francois Biard, 1840

A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico, suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico. The graveyard had been in use from about 1550 to the late 1600s [9].

The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of slaves from 1440 to about 1900. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. Many of them were confronted with the dilemma of trading with Europe or becoming slaves themselves. The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, the Caribbean islands, and North America. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave-labor plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum.

However, Brazil (the main importer of slaves) manufactured these goods in South America and directly traded with African ports, thus not taking part in a triangular trade.

[edit] Labour and slavery
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An antislavery medallion of the early 19th century.
An antislavery medallion of the early 19th century.

Shortage of labour was one of the issues the Atlantic Slave Trade was made to deal with. Native peoples were the first used by Europeans as slaves until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases.[10] Later, African slaves were available in quantity at affordable prices. Other incentives, such as indentured servitude also failed to provide a sufficient workforce.

Many crops could not be sold for profit or even grown in Europe. It was also cheaper to import many crops and goods from the New World than from regions in Europe. Huge amounts of Labour were needed for the plantations in the intensive growing, harvesting and processing of these prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as 'the Slave Coast') and later Central Africa became the new source for slaves to meet the demand for labor.

The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour was that, with large amounts of cheap land available and lots of landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves after relatively short time, thus increasing the need for workers. [11]

[edit] African slave market

The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade taking a toll on Africa, although the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique: "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). ... Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean."[12]

Europeans usually bought slaves who were captured in tribal wars between African kingdoms and chiefdoms, or from Africans who had made a business out of capturing other Africans and selling them. Europeans provided a large new market for an already-existing trade, and while an African held in slavery in his own region of Africa might escape or be traded back to his own people, a person shipped away was sure never to return. People living around the Niger River were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.

The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by coastal African kingdoms, such as the Oyo empire (Yoruba) and the kingdom of Dahomey.[13][14]

Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance.[15] The slaves would be brought to coastal outposts where they would be traded for goods. Enslavement became a major by-product of war in Africa as nation states expanded through military conflicts in many cases through deliberate sponsorship of benefiting Western European nations. During such periods of rapid state formation or expansion (Asante or Dahomey being good examples), slavery formed an important element of political life which the Europeans exploited: As Queen Sara's plea to the Portuguese courts revealed, the system became "sell to the Europeans or be sold to the Europeans". In Africa, convicted criminals could be punished by enslavement and with European demands for slaves, this punishment became more prevalent. Since most of these nations did not have a prison system, convicts were often sold or used in the scattered local domestic slave market.[16]

The majority of European conquests occurred toward the end or after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. One exception to this is the conquest of Ndongo in Angola where warriors, citizens and even nobility were taken into slavery after the fall of the state.

[edit] African versus European slavery

Further information: African slave trade

Slavery in African cultures was generally more like indentured servitude: slaves were not made to be chattel of other men, nor enslaved for life.[citation needed] In Africa, as elsewhere, slaves were subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and arbitrary death.[17] African slaves were paid wages and were able to accumulate property.[citation needed] They often bought their own freedom and could then achieve social promotion — just as freedmen in ancient Rome — some even rose to the status of rulers (e.g. Jaja of Opobo and Sunni Ali Ber). Similar arguments were used by Western slave owners during the time of abolitionism, for example by John Wedderburn in Wedderburn v. Knight, the case that ended legal recognition of slavery in Scotland in 1776. Regardless of the legal options open to slave owners, rational cost-earning calculation and/or voluntary adoption of moral restraints often tended to mitigate.

[edit] Slave Market Regions

There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere.

* Senegambia: Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau
* Upper Guinea: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia
* The Windward Coast: Present day Cote d'Ivoire
* The Gold Coast: Ghana
* The Bight of Benin or the Slave Coast: Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Benue River
* The Bight of Biafra: Nigeria south of the Benue River, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea
* West Central Africa (sometimes called Kongo in slave ship logs): Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
* Southeast Africa: Mozambique and Madagascar.

[edit] Region Participation

The number of slaves sold to the new world varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more slaves than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million African slaves arrived in the Americas from the following regions.[18]

* Senegambia: 4.7%
* Upper Guinea: 4.1%
* Windward Coast 1.8%
* Gold Coast 10.4%
* Bight of Benin 19.7%
* Bight of Biafra 4.3%
* West Central Africa 40.8%
* Southeast Africa 4.6%

[edit] African kingdoms of the Era

There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853, when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no fewer than 68 could be deemed "nation states" with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbors. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial forbear with which European traders had to barter and eventually battle. Below are 29 nation states by country that actively or passively participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade:

* Senegal: Jolof Empire, Denanke Kingdom, Kingdom of Fouta Tooro, Kingdom of Khasso and Kingdom of Saalum
* Guinea-Bissau: Kaabu
* Guinea: Kingdom of Fouta Djallon and Mali Empire
* Sierra Leone: Koya Temne and Kpaa Mende
* Cote d'Ivoire: Gyaaman Kingdom and Kong Empire
* Ghana: Asante Confederacy and Mankessim Kingdom
* Benin: Kingdom of Dahomey
* Nigeria: Aro Confederacy, Kingdom of Benin, Igala, Nupe and Oyo
* Cameroon: Bamun and Mandara Kingdom
* Gabon: Orungu
* Equatorial Guinea: Otcho
* Republic of Congo: Kingdom of Loango and Kingdom of Tio
* Angola: Kingdom of Kongo, Kingdom of Ndongo and Matamba

[edit] Ethnic groups

The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.[19]

1. The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
2. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
3. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
4. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
5. The Igbo of Nigeria
6. The Yoruba of Nigeria
7. The Mandé speakers of Upper Guinea
8. The Wolof of Senegal
9. The Chamba of Cameroon
10. The Makua of Mozambique

[edit] Human toll

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade resulted in a vast and as yet still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside of America. Approximately 8 million Africans were killed during their storage, shipment and initial landing in the New World.[20] The amount of life lost in the actual procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the amount actually enslaved.[21] If such a figure is to be believed, the total number of deaths would be between 16 and 20 million.[citation needed]

The savage nature of the trade, in which most of the slaves were prisoners from African wars, led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. The following figures do not include deaths of African slaves as a result of their actual labor, slave revolts or diseases they caught while living among New World populations.

A database compiled in the late 1990s put the figure for the Transatlantic Slave Trade at more than 11 million people. Estimates as high as 50 million have been floated.[citation needed] For a long time an accepted figure was 15 million, although this has in recent years been revised down. Most historians now agree that at least 12 million slaves left the continent between the fifteenth and nineteenth century, but 10 to 20% died on board ships. Thus a figure of 11 million slaves transported to the Americas is the nearest demonstrable figure historians can produce.[22]

[edit] African conflicts

According to David Stannard's American Holocaust, 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of tribal wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves.[23] This includes not only those who died in battles, but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts.[24] The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa, although wars were rarely started to procure slaves. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars.[25] However, some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving such as Kaabu, Asanteman, Dahomey, the Aro Confederacy and the Imbangala war bands.[26] By the end of this process, no less than 18.3 million people would be herded into "factories" to await shipment to the New World.[citation needed]
Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.
Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.

[edit] Port factories

After being marched to the coast for sale, Africans waited in large forts called factories. The amount of time in factories varied, but Milton Meltzer's Slavery: A World History states this process resulted in or around 4.5% of deaths during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.[20] In other words, over 820,000 people would have died in African ports such as Benguela, Elmina and Bonny reducing the number of those shipped to 17.5 million.[20]

[edit] Atlantic shipment

After being captured and held in the factories, slaves entered the infamous Middle Passage. Meltzer's research puts this phase of the slave trade's overall mortality at 12.5%.[20] Around 2.2 million Africans died during these voyages where they were packed into tight, unsanitary spaces on ships for months at time. Measures were taken to stem the onboard mortality rate such as mandatory dancing above deck and the practice of force-feeding any slaves that attempted to starve themselves.[24] The conditions on board also resulted in the spread of fatal diseases. Other fatalities were the result of suicides by jumping over board by slaves who could no longer endure the conditions.[24] Before the shipping of slaves completely outlawed in 1853, 15.3 million "immigrants" had arrived in the Americas.

[edit] Seasoning camps

Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean.[20] Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal. The slaves were tortured for the purpose of "breaking" them (like the practice of breaking horses) and conditioning them to their new lot in life. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. All in all, 5 million Africans died in these camps reducing the final number of Africans to about 10 million.[citation needed]

[edit] European competition
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.

The trade of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic has its origins in the explorations of Portuguese mariners down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. Before that, contact with African slave markets was made to ransom Portuguese that had been captured by the intense North African Barbary pirate attacks to the Portuguese ships and coastal villages, frequently leaving them depopulated.[27][28] The first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World were the Spaniards who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and laborers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, where the alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513). After Portugal had succeeded in establishing sugar plantations (engenhos) in northern Brazil ca. 1545, Portuguese merchants on the West African coast began to supply enslaved Africans to the sugar planters there. While at first these planters relied almost exclusively on the native Tupani for slave labor, a titanic shift toward Africans took place after 1570 following a series of epidemics which decimated the already destabilized Tupani communities. By 1630, Africans had replaced the Tupani as the largest contingent of labor on Brazilian sugar plantations, heralding equally the final collapse of the European medieval household tradition of slavery, the rise of Brazil as the largest single destination for enslaved Africans and sugar as the reason that roughly 84% of these Africans were shipped to the New World.

Merchants from various European nations were later involved in the Atlantic Slave trade: Portugal, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, Holland. As Britain rose in naval power and settled continental north America and some islands of the West Indies, they became the leading slave traders, mostly operating out of Bristol and Liverpool. By the late 17th century, one out of every four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a slave trading ship.[29] Other British cities also profited from the slave trade. Birmingham, the largest gun producing town in Britain at the time, supplied guns to be traded for slaves. 75% of all sugar produced in the plantations came to London to supply the highly lucrative coffee houses there.[30]

[edit] Slavery and Christianity

See the fuller discussion in the article Christianity and Slavery.

In general, early Christians, such as Paul, St. Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas did not oppose slavery. Pope Nicholas V even encouraged enslaving non-Christian Africans in his Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1454. Since then other popes stated that slavery was against Christian teachings, as is now generally held. Even earlier, in 1435, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands. A list of papal statements against slavery (and also claims that the popes nonetheless owned and bought slaves) is found in the discussion Christianity and Slavery.

Most Christian sects found some way to soothe the consciences of their slave-owning members. One notable exception was the Society of Friends (Quakers), who advocated the abolition of slavery from earliest times.

[edit] New World destinations

African slaves were brought to many different regions first starting in 1441 with the Portuguese kidnapping of Africans from what is now Mauritania. The first slaves to arrive as part of a labor force appeared in 1502 on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cuba received its first four slaves in 1513. Slave exports to Honduras and Guatemala started in 1526. The first African slaves to reach what would become the US arrived in January of 1526 as part of a Spanish attempt at colonizing South Carolina near Jamestown. By November the 300 Spanish colonist were reduced to a mere 100 accompanied by 70 of their original 100 slaves. The slaves revolted and joined a nearby native population while the Spanish abandoned the colony altogether. Colombia received its first slaves in 1533. El Salvador, Costa Rica and Florida began their stint in the slave trade in 1541, 1563 and 1581 respectively.

The 17th century saw an increase in shipments with slaves arriving in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Irish immigrants brought slaves to Montserrat in 1651. And in 1655, slaves arrive in Belize.

Distribution of slaves (1450-1900) [31]
Destination Percentage
Brazil 35.4%
Spanish Empire 22.1%
British West Indies 17.7%
French West Indies 14.1%
British North America and future United States 4.4%
Dutch West Indies 4.4%
Danish West Indies 0.2%

[edit] Economics of slavery

Slavery was involved in some of the most profitable industries in history.[citation needed] 70% of the slaves brought to the new world were used to produce sugar, the most labour intensive crop. The rest were employed harvesting coffee, cotton, and tobacco, and in some cases in mining. The West Indian colonies of the European powers were some of their most important possessions, so they went to extremes to protect and retain them. For example, at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France agreed to cede the vast territory of New France to the victors in exchange for keeping the minute Antillean island of Guadeloupe.

Slave trade profits have been the object of many fantasies. Returns for the investors were not absurdly high (around 6% in France in the 18th century), but they were considerably higher than domestic alternatives (in the same century, around 5%). Risks — maritime and commercial — were important for individual voyages. Investors mitigated it by buying small shares of many ships at the same time. In that way, they were able to diversify a large part of the risk away. Between voyages, ship shares could be freely sold and bought. All these made the slave trade a very interesting investment.[32]

By far the most successful West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados and the territory of British Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many British did not make gains, some made enormous fortunes, even by upper class standards. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its most important colony, St. Dominigue (western Hispaniola, now Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791[33] and supported revolts against its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name of liberty (but in fact opportunistic selectivity). Before 1791, British sugar had to be protected to compete against cheaper French sugar.

After 1791, the British islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly became the largest consumers. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Indian tea. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 1700s.[34]

[edit] Effects
World historic populations[35] Year 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 1999 2050 2150
World 791 978 1,262 1,650 2,521 5,978 8,909 9,746
Africa 106 107 111 133 221 767 1,766 2,308
Asia 502 635 809 947 1,402 3,634 5,268 5,561
Europe 163 203 276 408 547 729 628 517
LatinAmericaandtheCaribbean 16 24 38 74 167 511 809 912
NorthernAmerica 2 7 26 82 172 307 392 398
Oceania 2 2 2 6 13 30 46 51
World historic populations by percentage distribution Year 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 1999 2050 2150
World 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Africa 13.4 10.9 8.8 8.1 8.8 12.8 19.8 23.7
Asia 63.5 64.9 64.1 57.4 55.6 60.8 59.1 57.1
Europe 20.6 20.8 21.9 24.7 21.7 12.2 7.0 5.3
Latin America and the Caribbean 2.0 2.5 3.0 4.5 6.6 8.5 9.1 9.4
NorthernAmerica 0.3 0.7 2.1 5.0 6.8 5.1 4.4 4.1
Oceania 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5

Walter Rodney argues that at the start of the slave trade in 16th century, even though there was technological gap between Europe and Africa, it was not very substantial. Both were using Iron Age technology. The major advantage that Europe had was in ship building. During the period of slavery the populations of Europe and the Americas grew exponentially while the population of Africa remained stagnant. This he contends that the profits from slavery were used to fund economic growth and technological advancement in Europe and the Americas. Based on earlier theories by Eric Williams, he asserts that the industrial revolution was at least in part funded by agricultural profits from the Americas. He cites examples such as the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, which was funded by plantation owners from the Caribbean[36].

Other historians have attacked both Rodney's methodology and factual accuracy. Joseph C. Miller has argued that the social change and demographic stagnation (which he researched on the example of West Central Africa) was caused primarily by domestic factors. Joseph Inikori provided a new line of argument, estimating counterfactual demographic developments in case the Atlantic slave trade had not existed. Patrick Manning has shown that the slave trade did indeed have profound impact on African demographics and social institutions, but nevertheless criticized Inikori’s approach for not taking other factors (such as famine and drought) into account and thus being highly speculative.[37]

[edit] Effect on the economy of Africa
Cowrie shells were used as money in the slave trade
Cowrie shells were used as money in the slave trade

No scholars dispute the harm done to the slaves themselves, but the effect of the trade on African societies is much debated due to the apparent influx of capital to Africans. Proponents of the slave trade, such as Archibald Dalzel, argued that African societies were robust and not much affected by the ongoing trade. In the 19th century, European abolitionists, most prominently Dr. David Livingstone, took the opposite view arguing that the fragile local economy and societies were being severely harmed by the ongoing trade. This view continued with scholars until the 1960s and 70s such as Basil Davidson, who conceded it might have had some benefits while still acknowledging its largely negative impact on Africa.[38] Historian Walter Rodney estimates that by c.1770, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling captive African soldiers and even his own people to the European slave-traders.

[edit] Effects on Europe’s Economy

Eric Williams has attempted to show the contribution of Africans on the basis of profits from the slave trade and slavery, and the employment of those profits to finance England’s industrialization process. He argues that the enslavement of Africans was an essential element to the Industrial Revolution, and that European wealth is a result of slavery. However, he argued that by the time of its abolition it had lost its profitability and it was in Britain's economic interest to ban it. Most modern scholars disagree with this view. Seymour Drescher and Robert Anstey have both presented evidence that the slave trade remained profitable until the end, and that reasons other than economics led to its cessation. Joseph Inikori has shown elsewhere that the British slave trade was more profitable than the critics of Williams would want us to believe. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution.[39]

[edit] Demographics

The demographic effects of the slave trade are some of the most controversial and debated issues. More than 10 million people were removed from Africa via the slave trade, and what effect this had on Africa is an important question.

Walter Rodney argued that the export of so many people had been a demographic disaster and had left Africa permanently disadvantaged when compared to other parts of the world, and largely explains the continent's continued poverty.[40] He presents numbers that show that Africa's population stagnated during this period, while that of Europe and Asia grew dramatically. According to Rodney all other areas of the economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top merchants abandoned traditional industries to pursue slaving and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the slaving itself.

Others have challenged this view. J. D. Fage compared the number effect on the continent as a whole. David Eltis has compared the numbers to the rate of emigration from Europe during this period. In the nineteenth century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas, a far higher rate than were ever taken from Africa.[41].

Other scholars accused Rodney of mischaracterizing the trade between Africans and Europeans. They argue that Africans, or more accurately African elites, deliberately let European traders join in an already large trade in slaves and were not patronized.[42]

As Joseph E. Inikori argues, the history of the region shows that the effects were still quite deleterious. He argues that the African economic model of the period was very different from the European, and could not sustain such population losses. Population reductions in certain areas also led to widespread problems. Inikori also notes that after the suppression of the slave trade Africa's population almost immediately began to rapidly increase, even prior to the introduction of modern medicines.[43] Shahadah also states that the trade was not only of demographic significance, in aggregate population losses but also in the profound changes to settlement patterns, epidemiological exposure and reproductive and social development potential.[44]

[edit] Legacy of racism

Maulana Karenga states that the effects of slavery were "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples." He states that it constituted the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility.[45]

There have been a number of organizations and individuals who have downplayed or denied the occurrence of the transatlantic slave trade. A number of these groups are loosely affiliated with the Moorish Science Temple and the Nuwaubian nation of Moors (Nuwaubianism) led by Malachi Z. York.

They argue that African-Americans, whom they refer to as "Moors" or "Moorish-Americans," are actually the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and did not arrive on slave ships in large numbers, if any came by ship at all.

[edit] End of the Atlantic slave trade

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Main article: Abolitionism

In Britain and in other parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. Led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce, the movement was joined by many and began to protest against the trade, but they were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings. Denmark, which had been active in the slave trade, was the first country to ban the trade through legislation in 1792, which took effect in 1803. Britain banned the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship. The Royal Navy, which then controlled the world's seas, moved to stop other nations from filling Britain's place in the slave trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and was punishable by death. The United States outlawed the importation of slaves on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the constitution for such a ban.

On Sunday 28 October 1787, William Wilberforce wrote in his diary: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the Reformation of society.” For the rest of his life, William Wilberforce dedicated his life as a Member of Parliament to opposing the slave trade and working for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. On 22 February 1807, twenty years after he first began his crusade, and in the middle of Britain’s war with France, Wilberforce and his team’s labours were rewarded with victory. By an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16 against, the motion to abolish the slave trade was carried in the House of Commons.[46]

With peace in Europe from 1815, and British supremacy at sea secured, the Navy turned its attention back to the challenge and established the West Coast of Africa Station, known as the ‘preventative squadron’, which for the next 50 years operated against the slavers. By the 1850s, around 25 vessels and 2,000 officers and men were on the station, supported by nearly 1,000 ‘Kroomen’, experienced fishermen recruited as sailors from what is now the coast of modern Liberia. Service on the West Africa Squadron was a thankless and overwhelming task, full of risk and posing a constant threat to the health of the crews involved. Contending with pestilential swamps and violent encounters, the mortality rate was 55 per 1,000 men, compared with 10 for fleets in the Mediterranean or in home waters.[47] Between 1807 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 ships involved in the slave trade and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard these vessels.[48]. The last recorded slave ship to land on American soil was the Clotilde, which illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama. The Africans on board were sold as slaves, however slavery was abolished 5 years later following the end of the civil war. The last survivor of the voyage was Cudjoe Lewis who died in 1935.[49]

Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against ‘the usurping King of Lagos’, deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[50]

Although the slave trade had become illegal, slavery remained a reality in British colonies. Wilberforce himself was privately convinced that the institution of slavery should be entirely abolished, but understood that there was little political will for emancipation. In parliament, the Emancipation Bill gathered support and received its final commons reading on 26 July 1833. Slavery would be abolished, but the planters would be heavily compensated. Thank God, said William Wilberforce, that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery.

The last country to ban the Atlantic slave trade was Brazil in 1888.[51]

[edit] Apologies

At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for the slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some EU nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation was one of the reasons for the opposition. Apologies on behalf of African nations, for their role in trading their countrymen into slavery, also remains an open issue.

On January 30, 2006, Jacques Chirac said that 10 May would henceforth be a national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery in France, marking the day in 2001 when France passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity.[52]

On November 27, 2006, Tony Blair made a partial apology for Britain's role in the African slavery trade. However African rights activists denounced it as "empty rhetoric" that failed to address the issue properly. They feel his apology stopped shy to prevent any legal retort.[53] Mr Blair again said sorry on March 14, 2007.[54]

On February 24, 2007 the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution Number 728[55] acknowledging "with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians."

With the passing of this resolution, Virginia becomes the first of the 50 United States to acknowledge through the states governing body their state's negative involvement in slavery. The passing of this resolution comes on the heels of the 400th anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, Virginia, which was the first permanent English colony in what would become the United States to survive, Jamestown is also recognized as one of the first slave ports of the American colonies.

On May 31, 2007, Alabama Governor Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for Alabama's role in slavery and apologizing for slavery's wrongs and lingering effects. Alabama is the fourth Southern state to pass a slavery apology, following votes by the legislatures in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.[56]

On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London, England apologized publicly for England's role in colonial slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery," he said pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Jesse Jackson praised Mayor Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made.[57]

Santeria II

2007-09-16T10:15:00.003-07:00

Santeria

| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |

I. Group Profile

1. Name: Santeria (also known as La Regla Lucumi and the Rule of Osha)

2. Founders: The Yoruba Slaves of the Carribean (from Western Africa -- current day Nigeria and Benin)

3. Date of Birth: N/A

4. Birth Place: Western Africa or Cuba

5. Year Founded: 1517 1

6. History:

Santeria orginated in Cuba as a combination of the Western African Yoruba Religion and Iberian Catholicism 2 . "It is one of the many syncretic religions created by Africans brought to the Caribbean islands as slaves." 56 . It was developed out of necessity for the African slaves in order to continue practicing their native religion in the New World. As in all countries where the African slaves were taken, Cuban slave masters discouraged and sometimes prohibited the practice of their native religions 40 .

The slaves in Cuba were forced to follow the practices of the Catholic Church, which went against the beliefs of their native religions. Noticing the parallels between their native religion and Catholicism, and in order to please their slave-masters and fulfill their own religious needs, they created a secret religion. Santeria uses Catholic saints and personages as fronts for their own god and Orishas (spiritual emissaries). Thus, when a slave prayed to an Orisha, it looked as if they were praying to a saint. 3

After some slaves had been freed in Cuba, "the genre de color (free people of color) created Santeria on the basis of old Yoruba beliefs and practices. African religious traditions were reinvented and fused with elements of the Spanish culture, an example of assimilation -- the fusion, both culturally and socially, of groups with distinctive identities. In the 1880's the syncretism was further embellished by the addition of Kardecian Spiritist traditions brought from France." 57 . These had an influence on Santeria by incorporating the aspect of spirit enlightenment in its practices. This process of seeking light has been incorporated in worshiping the Orisha 41 . Santeria spread quickly in the New World among the slaves who originated from Western Africa. When slave trade was abolished, the practice of Santeria carried on.

The religion was practiced in secret, because people frowned on the bizarre traditions of the African natives. Although today the necessity for keeping the religion secret has mostly vanished, it is practiced today out of a strong sense of tradition. Santeria now lives on in small numbers in many countries around the world: the U.S. (New York, Florida), South American countries, and Europe. It is still mostly practiced in secret, but a few churches have emerged, giving the people a place to practice Santeria freely. One in particular, The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye , was formed in the early 1970's in Southern Florida. It unites many Cuban Americans in this region, and allows them to practice Santeria freely and publicly. But this did not occur without a struggle. As we shall see below , the church's practice of animal sacrifice was outlawed by the city of Hialeah only to be restored in a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are several other churches in the United States that practice Santeria. The African Theological Archministry, in South Carolina, founded by Walter Eugene King, now has approximately 10,000 members 4 . The Church of Seven African Powers, also in Florida, was founded in the 1980's, and focuses on the ebo (spells) and instructs members how to use them in their lives 5 .

7. Sacred or Revered Texts: Santeria has no written canon or formal texts of their religion. It is passed on orally to the initiates. This is because of the thick tradition of stories being told to convey the beliefs and ways of worship of the religion.

8. Cult or Sect: Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.

9. Size of Group: "It is estimated that the number of practitioners of Lukumi Orisha Worship in the United States surpasses five million." 6 .

II. Beliefs of the Group

Cosmology

Santerians have five different levels of power in the Yoruba cosmology: Olodumare , the Orisha, human beings, human ancestors, and the lowest group (which includes plants, animals, natural entities, and manufactured items) 7 . They believe in one supreme god, Olodumare (also known as Olorun ). He is the supreme source of ashe , the spiritual energy that makes up the universe, all life, and material objects. He coincides with Jesus Christ in the Catholic religion 8 .

Orisha

Olurun interacts with the world through emissaries called Orisha. Orisha rule over every force of nature and every aspect of human life. They can be approached through prayer, ritual offerings, and trance possession, and can be counted on to come to the aid of followers and guide them to a better life and spirituality. Each Orisha is attributed a special number and color, among other "favorite things," such as a food or day of the week. The member utilizes the colors by making beaded necklaces according to which Orisha they wish to worship. These distinguish the Orisha from one another when someone wants to make an offering to a certain one 9 .

Each Orisha is guardian over a certain aspect of human life. The significant Orisha are listed below, as there are literally thousands of Orisha 10 . The first three Orisha listed - Elegba, Ogun, and Oshosi - are guardians over battle affairs and are called the Guerreros or Warriors 11 .

Elegba (Eleggua) - the owner of the roads and doors in this world. He stands at the crossroads of humanity and the divine, the intermediary between Olorun and the Orisha and humans. When one wants to pray, they call on Elegba first, as he opens the doors of communication between this world and the Orisha 12 . Nothing can be done in either world without his permission. The Catholic saint he represents is Saint Anthony 13 . His colors are red and black and his number is 3 14 .

Ogun - the god of iron, war, and labor. He clears the roads with his machette after Elegba opens them. He embodies violence and creativity, yet also integrity. He is the only Orisha with the right to control life and death 15 . He depicts St. Peter 16 . His colors are green and black and his number is 7 17 .

Ochosi - the hunter, scout, and protector of the warriors. He is in a close relationship with Obatala, and is the translator for him. He is the provider of direction to human life -- he advises humans to follow the rules of the social institutions in which they find themselves. He represents St. Norbert. His colors are blue and yellow and his numbers are 3 and 7 18 .

Obatala - father of the Orisha and all humanity. He is the creator of the world and enforces justice in the world. He is the source of all that is pure, wise, peaceful, ethical, moral, and compassionate 19 . The saint he stands for is Our Lady of Mercy. His color is white, as he contains all colors, but is above them all; his number is 8 20 .

Chango - ruler of lightning and thunder. He is also a warrior, like the three above, and is well known for his many wives 21 . He demands involvement in life and living life to its fullest. He deals with the day to day challenges. He is attributed to St. Barbara. His colors are red and white and his numbers are 4 and 6 22 .

Oya - ruler of winds and whirlwinds. She rules over the dead and the gates of the cemeteries. She is a fierce warrior and was once the wife of Chango 23 . She represents Our Lady of the Presentation of Our Lord and St. Theresa 24 . Her colors are maroon and white, and her number is 9 25 .

Oshun - rules over the water of the world -- rivers, streams, and brooks. She embodies love, beauty, and fertility. She represents the blood flowing through and creating human life. She is also associated with culture and the fine arts. She is the youngest of the Orishas and the messenger to the house of Olorun. Her saint is Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's Patron Saint. Her colors are yellow and gold and her number is 5 26 .

Yemaya - rules over seas and lakes. She is the Mother of all and the root of all riches. She is deep and unknowable, like the waters which she rules. She is also the queen of witches and of secrets. She is considered the Orisha of mercy, while she never turns her back on her children. Her saint is Our Lady of Regla, the patron Saint of Havana's port. Her colors are blue and white and her number is 7 27 .

Babalu Aye - associated with disease (specifically smallpox). The sick pray to him in hope of recovery. He has simple tastes and does not expect much 28 . He is associated with St. Lazarus. His colors are white and light blue and his number is 17 29 .

Orishaoco - rules over crops and agriculture. Thus, he is in charge of all the tools of the gardeners. He settles fights among the Orisha, especially those between Chango and his wives. His saint is St.Ysidro. His color is lilac 30 .

Osain - the doctor of the Orishas. He controls all the medicinal and magical herbs. The drums used in ceremonies are consecrated to him. He represents St. John (when in the city) and St. Ambrose (when in the country). His colors are white, red, and yellow 31 .

The Ibeyi - children of Oshun and Chango. They are identical in many ways and are the so-called children of the Orishas. They are associated with the acquisition of material property 32 . Their saints are St. Cosme and St. Damian. They have the same colors as their parents -- yellow and gold (Oshun), red and white (Chango) 33 .

Orunmila - encompasses wisdom and divination; makes our destinies. He is the only Orisha who witnessed the creation of the universe, and is essentially next in line to Olodumare. He is the Orisha of the priests (Babalawos), whom he manifests himself to only intellectually 34 . They abide by the Table of Ifa, where the secrets of the universe and our lives are held. Oshun is knowledge while Orunmila is wisdom. These two must work together for "wisdom without knowledge is useless -- one who has knowledge without wisdom is a danger to themselves and others" 35 . He respresents St. Francis of Assisi. His colors are green and yellow and his number is 16 36 .

Communication with the Orisha is accomplished through several means, including prayer, ritual divination, and offerings (ebo - sacrifice) 37 . Although ebo sometimes refers to the practice of animal sacrifice, it encompasses a larger definition. Animal sacrifice is usually only used in important situations, such as death, sickness, or misfortune. Offerings can be made to the Orisha, with items such as candy, candles, and fruits, to name a few. The individual characteristics of each Orisha are important, as they give the people a way to distinguish how they contact the Orisha they wish to pray to. A person wears a beaded necklace with elaborate patterns of beads of the colors of the Orisha they wish to pray to. The numbers, colors, and also certain animals instruct the person on how to sacrifice to each Orisha. Because each Orisha represents a different aspect of life, a person can selectively pick an Orisha or several Orisha to pray to, depending on their needs. A participant can give up things, such as a Roman Catholic would for the season of Lent. They can also heed advice given by the Orisha in this manner.

Human Beings

After Olodumare created the earth, he created the eleven commandments, and handed them down to Obatala. These he created to ensure that the people would not succumb to evil, and that they would live prosperous lives in union with the Orisha. The eleven commandments are:

1. You will not steal
2. You will not kill, except in self-defense and for your sustenance
3. You will not eat human flesh
4. You will live in peace among yourselves
5. You will not covet your neighbor's properties
6. You will not curse my name
7. You will honor your father and mother
8. You will not ask more than I can give you and you will be content with your fate
9. You will neither fear death nor take your own life
10. You will teach my commandments to your children
11. You will respect and obey my laws 42

Traditions are strictly observed in Santeria. They have been preserved for almost 500 years. Prerequisites to a deep involvement in the religion include full knowledge of the rites, songs, and language. The participants must follow a strict regimen, and answer to Olorun and the Orisha for their actions. When initiated into the religion, the participant becomes a member of their Godparents house (or Ile), and a member of that extended family, as well. These people oversee that the participant is continuing the traditions and wishes of the Orisha.

The magic of the religion is based on knowledge of the mysteries of the Orisha and how to interact better with them. This correct interaction helps to better the lives of the participants and those around them. Santerians believe the world is magical, but in a natural sense, rather than the supernatural. "The most basic spell in Santeria will always require a plant, an herb, a stone, a flower, a fruit or an animal. The belief in the power of herbs is an intrinsic part of the religion." 52

Ebo contains many categories of sacrifice and offering to the Orisha. "There are offerings such as addimú which can include candles, fruits, candy, or any number of items oractions that may be appreciated by the deities or orishas in the religion. In divination, the orishas may ask for a favorite fruit or dish, or they may call for the person to heed advice given. At times they may ask that a person give up drinking or other practices that are unwise for that individual. They may request a person to wear certain jewelry, receive initiations or any number of other things. Or they may request an animal, usually a chicken or a dove, so the orisha will come to that person's aid. As a rule, animal sacrifice is called for only in major situations such as sickness or serious misfortune. Animals are also offered when a new priest is consecrated in service of her or his orisha during the birthing process of initiation. In every birth there is blood" 38 . Animal Sacrifices are essential to winning favor with the gods, and must be performed by a santero (priest) 39 .

Trance possession plays an integral part in the religious life. This occurs during a drumming party known as a bembe . "The purpose of a bembe is to honor the Orisha by playing specific drum rhythms, performing specific dance postures, and acting out in pantomime of the behavior of the Orisha." 53 An Orisha may be persuaded to enter the body of a priest, if enticed by the proper drum rhythms associated to that spirit. The songs, rhythms, and dances are calculated to entreat the specific Orisha. "The drum rhythms and the dance postures are not ends in themselves, but are utilized to attain a sacred state of consciousness, manifested as a trance state or spirit possession. Spirit possession is desirable because it opens the channels of ashe as the dancers merge with divine rhythms." 54 This bembe to Elegua demonstrates the typical songs and drum beats utilized for the trance possession.

Santeria and Voudoo

It must be stressed that Santeria and Voudoo are similar, but not the same thing. "Their similarities come from their origins in contiguous parts of West Africa, while the differences stem from their historical developments in the Americas." 55 Both recognize the existence of a higher, supreme being, and the fulfillment of destinies with the help of what Santeria calls Orisha. Both also believe in the trance possession and choosing a specific Orisha to call upon. But, with reference to the Orisha, Santerians believe Catholic saints and Orisha are interchangeable. There is no division between Santeria and Catholicism. Voudoo, on the other hand, worships the same spirits as Santeria, but there is a separateness to Catholicism and Voudoo, thus they are not worshiping the same gods.

| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |

III. Controversy - Animal Sacrifice

Sacrifice, as stated earlier, is a type of Ebo. "Animal sacrifice is one of the most controversial aspects of this religion. Sacrifice, the giving of natural and manufactured items to the Orisha or ancestors, is viewed by practitioners as essential for human well-being. Through sacrifice, it is believed, one restores the positive life processes and acquires general well-being. To fulfill the wants and needs of the Orisha and the ancestors, practitioners make sacrifices to them. In return, the Orisha and ancestors are expected to meet the needs of the practitioners. This is believed to be the mutual exchange of ashe." 43

"When the religion requires the sacrifice of an animal, it is offered to the Orisha or the ancestor with respect. It is killed quickly and with as little pain as possible." 44 The meat is usually eaten by the participants of the sacrifice. "Sometimes an animal is sacrificed as part of a ritual cleansing. It is believed that such animals absorb the problems and negative vibrations of the person being cleansed. In such cases, the animal carcass is disposed of without being eaten." 45

It was on this aspect of the sacrifice that the >The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye received much criticism from the city of Hialeah. The city was concerned that by disgarding these carcasses from the ritual sacrifices, the church was creating a public health hazard. "In the early 1990's, the city of >Hialeah, Florida , passed a series of ordinances that made it illegal to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate and animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption." 46 From the onset, it appeared that the ordinance was targeted at the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye for their practice of killing the animals for sacrifice. Other forms of killing animals, such as an owner tiring of caring for the animal, were permissible.

Ernesto Pichardo, founder of the church, decided to fight the ordinances, claiming it was a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. He claimed that animal sacrifice was an integral part of the religion. 47 The church took the city to the Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the church. The brief of the case of The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah explains the proceedings in great detail. A summary of this brief can be found on The Religious Freedom Page . One justice, Justice Anthony Kennedy, was quoted, saying, "Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, religious belief need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection." 48

Another concern brought up about the method of sacrifice of Santeria, is presented by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . "They argue that Santeria is less humane than methods used in licensed slaughterhouses. They note that animals die slowly and painfully and that they are often kept in filthy conditions before ceremonies." 49 "Protection of public health and prevention of cruelty to animals could have been addressed with less sweeping ordinances. General standards for the disposal of organic garbage and for the humane slaughter of animals might have been imposed, but they were not." 51 Practitioners claim that the methods they use during sacrifice are no more cruel than the legal types of slaughter. They die quickly and painlessly and are generally eaten afterwards, like any animal killed for food.

"Despite the oddity of animal sacrifice to most Americans, mainstream religious groups have weighed in to support the Lukumi Babalu Aye church. Jewish organizations feared that Hialeah's law might have ruled out kosher slaughtering. Christian groups like the Presbyterian Church and National Association of Evangelicals want to prevent the Supreme Court from further restricting religious rights." 50

Santería

2007-09-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

Santería also known as "La Religión" or "The Way of the Saints," is an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from traditional beliefs of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The Santería/Yoruba religion is comprised of a hierarchical structure according to priesthood level and authority. Orisha "ile" or temples are usually governed by Orisha Priests known as Babalorishas "father of orisha" or Iyalorishas "mothers of orisha", and serve as the junior Ile or second in the hierarchical religious structure. The Babalorishas and Iyalorishas are referred to as "Santeros(as)" and if they function as diviners of the Orishas they can be considered Oriates. The highest level of achievement for males is to become a priest of IFA (eee-fah). IFA Priests receive Orunmila who is the Orisha of Prophecy, Wisdom and all Knowledge. Ifa Priests are known by their titles such as "Babalawo" or "Father Who Knows the Secrets". Ifa Ile or Temples of Ifa serve as the senior to all Orisha Ile in the Traditional Orisha-Ifa / Santeria Community. The Sacred Oracle of Ika-Fun or Ika Ofun serves as confirmation.

History

Santería is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the new world by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Caribbean, central and south America were nominally converted to Catholicism. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKongo (Congo) and Lukumi beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Catholic culture. In Cuba this religious tradition has evolved into what we now recognize as Santería. Today hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in this ancient religion.[citation needed] Some are fully committed priests and priestesses, others are "godchildren" or members of a particular house-tradition, many are clients seeking help with their everyday problems. Many are of Hispanic and Caribbean descent but as the religion moves out of the inner cities an into the suburbs a growing number are of African-American and European-American heritage. As the Ifá religion of Africa was recreated in the Americas it was transformed. Today as it moves into mainstream America we can expect further transformation.

"The colonial period from the standpoint of African slaves may be defined as a time of perseverance. Their world quickly changed. Tribal kings and families, politicians, business and community leaders all were enslaved in a foreign region of the world. Religious leaders, their descendants, and the faithful, were now slaves. Colonial laws criminalized their religion. They were forced to become baptized and worship a god their ancestors had not known who was surrounded by a pantheon of saints. The early concerns during this period seem to indicate a need for individual survival under harsh plantation conditions. A sense of hope was sustaining the internal essence of what today is called Santería, a misnomer for the indigenous religion of the Lukumi people of Nigeria.

In the heart of their homeland, they had a complex political and social order. They were a sedentary hoe farming cultural group with specialized labor. Their religion based on the worship of nature was renamed and documented by their masters. Santería, a pejorative term that characterizes deviant Catholic forms of worshiping saints has become a common name for the religion. The term santero(a) is used to describe a priest or priestess replacing the traditional term Olorisha as an extension of the deities. The orishas became known as the saints in image of the Catholic pantheon." (Ernesto Pichardo, CLBA, Santeria in Contemporary Cuba: The individual life and condition of the priesthood)

As mentioned, in order to preserve their authentic ancestral and traditional beliefs, the Lukumi people had no choice but to disguise their orishas as Catholic saints. When the Roman Catholic slave owners observed Africans celebrating a Saint's Day, they were generally unaware that the slaves were actually worshiping their sacred orishas.[2] In Cuba today, the terms "saint" and "orisha" are sometimes used interchangeably. The term Santería (also known as "the Way of the Saints"), was originally a derisive term applied by the Spanish to mock followers' seeming overdevotion to the saints and their perceived neglect of God. It was later applied to the religion by others. This "veil" characterization of the relationship between Catholic saints and Cuban orisha, however, is somewhat undermined by the fact that the vast majority of santeros in Cuba today also consider themselves to be Catholics, have been baptized, and often require initiates to be baptized. Many hold separate rituals to honor the saints and orisha respectively, even though the disguise of Catholicism is no longer needed.

The traditional Lukumi religion and its Santería counterpart can be found in many parts of the world today, including but not limited to: the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, Canada, Venezuela, Panama and other areas with large Latin American populations. A very similar religion called Candomblé is practiced in Brazil, which is home to a rich array of other Afro-American Religions. This is now being referred to as "parallel religiosity" (Perez y Mena, SSSR paper 2005) since some believers worship the African variant that has no devil fetish and no baptism or marriage and at the same time they belong to either Catholic Churches or Mainline Protestant Churches, where there is a devil fetish. Lukumi religiosity works toward a balance here on earth (androcentric) while the European religions work toward the hereafter. Some in Cuban Santería, Haitian Vodun or Puerto Rican Spiritualism (Afro-Latin Religions) do not view a difference between the saints and the orishas, the ancestor deities of the Lukumi people's Ifa religion.

There are now individuals who mix the Lukumí practices with traditional practices as they survived in Africa after the deleterious effects of colonialism. Although most of these mixes have not been at the hands of experienced or knowledgeable practitioners of either system, they have gained a certain popularity.

[edit] Deities

Olóffi (Father/Creator) / Olórum (Son) / Olod-dumare (Spirit)

* Elegguá
* Obbatalá
* Babalú Ayé
* Aggayú
* Ochosi
* Oduduwa
* Oggun
* Olokun

* Yemaya
* Changó
* Orúla
* Osaín
* Ochún
* Oyá
* Xenaoth
* Yewá

Each orisha has its specific nickname, symbols, offerings, music, archetype, etc..

[edit] Beliefs and rituals

The sacred belief system of the Lukumi prevent non-adherents from participating in ceremonial rites. Nearly all Lukumi ceremonies are reserved for priests and the newly initiated.

Santería was traditionally transmitted orally, although in the last decade a number of books have been published on the tradition. Practices include animal offering, dance, sung invocations to the orishas, and sprinkling elemental mercury around a home.[1] Of these the most controversial is animal sacrifice. Followers of Santería point out that the killings are conducted in a safe and humane manner. The priests charged with doing the sacrifice are trained in humane ways to kill the animals. Furthermore, the animal is cooked and eaten afterwards by the community. In fact, chickens, a staple food of many African-descended and Creole cultures, are the most common sacrifice; the chicken's blood is offered to the orisha, while the meat is consumed by all. The practice of animal sacrifice was historically common in many religions, most notably Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. In Judaism, for example, Mosaic Law requires altar sacrifices of three kinds: sin offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings.

Trees are also offered to the orisha. Drum music and dancing are a form of prayer and will sometimes induce a trance state in an initiated priest, who become possessed and will channel the orisha, giving the community and individuals information, perform healing etc. (see Yoruba music). One's ancestors (egun) are held in high esteem in Lukumí. All ceremonies and rituals in the Lukumi religion begin with paying homage to one’s ancestors.

The Yoruba believe in a creator who is called Oloffi (God). There is no specific belief in a devil since the Yoruba belief system is not a dualistic philosophy - good versus evil, God versus a devil. Instead the universe is seen as containing forces of expansion and forces of contraction. These forces interact in complex ways to create the universe. All things are seen to have positive aspects, or Iré, and negative aspects, or Ibi. Nothing is seen as completely good or completely evil but all things are seen as having different proportions of both. Similarly no action is seen as universally as wrong or right but rather can only be judged with the context and circumstances in which it takes place. In this context the individual is seen as made up of both positive/constructive impulses as well as negative/destructive impulses. Similarly, an individual's talents and facilities are seen as having a potential of both positive and negative expression. Therefore, there is a great deal of attention and focus on each individual striving to develop good character and doing good works. Good character, or Iwapele, is defined as doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of retribution or as a way of seeking rewards, but simply because it is right. All humans are seen as having the potential of being good and blessed people (no original sin), although they have a potential to make evil choices, and the universe is seen as benevolent.

[edit] Persecution

African spirituality was actively suppressed and outlawed during slavery. On the African continent, native traditions were viewed as inherently backward and primitive by the European colonizing forces who set out to actively 'civilize' the natives through a number of mechanisms including torture and execution[citation needed]; kidnapping the young and putting them in boarding schools; and bribery or other material incentive. Intimately implicated and complicit in this process were Christian missionaries, who charged themselves with saving the souls of the native peoples by converting them from their millennia-old traditional spiritual practices to one of several forms of Christianity.

Within the European and North American Christian culture, African spirituality has been historically demonized, sensationalized, and distorted. Hollywood’s portrayal of African traditions has been mired with gross distortions and exaggerations. The historic repression of African spirituality in the context of slavery has as well as racism, cultural imperialism and supremacy have also played significant roles. The notion that a legitimate, sophisticated spiritual philosophy could have originated in Africa flew in the face of widespread distortions in Europe and North America of that time about the backwardness of African culture.

[edit] Controversies and criticisms

* Some animal rights activists take issue with the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice, claiming that it is cruel. In 1993, this issue was taken to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Yoruba were unconstitutional;[2] the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice has seen no significant legal challenges since then.
* There have been a few highly publicized cases where injuries allegedly occurred during Lukumi rituals. One such case reported by The New York Times took place on January 18, 1998 in Sayville, New York, where 17-year-old Charity Miranda was suffocated to death with a plastic bag at her home by her mother Vivian, 39, and sister Serena, 20, after attempting an exorcism to free her of demons. Police found the women chanting and praying over the prostrate body. Not long before, the women had embraced Lukumi. The mother in question, Vivian Miranda, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is currently confined in a New York State psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.[3]

* There have been some wildly inaccurate movies about the religion as well, such as the 1987 movie, The Believers, and the 1997 Spanish-Mexican-American movie Perdita Durango, which depicts a couple who follow fantasized Santeria beliefs and practice human sacrifice and the consumption of aborted fetuses.

[edit]

Voodoo

2007-09-16T10:10:00.001-07:00

Voodoo is a derivative of the world’s oldest known religions which have been around in Africa since the beginning of human civilization. Some conservative estimates these civilizations and religions to be over 10 000 years old. This then identify Voodoo as probably the best example of African syncretism in the Americas. Although its essential wisdom originated in different parts of Africa long before the Europeans started the slave trade, the structure of Voodoo, as we know it today, was born in Haiti during the European colonization of Hispaniola. Ironically, it was the enforced immigration of enslaved African from different ethnic groups that provided the circumstances for the development of Voodoo. European colonists thought that by desolating the ethnic groups, these could not come together as a community. However, in the misery of slavery, the transplanted Africans found in their faith a common thread.

They began to invoke not only their own Gods, but to practice rites other than their own. In this process, they comingled and modified rituals of various ethnic groups. The result of such fusion was that the different religious groups integrated their beliefs, thereby creating a new religion: Voodoo. The word "voodoo" comes from the West African word "vodun," meaning spirit. This Afro-Caribbean religion mixed practices from many African ethnics groups such as the Fon, the Nago, the Ibos, Dahomeans, Congos, Senegalese, Haussars, Caplaous, Mondungues, Mandinge, Angolese, Libyans, Ethiopians, and the Malgaches.

The Essence of Voodoo

Within the voodoo society, there are no accidents. Practitioners believe that nothing and no event has a life of its own. That is why "vous deux", you two, you too. The universe is all one. Each thing affects something else. Scientists know that. Nature knows it. Many spiritualists agree that we are not separate, we all serve as parts of One. So, in essence, what you do unto another, you do unto you, because you ARE the other. Voo doo. View you. We are mirrors of each others souls. God is manifest through the spirits of ancestors who can bring good or harm and must be honored in ceremonies. There is a sacred cycle between the living and the dead. Believers ask for their misery to end. Rituals include prayers, drumming, dancing, singing and animal sacrifice.

The serpent figures heavily in the Voodoo faith. The word Voodoo has been translated as "the snake under whose auspices gather all who share the faith". The high priest and/or priestess of the faith (often called Papa or Maman) are the vehicles for the expression of the serpent's power. The supreme deity is Bon Dieu. There are hundreds of spirits called Loa who control nature, health, wealth and happiness of mortals. The Loa form a pantheon of deities that include Damballah, Ezili, Ogu, Agwe, Legba and others. During Voodoo ceremonies these Loa can possess the bodies of the ceremony participants. Loa appear by "possessing" the faithful, who in turn become the Loa, relaying advice, warnings and desires. Voodoo is an animist faith. That is, objects and natural phenomena are believed to possess holy significance, to possess a soul. Thus the Loa Agwe is the divine presence behind the hurricane.

Music and dance are key elements to Voodoo ceremonies. Ceremonies were often termed by whites "Night Dancing" or "Voodoo Dancing". This dancing is not simply a prelude to sexual frenzy, as it has often been portrayed. The dance is an expression of spirituality, of connection with divinity and the spirit world.

Voodoo is a practical religion, playing an important role in the family and the community. One's ancestors, for instance, are believed to be a part of the world of the spirits, of the Loas, and this is one way that Voodoo serves to root its participants in their own history and tradition. Another practical aspect of Voodoo ceremonies is that participants often come before the priest or priestess to seek advice, spiritual guidance, or help with their problems. The priest or priestess then, through divine aid, offer help such as healing through the use of herbs or medicines (using knowledge that has been passed down within the religion itself), or healing through faith itself as is common in other religions. Voodoo teaches a respect for the natural world.

Unfortunately, the public’s perception of voodoo rites and rituals seems often to point to the evil or malicious side of things. There are healing spells, nature spells, love spells, purification spells, joyous celebration spells. Spirits may be invoked to bring harmony and peace, birth and rebirth, increased abundance of luck, material happiness, renewed health.The fact is, for those who believe it, voodoo is powerful. It is also empowering to the person who practices it.

Voodoo and its fight to survive.

Despite Voodoo's noble status as one of the worlds oldest religions, it has been typically characterized as barbaric, primitive, sexually licentious practice based on superstition and spectacle. Much of this image however, is due to a concerted effort by Europeans, who have a massive fear of anything African, to suppress and distort a legitimate and unique religion that flourished among their enslaved Africans. When slavers brought these peoples across the ocean to the Americas, the African's brought their religion with them. However, since slavery included stripping the slaves of their language, culture, and heritage, this religion had to take some different forms. It had to be practiced in secret, since in some places it was punishable by death, and it had to adapt to the loss of their African languages. In order to survive, Voodoo also adopted many elements of Christianity. When the French who were the colonizers of Haiti, realized that the religion of the Africans was a threat to the colonial system, they prohibited all African religion practices and severely punished the practitioners of Voodoo with imprisonment, lashings and hangings. This religious struggle continued for three centuries, but none of the punishments could extinguished the faith of the Africans. This process of acculturation helped Voodoo to grow under harsh cultural conditions in many areas of the Americas.
Voodoo survives as a legitimate religion in a number of areas of the world, Brazil where it is called "Candomblé" and the English speaking Caribbean where it is called “Obeah”. The Ewe people of southern Togo and southeastern Ghana -- two countries in West Africa -- are devout believers. In most of the United States however, white slavers were successful in stripping slaves of their Voodoo traditions and beliefs. Thus Voodoo is, for most African Americans, yet another part of their heritage that they can only try to re-discover.
The Power of Voodoo

The strength that the Africans in Haiti gained from their religion was so strong and powerful, that they were able to survive the cruel persecution of the French rulers against Voodoo. It was in the midst of this struggle that the revolution was conspired. The Voodoo priests consulted their oracle and learned how the political battle would have to be fought in order for them to be victorious. The revolution exploded in 1791 with a Petr— ritual and continued until 1804 when the Haitians finally won independence. Today the system of Voodoo reflects its history. We can see the African ethnic mixture in the names of different rites and in the pantheon of Gods or Loas, which is composed of deities from all parts of Africa.

Diamante 25 kilates

2007-09-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

El diamante de 25 kilates, valorado en 25.000 pesos de la época, fue embutido en el piso de granito del salon de los pasos Perdidos, justo en centro mismo de la cúpula. Según se cuenta, el diamante pertenció al último zar de Rusia, Nicolas II, y se le otorgaban poderes curativos. El punto que marca el diamante es el punto kilometrico cero de las carreteras cubanas.

Protegido por un cristal el diamante fue robado en 25 de marzo de 1946 y recuperado el 2 de junio del año siguiente (dicenq ue aparecio encima de la mesa del presidente de la república Ramón Grau San Martín). Nunca se supo quien lo robo auqnue la rumología popular, apoyada en las declaraciones del investigador Rolando Aniceto Ramos, asegura que fue un teniente de la policía especial del Ministerio de Educación llamado Abelardo Fernández González y apodado El mosquito. Cuentan que se ofreció una recompensa de 5.000 pesos y la que se iban a tomar represalias contra el ladróny que de ta forma se pudo recuperar la piedra que fue entregada al comandante del ejército Pablo Suárez, ayudante del presidente Grau San Martín.

En 1973 se sustituyó el diamante por una réplica por cuestiones de seguridad y se guardo en la caja de seguridad del Banco Central de Cuba.

La leyenda [editar]

Dicen que en el Salón de los Pasos Perdidos tiene un fantasma. El espíritu de Clemente Vázquez Bello que murió en un atentado perpetrado por la oposición anti-machadista en setiembre de 1932, se pasea por él todas las noches.

Bacardi 2

2007-09-02T13:44:00.001-07:00

In 1843 Facundo married a young woman named Amalia, the daughter of a French Bonapartist fighter, and soon began a family. Around this time his rum experiments had paid off and he offered samples of his newfangled light rum to relatives and friends. Facundo's secret formula enabled him to ferment, distill, and blend from molasses a rum one could drink straight, almost like wine, without mixers or additives. Since molasses was a byproduct of processing sugarcane, Cuba's largest export, there were ample quantities around the island. On February 4, 1862, Facundo, his brother Jose, and a French wine merchant joined forces to buy Nunes' tin-roofed distillery for $3,500. The facility had the necessities (a still of cast-iron, fermenting tanks, and aging barrels) for creating and selling a Bacardi brand of rum. Buying the old distillery lock, stock, and barrel, Facundo also received an added bonus in the deal--a colony of fruit bats that later came to represent the Bacardi name.

The Bacardi enterprise was a family affair. As Facundo's three sons--Emilio, Facundo (Jr.), and Jose--came of age, they joined the company and learned their father's secret formula for making what was fast becoming the Caribbean's finest rum. Emilio, the oldest, worked in the office; Facundo Jr. worked in the distillery; and Jose, the youngest, eventually sold and promoted his father's products. Facundo Jr., in honor of his father and to celebrate the new family business, planted a coconut palm tree just outside the distillery. As the Bacardi boys learned their father's trade, a young man named Enrique Schueg y Chassin, who was born in 1862, the same year Don Facundo purchased the Santiago distillery, was maturing and would soon join both the business and the family, by marriage. In the ensuing years, as the business thrived, young Facundo's coconut palm did, too. The tree became an enduring symbol of the Bacardi family and its spirits operation.

Not long before Don Facundo and his partners bought the Nunes distillery, an Australian named T. S. Mort had perfected the first machine-chilled cold storage unit. Three years after Bacardi was established, Thaddeus Lowe debuted the world's first ice machine. Although these two inventions seemed completely unrelated to Don Facundo's premium rum, they later helped Bacardi conquer the social drinking marketplace by making ice and cold mixers commonplace. Yet such thoughts were far from Don Facundo and his family's minds, for they had no idea how widespread the appeal of their smooth, fine rum would one day become. Instead, they greeted Bacardi's increasing popularity in Santiago and the neighboring villages as a pleasant surprise.

As was the custom of the day, customers brought their own jugs and bottles to the distillery; the Bacardi family members promptly filled and returned them. With business booming, Don Facundo decided the current method of distribution was not good enough and set out to find an alternative. Meanwhile, back in Spain, Queen Isabella, who ascended the throne in 1843 at the age of 13, was deposed. For Bacardi and his family, as with most Catalans living on the Spanish-controlled colony of Cuba, the insurrection mirrored their own growing unrest. As civil war raged in Spain in 1872, Emilio, who had become a Cuban freedom fighter, was caught and exiled to an island off the coast of Morocco. During his absence, hostilities grew and a rebellion swept through Cuba, although the family business was unharmed. Emilio returned to Cuba four years after his capture and learned Bacardi rum had earned a gold medal at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.

A Changing Landscape: 1877 to 1931

As the 1880s dawned, Don Facundo retired and turned Bacardi over to Emilio, Facundo Jr., Jose, and Enrique, who was now his son-in-law. The company's distribution problems had been solved with the suggestion from Dona Amalia that Bacardi products be sold with a distinctive, easily recognized label. As many of Santiago's residents could not read, Dona Amalia recommended using a symbol to represent Bacardi. The Bacardi logo was then born, sporting a most unlikely mascot, the fruit bat.

Before the turn of the century, as Bacardi flourished, Cuba was again engaged in battle to gain its independence from Spain. Emilio, fighting for his country, was banished a second time and Enrique went with him into exile. The United States joined the fray after a mysterious explosion on the U.S. battleship Maine sparked the Spanish-American War in 1898. After the defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which ceded Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the U.S. for $20 million. In 1901 Cuba became an independent republic, and Emilio returned home to the Bacardi family and business.

Emilio was elected mayor of Santiago while Bacardi continued buying sugarcane fields and expanding its operations through several bottling facilities. In 1906 Emilio was elected to the Cuban Senate and the next year Jose, the youngest Bacardi son, who had represented the company's interests in Havana, died. Though the family mourned his loss, the business continued to prosper and in 1910 Emilio returned to his father's homeland to begin Bacardi's first international venture: a new bottling facility in Barcelona, Spain. Less than a decade later, on May 2, 1919, Compania Ron Bacardi, S.A. was incorporated with Emilio as president, and Facundo Jr. and Enrique as vice presidents.

As Bacardi set out to conquer the world--especially the United States--with its premium rum, a roadblock called Prohibition stood in its way. Though temperance had been gaining ground for several years, the Prohibition amendment was officially ratified less than four months earlier on January 16, 1919. However, although Bacardi could not sell their spirits to the U.S., nothing stopped Americans from coming to Cuba for liquor. Havana soon became known as "the unofficial U.S. saloon" and Bacardi rum was one of its biggest attractions. Bacardi's international sales were also strong in a world whose population topped 1.8 billion by 1922. This same year, both the family and the business suffered the loss of patriarch Emilio, followed two years later by Facundo Jr. Enrique, though not a family member by blood, took the reins of the burgeoning company and served as its president.

The dawn of the 1930s brought further international expansion for Bacardi as its bottling operation in Spain was a huge success. Realizing that Bacardi rum could be distilled and sold from any facility with the appropriate equipment, Enrique began to open what soon became a network of distribution points. In 1931 came the establishment of a new subsidiary in Mexico, which was nearly bankrupt through a severe recession. Enrique's son-in-law, Jose Bosch, intervened and kept the operation afloat until the economy improved and the small company turned profitable.

After Prohibition

When Prohibition was repealed in the United States in December 1933, Bacardi was ready to start serving the thirsty market. Enrique promptly sent his son-in-law Jose to New York City to pave the way for Bacardi's distribution in the United States. Back in Cuba the political climate was once again boiling as Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, the country's army chief of staff, became Cuba's de facto ruler after a military coup. Unfettered by its tropical roots, Bacardi entered the U.S. marketplace in a bang--selling over 80,000 cases in 1934. To save the company the United States' expensive import duty tax (nearly $1 per bottle), Jose Bosch decided to open another Bacardi facility in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Under American control since the Treaty of Paris in 1901, Puerto Rico was considered U.S. soil and its exports duty free. Under the name Bacardi Corporation, the new company soon moved to larger accommodations across the bay in Catano.

The 1940s brought several milestones for Bacardi, both in expansion and brand recognition. Much of the company's U.S. business had begun through word-of-mouth praise from visitors to the Caribbean, especially those flying Pan American Airways, which used Bacardi in some of its ads, "Fly Pan Am to Cuba and you can be bathing in Bacardi in hours." To capitalize on Bacardi's growing reputation and enhance its brand at the same time, Enrique and Jose initiated advertising that focused on Bacardi's excellent qualities as a mixer. Two of the more popular variations were the Daiquiri, named after a Cuban village where an American mining engineer mixed Bacardi, crushed ice, and lime juice in 1896; and the Cuba Libre or Rum & Coke, created by an American army lieutenant in honor of Cuba's new independence. The latter concoction gained widespread attention when the Andrews Sisters made "Rum & Coca-Cola" a hit in 1944.

The same year "Rum & Coca-Cola" sailed up the charts, Bacardi Imports was established in New York City to coordinate the increasing demand for Bacardi, and both Cuba and the United States joined the Allied war effort. By the end of the decade, however, challenges loomed for Bacardi. In the United States, where whisky was reintroduced in 1947, rum sales plummeted 47 percent in a one-year period. Next came the death of Enrique Schueg in 1950, at which time Jose Bosch assumed the role of CEO. By 1953, drinkers had become concerned over the caloric content of liquor. In response to consumer concerns, Bosch introduced a new advertising campaign, comparing the calories of a Daiquiri with those in a glass of milk. This successful spin was soon followed by ad campaigns directed toward blacks and Hispanics, and in 1956 the company broke cultural gender barriers by featuring a woman in its ads, advising homemakers to serve a Daiquiri with the evening meal.

It was around this time (there were two dissenting versions) that the first Pina Colada was mixed in Puerto Rico, using Bacardi rum, varied fruit juices, and coconut milk. As the 1950s came to an end, Cuba was once again seized by revolution--this time to unseat Batista, who had returned to power in 1952. Regarded by many as a puppet of the United States, whose continued interference in Cuban affairs spawned guerrilla uprisings, Batista ruled until 1959 when rebels led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew his dictatorship.

The New Bacardi: 1960-1989

Bosch, no fan of Batista, was shocked when the new Castro government seized Bacardi's assets, valued at $76 million, in 1960. Luckily for Bacardi, it not only had its Mexican, Puerto Rican, New York, and recently established Brazilian operations to fall back on, but its registered trademark, as well, which Castro tried to seize, to no avail. Bacardi's shareholders, all descendants of Don Facundo, reconstituted the company in 1960 as Bacardi & Company Limited, headquartered in Nassau, the Bahamas. Another company, Bacardi International Limited, was also formed and headquartered in Bermuda. In 1962 the company sold 10 percent of its shares in an IPO (initial public offering).

Trying to stave off competitors with Bacardi's reputation as a mixer, the company launched a new advertising campaign once again expounding its rum's versatility. "Enjoyable always and all ways" was supposed to be taken literally, to use Bacardi's light-colored rum as a substitute for anything, even vodka in heavyweight drinks like highballs. The formula worked and Bacardi's sales grew by 10 percent annually throughout the 1960s, when the company finally broke into the top ten of distilled spirits brands. In 1964 Bacardi sold over one million cases of rum; this figure doubled by 1968.

During 1970, 2.6 million cases of Bacardi were sold. Aiming to further dominate the U.S. spirits market, Bacardi aggressively campaigned its rum as the mixer of choice, featured in joint promotions with Coca-Cola, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Dr. Pepper, 7Up, Pepsi, Perrier, and Schweppes' tonic water. In a well-played game of one-upmanship, Bacardi won the battle against Smirnoff vodka as the nation's biggest-selling distilled spirit. After a dispute with the Bacardi family, Jose Bosch resigned as president of the company in 1976. The following year Bosch and a group of his supporters sold their company stock (amounting to 12 percent or so) to an outsider, Hiram Walker. Unfortunately, this break with family tradition was the first in a series of squabbles that rocked the Bacardi empire over the next decade-and-a-half.

Bacardi's rums sold just shy of 8 million cases in 1978 and by 1980 Bacardi reigned as the number-one liquor brand in the United States. During this period, consumers were once again weight-conscious and accordingly, Bacardi relaunched its status as a low calorie diet drink mixer. By 1985 Bacardi was selling over 18 million cases a year, with old rival Smirnoff selling less than 14 million. In 1986, three years after Bacardi Capital was created to manage and invest company funds, a group of inexperienced brokers lost $50 million speculating in the bond market. Regrouping, Bacardi chairman Alfred O'Hara and president Manuel Luis Del Valle (non-family members brought in to run the company in the 1970s) commenced a controversial stock buyback, which divided the company and inspired a storm of controversy. Many of the 500 family shareholders cried foul, several Bacardi family members were ousted, and O'Hara and Del Valle--despite the ruckus--succeeded. Spending more than $241 million, they bought back or converted shares from Bacardi's IPO in 1962 as well as those sold to Hiram Walker in 1977.

The Bacardi of the 1990s

When the 1990s began Bacardi was once again a private company. Having weathered the Bacardi Capital scandal and increasing family discord, the company was faced with falling market share and sales. In an effort to jazz up its image, the company introduced Bacardi Frozen Tropical Fruit Mixers and Bacardi Breezers to wide acclaim. Two years later came Rum & Coke in a can, and a majority interest in Martini & Rossi for $1.4 billion. Bacardi hoped the diversification would help its European operations; as a result of the purchase, Bacardi became the fifth largest wine-and-spirits company in the world. Before the Martini & Rossi acquisition, Bacardi was bringing in close to $500 million annually, yet was nowhere near complacent. Its next new product launch, Bacardi Limón, was aimed at younger drinkers of flavored liquors like Absolut's Citron and Stoli's Limonaya. Introduced in 1995 with an $11 million advertising campaign, Bacardi Limón took off and was considered one of the hottest high-proof new brands of the year.

By the mid-1990s Bacardi had bottling facilities located in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, while its spirits were still manufactured in the Bahamas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain--with Brazil, Canada, Martinique, Panama, and Trinidad added to the list. The company's brands, of which Bacardi Breezers and Bacardi Limón were the latest newcomers, had grown to accommodate virtually all tastes. First and foremost were Bacardi's four premium rum blends: Bacardi Light, the original, comparable to gin and vodka as a mixer; Bacardi Dark (full-bodied, its amber color achieved by blackening the inside of wooden aging barrels) and Bacardi Black (charcoal-filtered just once before extended aging; later renamed Bacardi Select), which competed with whisky and bourbon; Bacardi Anejo, a golden rum blend named for the Castillian word meaning "aged" that appealed to upscale brown spirits-drinkers; and Bacardi Reserve, a twice-filtered blend for brandy and cognac drinkers.

By 1996 all of Bacardi's products were given a more hip look with updated labels and bottle caps as Bacardi Spice (to compete with Seagram's Captain Morgan) made its way to the market with several more prototypes in the works. By now, Bacardi was once again a family-run empire, with Don Facundo's heirs calling the shots. Manuel Jorge Cutillas and brother Eduardo occupied the top posts, while the company created alliances with partners in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and Thailand to introduce its products. Another global project was the debut of Club Bacardi, the company's web site. Well-positioned for the future, the name Bacardi conjured up far more than a refined, dry rum; Bacardi was not just a premium spirit but an institution here to stay.

Bacardi Heads into the New Millennium

As Bacardi headed into the 21st century, the company continued to expand its business in the highly competitive liquor industry. In 1998 it added Dewar's Scotch whisky and Bombay gin to its arsenal. Bacardi then set its sights on Seagram Company's alcohol beverage segment, which was up for sale as a result of the impending Seagram and Vivendi SA merger. In 2000, Bacardi teamed up with Brown-Forman Corp. of Louisville, Kentucky, to bid for Seagram's prized liquor business that included brands such as Chivas Regal Scotch whisky, Crown Royal Canadian whisky, and Captain Morgan. A bidding war ensued and in the end, Bacardi and Brown-Forman lost out to Diageo PLC and Pernod Ricard S.A.

Undeterred, Bacardi forged ahead with its growth plans. In 2002, the company purchased Tequila Cazadores, a premium reposado tequila. Bacardi also added tequila infused rum Ciclon, Turi vodka, and malt beverage Bacardi Silver to its brand portfolio that year. Bacardi chairman Ruben Rodriguez commented on the cut-throat nature of the liquor industry in a December 2002 Calgary Herald newspaper. "It's a very competitive environment, and we have to get bigger in order to be able to effectively compete," claimed Rodriguez. He went on, "It's important to be the first one in the marketplace giving consumers what they want. If you don't do it, your competition is going to do it for you." Indeed, this mind-set remained at the forefront of Bacardi's strategy. In 2004, the company acquired Grey Goose vodka. It continued to launch new products and also redesigned some of its packaging.

Despite the company's successes, family squabbling, management changes, and failed plans to take the company public were taking a toll on morale at company headquarters. At the same time, Pernod Ricard's takeover of Allied Domecq left Bacardi well behind competitors Diageo and Pernod Ricard. The company reported a 21 percent drop in net profits for 2004 due in part to falling demand for its ready-to-drink cocktails.

Facundo L. Bacardi, great-great grandson of the founder, was named chairman in 2005. Under his leadership, the company took steps to secure its position in the industry. In 2006, Bacardi launched a new marketing strategy designed to take advantage of online social networks and blogs. It also launched Bacardi B-Live, an online and mobile radio station, and offered a sweepstakes on its Web site that tied in with the 2006 debut of the Miami Vice movie. Later that year, Bacardi U.S.A. relaunched its Havana Club brand in limited supply after winning a decade-long legal battle with the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard concerning the rights to market the brand. Back in 1960, Castro had seized Arechabala's Havana Clubs assets. The rum was then exported by the Cuban government's Cubaexport company and Pernod Ricard--but was not sold in the U.S. due to the embargo on Cuban products. In the mid-1990s, Bacardi bought the family recipe and the Havana Club name from the Arechabala family. The Havana Club product was pulled from store shelves however, after Pernod Ricard and the Cuban government cried foul. Havana Club's reinstatement in the United States in August 2006 was a sweet victory for not only the Arechabala family, but for Bacardi as well.

Principal Subsidiaries

Bacardi & Co. (Bahamas); Bacardi Corporation (Puerto Rico); Bacardi U.S.A. Inc.; Bacardi y Compania (Mexico); Bacardi-Martini Ltd. (United Kingdom).

Bacardi

2007-08-31T04:11:00.000-07:00

Bacardi is the world's largest privately held, family-owned spirits company; a producer of rums, including Bacardi Superior and Bacardi 151. The company sells in excess of 200 million bottles per year in 200 countries.[2] The business is the fourth largest spirits company in the world: sales in 2004 were $3.3 billion USD, up from $2.7 billion USD in 2000. A number of planned stock market flotations have collapsed, the last in 2000. In 2007 the company acquired Martini & Rossi.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 History
* 2 Opposition to Castro
* 3 Bacardi and Cuba today
* 4 Trivia
* 5 Products
* 6 References
* 7 External links

[edit] History

Originally founded by Don Facundo Bacardí Massó on February 4, 1862, Bacardi is headquartered today in Hamilton, Bermuda. The Bacardi company also owns several other brands including Grey Goose vodka, Dewar's scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Eristoff vodka, Martini & Rossi vermouth, Cazadores tequila, and the U.S. version of Havana Club.

Don Facundo Bacardí Massó, a wine merchant, emigrated from Spain to Cuba in the early 19th century. During this period, rum was cheaply made and not considered a refined drink, one rarely sold in upscale taverns. Don Facundo began attempting to "tame" rum. After experimenting with several techniques he hit upon filtering the rum through charcoal, which removed impurities. In addition to this, Facundo aged the rum in oak barrels, which had the effect of "mellowing" the drink. The final product was the first clear, or "white" rum in the world.

Moving from the experimental stage to a more commercial endeavor, he and his brother José set up shop in a small distillery on February 4, 1862. Their first copper and cast iron still produced 35 barrels of fermented molasses per day. In the rafters of this building lived fruit bats. Hence, the Bacardi bat logo[3].

The 1890s were turbulent times for the company. Emilio Bacardi, eldest son of Don Facundo, was exiled from Cuba for having fought in the rebel army against Spain in the Cuban Independence War. Emilio's brothers, Facundo and José, and his brother-in-law Henri Schueg, remained in Cuba with the difficult task of sustaining the company during a period of war. The women in the family were refugees in Kingston, Jamaica. After the Cuban War of Independence, and the American occupation of Cuba, "The Original Cuba Libre" and the Daiquiri cocktail were both born with Bacardi rum. In 1899, US- General Leonard Wood appointed Emilio Bacardi Mayor of Santiago de Cuba.

In 1912, Emilio Bacardi traveled to Egypt where he purchased a mummy for the future Emilio Bacardi Moreau Municipal Museum in Santiago de Cuba (still on display). In Santiago, his brother Facundo M. Bacardi continued to manage the company along with Henri Schueg, who began the company's international expansion by opening new bottling plants in Barcelona and New York City. The New York plant was soon shut down due to Prohibition, yet during this time Cuba became a hotspot for US tourists.

In the 1920s, Emilio opened a new distillery in Santiago. During this decade, the art deco Bacardi building was built in Havana and the third generation of the Bacardi family was entering the business. Facundo Bacardi was known to have invited US-Americans (still subject to Prohibition) to "Come to Cuba and bathe in Bacardi rum." A new product was introduced: Hatuey beer.

The 1930s brought a new bottling plant in Mexico City and a new distillery in Puerto Rico under the leadership of Ron Bacardi. (Which is the name of the rum, not a person). Several trademark disputes went to court during this time regarding uses of the Bacardi name on rum produced outside of Cuba. The company's leadership then fell to Henri Schueg, who managed to keep the family name on the bottles coming from Puerto Rico. Another case was won by Bacardi which allowed that "…a Bacardi Cocktail is only a Bacardi Cocktail when made with Bacardi rum."

During the World War II years the company was led by Henri's son-in-law Jose Pepin Bosch. Pepin founded Bacardi Imports in New York City, and was named Cuba's Minister of the Treasury in 1949.

Ernest Hemingway mentions Hatuey beer in two of his works: To Have and Have Not and The Old Man and the Sea. In 1956, Bacardi held a festival in honor of Hemingway's winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Bacardi has made several acquisitions to diversify away from the eponymous Bacardi rum brand. In 1992 Bacardi acquired Martini & Rossi S.p.A. the famous Italian producer of Martini vermouth and sparkling wines. In 1998, the company acquired Dewar's scotch and Bombay gin for $2 billion. In 2001, the Cazadores tequila brand and in 2004 Grey Goose, a French made vodka, from Sidney Frank for $2 billion. In 2006, Bacardi purchased New Zealand vodka brand 42 Below. Other associated brands include Drambuie Scotch whisky liqueur, DiSaronno Amaretto, and B&B and Benedictine liqueurs.

[edit] Opposition to Castro

Main article: Opposition to Fidel Castro

The Bacardi family (and hence, the company) maintained a fierce opposition to Fidel Castro's revolution in Cuba in the 1960s. In his book, 'Bacardi, The Hidden War', Hernando Calvo Ospina outlines the political element to the family's money. Ospina describes how the Bacardi family and company left Cuba after it became clear that Castro was serious about his pledges for change. However, the exit had started a few years prior to the revolution; the company moved the all important Bacardi international trademarks out of the country to the Bahamas prior to the revolution. The revolutionary government nationalised all Bacardi assets in the country, and like many American businesses, Bacardi declined the settlement offered.

Ospina also explains the close ties Bacardi family members had to the US political elite, as well as organizations of state such as the CIA. It is also known that the Bacardi family funded various Cuban exile organizations based in such as CANF

Embittered Bacardi helmsman Jose Pepin Bosch bought a surplus B-26 bomber with the hopes of bombing his ex-pal Fidel’s oil refineries (the bold plan was foiled when a picture of the bomber appeared on the front page of New York Times). He was also allegedly involved in the CIA plot to assassinate Castro : documents uncovered during congressional investigations into Kennedy's death bring to light a message outlining how he had plans to assassinate Castro, his brother (Raúl Castro) and Che Guevara. The RECE (Cuban Representation in Exile) also receives funding from Bacardi family members.

More recently, Bacardi lawyers were influential in the drafting of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which sought to extend the scope of the United States embargo against Cuba.[1] In 1999 Otto Reich, a lobbyist in Washington on behalf of Bacardi Rum, drafted section 211 of the 1999 Omnibus appropriations act, a bill that became known as the Bacardi Act. Section 211 denied trademark protection to Cuban businesses products expropriated after the Cuban revolution, a provision keenly sought by the Bacardi family. The act was aimed primarily at Havana Club brand in America, which had been registered by the Cuban government.[2] Section 211 has been challenged un-successfully by the Cuban government and the European Union in US courts, however, has been ruled illegal by the WTO (August 2001). The American Congress has yet to re-examine the matter. Bacardi's political activities have lead to the creation of a 'Boycott Bacardi'[3] campaign in the UK, which has been unsuccessful.

[edit] Bacardi and Cuba today

Bacardi drinks are not found in Cuba today. The main brand of rum in Cuba is called Havana Club a formally private company expropriated by the government. Havana Club was not a Bacardi brand, though Bacardi later bought the brand from the original owners, the Arechabala family, who had it seized from them by Castro's government after the revolution without compensation. [4][5] In partnership with French company Pernod Ricard, Havana Club is sold all over the world, except for the United States and its territories.
The top of the Bacardi Building in Havana, Cuba.
The top of the Bacardi Building in Havana, Cuba.

Bacardi, despite having no business tie (in terms of production) to Cuba today, have decided to re-emphasize their Cuban heritage in recent years. This is mainly due to commercial reasons; facing increased competition in the Rum market from the now international brand Havana Club, the company concluded that it was important for sales to associate their rum with Cuba. TV adverts with slogans of 'Welcome to the Latin Quarter' are but one example of this. In 1998, under the distinctive bat logo, the phrase "company founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1862" was added.

Bacardi has faced criticism and legal problems for supposedly attempting to falsely convince consumers they were purchasing rum made in Cuba rather than just marking its heritage. Bacardi adverts in Spain, since 1966, had described a popular combination of rum and coke as "rum and coke". However, after 1998, it began to describe the drink as Cuba Libre - literally translated as "free Cuba" which is the original name of the drink and how it's mostly called in Latin America. In this instance, Bacardi faced a legal ruling from the Spanish Association of Advertising Users which forced the company to stop the advert. They concluded that it could "mislead the viewer as to the true nature of the product" as the advert contained so many pieces of Caribbean imagery, one might conclude it came from Cuba (Ospina, p79). Bacardi continues to fight a war in the courts with the Cuban government of the rights to trademarks around the world.

The Bacardi legacy lives on in Santiago and Havana through their grand buildings and historic significance. The Bacardi Building (Edificio Bacardi) in Old Havana is regarded as one of the finest art deco buildings in Latin America.

[edit] Trivia

* Today the company has a 16-member board of directors led by the original founder's great-great grandson, Facundo L. Bacardi.

* Bacardi is the "secret ingredient" in a milkshake given to Sarah Brown by Sky Masterson in the musical "Guys and Dolls"

* Luis F. Bacardi created the Lubee Bat Conservancy, an organization dedicated to the conservation and research of Old World fruit bats and nectavores.

Fidel Castro

2007-08-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Fidel 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 father's 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 Cuba's 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. Castro's 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 People's Party. He was attracted to this new party's campaign against corruption, injustice, poverty, unemployment and low wages. The Cuban People's 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 People's Party. He was a superb public speaker and soon built up a strong following amongst the young members of the party. The Cuban People's 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 People's 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 Castro's 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, Fulgencio 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.

After building up a stock of guns and ammunition, Castro, Che Guevara, Juan Almeida, 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 Castro's 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 Batista's soldiers. In some cases the peasants also joined Castro's army, as did students from the cities and occasionally Catholic priests.

In an effort to find out information about Castro's 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 Batista's 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.

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, Castro's guerrillas were able to inflict defeat after defeat on the government's troops. In the summer of 1958 over a thousand of Batista's soldiers were killed or wounded and many more were captured. Unlike Batista's soldiers, Castro's troops had developed a reputation for behaving well towards prisoners. This encouraged Batista's 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 Batista's 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, Castro's 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. Castro's reaction was to call for a general strike. The workers came out on strike and the military were forced to accept the people's desire for change. Castro marched into Havana on January 9,1959, and became Cuba's new leader.

In its first hundred days in office Castro's government passed several new laws. Rents were cut by up to 50 per cent for low wage earners; property owned by Batista and his ministers was confiscated; the telephone company was nationalized and the rates were reduced by 50 per cent; land was redistributed amongst the peasants (including the land owned by the Castro family); separate facilities for blacks and whites (swimming pools, beaches, hotels, cemeteries etc.) were abolished.

Castro had strong views on morality. He considered that alcohol, drugs, gambling, homosexuality and prostitution were major evils. He saw the casinos and night-clubs as sources of temptation and corruption and he passed laws closing them down. Members of the Mafia, who had been heavily involved in running these places, were forced to leave the country.

Castro believed strongly in education. Before the revolution 23.6 per cent of the Cuban population were illiterate. In rural areas over half the population could not read or write and 61 per cent of the children did not go to school. Castro asked young students in the cities to travel to the countryside and teach the people to read and write. Cuba adopted the slogan: "If you don't know, learn. If you know, teach." Eventually free education was made available to all citizens and illiteracy in Cuba became a thing of the past.

The new Cuban government also set about the problem of health care. Before the revolution Cuba had 6,000 doctors. Of these, 64 per cent worked in Havana where most of the rich people lived. When Castro ordered that doctors had to be redistributed throughout the country, over half decided to leave Cuba. To replace them Cuba built three new training schools for doctors.

The death of young children from disease was a major problem in Cuba. Infant mortality was 60 per 1,000 live births in 1959. To help deal with this Cuba introduced a free health-service and started a massive inoculation program. By 1980 infant mortality had fallen to 15 per 1,000. This figure is now the best in the developing world and is in fact better than many areas of the United States.

It has been estimated that in his seven-year reign, Batista's regime had murdered over 20,000 Cubans. Those involved in the murders had not expected to lose power and had kept records, including photographs of the people they had tortured and murdered. Castro established public tribunals to try the people responsible and an estimated 600 people were executed. Although this pleased the relatives of the people murdered by Batista's government, these executions shocked world opinion.

Some of Castro's new laws also upset the United States. Much of the land given to the peasants was owned by United States corporations. So also was the telephone company that was nationalized. The United States government responded by telling Castro they would no longer be willing to supply the technology and technicians needed to run Cuba's economy. When this failed to change Castro's policies they reduced their orders for Cuban sugar.

Castro refused to be intimidated by the United States and adopted even more aggressive policies towards them. In the summer of 1960 Castro nationalized United States property worth $850 million. He also negotiated a deal where by the Soviet Union and other communist countries in Eastern Europe agreed to purchase the sugar that the United States had refused to take. The Soviet Union also agreed to supply the weapons, technicians and machinery denied to Cuba by the United States.

President Dwight Eisenhower was in a difficult situation. The more he attempted to punish Castro the closer he became to the Soviet Union. His main fear was that Cuba could eventually become a Soviet military base. To change course and attempt to win Castro's friendship with favourable trade deals was likely to be interpreted as a humiliating defeat for the United States. Instead Eisenhower announced that he would not buy any more sugar from Cuba.

In March I960, Eisenhower approved a CIA plan to overthrow Castro. The plan involved a budget of $13 million to train "a paramilitary force outside Cuba for guerrilla action." The strategy was organised by Richard Bissell and Richard Helms. An estimated 400 CIA officers were employed full-time to carry out what became known as Operation Mongoose. Edward Lansdale became project leader whereas William Harvey became head of what became known as Task Force W. The JM WAVE station served as operational headquarters for Operation Mongoose.

Sidney Gottlieb of the CIA Technical Services Division was asked to come up with proposals that would undermine Castro's popularity with the Cuban people. Plans included a scheme to spray a television studio in which he was about to appear with an hallucinogenic drug and contaminating his shoes with thallium which they believed would cause the hair in his beard to fall out.

These schemes were rejected and instead Bissell decided to arrange the assassination of Castro. In September 1960, Richard Bissell and Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), initiated talks with two leading figures of the Mafia, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana. Later, other crime bosses such as Carlos Marcello, Santos Trafficante and Meyer Lansky became involved in this plot against Castro.

Robert Maheu, a veteran of CIA counter-espionage activities, was instructed to offer the Mafia $150,000 to kill Fidel Castro. The advantage of employing the Mafia for this work is that it provided CIA with a credible cover story. The Mafia were known to be angry with Castro for closing down their profitable brothels and casinos in Cuba. If the assassins were killed or captured the media would accept that the Mafia were working on their own.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation had to be brought into this plan as part of the deal involved protection against investigations against the Mafia in the United States. Castro was later to complain that there were twenty ClA-sponsered attempts on his life. Eventually Johnny Roselli and his friends became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply removing its leader. However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States.

In 1961 Eisenhower retired and the problem of dealing with Castro was passed on to the new president, John F. Kennedy. The new president continued with Eisenhower's policy of trying to assassinate Castro. This became known as Operation Freedom and was placed under the control of Robert Kennedy.

In the three years that followed the revolution, 250,000 Cubans out of a population of six million left the country. Most of these were from the upper and middle-classes who were financially worse off as a result of Castro's policies.

Of those who stayed, 90 per cent of the population, according to public opinion polls, supported Castro. However, Castro did not keep his promise of holding free elections. Castro claimed the national unity that had been created would be destroyed by the competing political parties in an election.

Castro was also becoming less tolerant towards people who disagreed with him. Ministers who questioned the wisdom of his policies were sacked and replaced by people who had proved their loyalty to him. These people were often young, inexperienced politicians who had fought with him in the Sierra Maestra.

Politicians who publicly disagreed with him faced the possibility of being arrested. Writers who expressed dissenting views and people he considered deviants such as homosexuals were also imprisoned.

When John F. Kennedy replaced Dwight Eisenhower as president of the United States he was told about the CIA plan to invade Cuba. Kennedy had doubts about the venture but he was afraid he would be seen as soft on communism if he refused permission for it to go ahead. Kennedy's advisers convinced him that Castro was an unpopular leader and that once the invasion started the Cuban people would support the ClA-trained forces.

On April 14, 1961, B-26 planes began bombing Cuba's airfields. After the raids Cuba was left with only eight planes and seven pilots. Two days later five merchant ships carrying 1,400 Cuban exiles arrived at the Bay of Pigs. The attack was a total failure. Two of the ships were sunk, including the ship that was carrying most of the supplies. Two of the planes that were attempting to give air-cover were also shot down. Within seventy-two hours all the invading troops had been killed, wounded or had surrendered.

Bay of Pigs: Part 1

Bay of Pigs: Part 2

At the beginning of September 1962, U-2 spy planes discovered that the Soviet Union was building surface-to-air missile (SAM) launch sites. There was also an increase in the number of Soviet ships arriving in Cuba which the United States government feared were carrying new supplies of weapons. President John Kennedy complained to the Soviet Union about these developments and warned them that the United States would not accept offensive weapons (SAMs were considered to be defensive) in Cuba.

As the Cubans now had SAM installations they were in a position to shoot down U-2 spy-planes. Kennedy was in a difficult situation. Elections were to take place for the United States Congress in two month's time. The public opinion polls showed that his own ratings had fallen to their lowest point since he became president.

In his first two years of office a combination of Republicans and conservative southern Democrats in Congress had blocked much of Kennedy's proposed legislation. The polls suggested that after the elections he would have even less support in Congress. Kennedy feared that any trouble over Cuba would lose the Democratic Party even more votes, as it would remind voters of the Bay of Pigs disaster where the CIA had tried to oust Castro from power. One poll showed that over 62 per cent of the population were unhappy with his policies on Cuba. Understandably, the Republicans attempted to make Cuba the main issue in the campaign.

This was probably in Kennedy's mind when he decided to restrict the flights of the U-2 planes over Cuba . Pilots were also told to avoid flying the whole length of the island. Kennedy hoped this would ensure that a U-2 plane would not be shot down, and would prevent Cuba becoming a major issue during the election campaign.

On September 27, a CIA agent in Cuba overheard Castro's personal pilot tell another man in a bar that Cuba now had nuclear weapons. U-2 spy-plane photographs also showed that unusual activity was taking place at San Cristobal. However, it was not until October 15 that photographs were taken that revealed that the Soviet Union was placing long range missiles in Cuba.

President Kennedy's first reaction to the information about the missiles in Cuba was to call a meeting to discuss what should be done. Fourteen men attended the meeting and included military leaders, experts on Latin America, representatives of the CIA, cabinet ministers and personal friends whose advice Kennedy valued. This group became known as the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. Over the next few days they were to meet several times.

At the first meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, the CIA and other military advisers explained the situation. After hearing what they had to say, the general feeling of the meeting was for an air-attack on the missile sites. Remembering the poor advice the CIA had provided before the Bay of Pigs invasion, John F. Kennedy decided to wait and instead called for another meeting to take place that evening. By this time several of the men were having doubts about the wisdom of a bombing raid, fearing that it would lead to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The committee was now so divided that a firm decision could not be made.

The Executive Committee of the National Security Council argued amongst themselves for the next two days. The CIA and the military were still in favour of a bombing raid and/or an invasion. However, the majority of the committee gradually began to favour a naval blockade of Cuba.

Kennedy accepted their decision and instructed Theodore Sorensen, a member of the committee, to write a speech in which Kennedy would explain to the world why it was necessary to impose a naval blockade of Cuba.

As well as imposing a naval blockade, Kennedy also told the air-force to prepare for attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union. The army positioned 125,000 men in Florida and was told to wait for orders to invade Cuba. If the Soviet ships carrying weapons for Cuba did not turn back or refused to be searched, a war was likely to begin. Kennedy also promised his military advisers that if one of the U-2 spy planes were fired upon he would give orders for an attack on the Cuban SAM missile sites.

The world waited anxiously. A public opinion poll in the United States revealed that three out of five people expected fighting to break out between the two sides. There were angry demonstrations outside the American Embassy in London as people protested about the possibility of nuclear war. Demonstrations also took place in other cities in Europe. However, in the United States, polls suggested that the vast majority supported Kennedy's action.

On October 24, President John F. Kennedy was informed that Soviet ships had stopped just before they reached the United States ships blockading Cuba. That evening Nikita Khrushchev sent an angry note to Kennedy accusing him of creating a crisis to help the Democratic Party win the forthcoming election.

On October 26, Khrushchev sent Kennedy another letter. In this he proposed that the Soviet Union would be willing to remove the missiles in Cuba in exchange for a promise by the United States that they would not invade Cuba. The next day a second letter from Khrushchev arrived demanding that the United States remove their nuclear bases in Turkey.

While the president and his advisers were analyzing Khrushchev's two letters, news came through that a U-2 plane had been shot down over Cuba. The leaders of the military, reminding Kennedy of the promise he had made, argued that he should now give orders for the bombing of Cuba. Kennedy refused and instead sent a letter to Khrushchev accepting the terms of his first letter.

Khrushchev agreed and gave orders for the missiles to be dismantled. Eight days later the elections for Congress took place. The Democrats increased their majority and it was estimated that Kennedy would now have an extra twelve supporters in Congress for his policies.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the first and only nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. The event appeared to frighten both sides and it marked a change in the development of the Cold War.

Castro remained dependent on the support of the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from power on 15th October, 1964, but his successors, including Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev provided aid to his government. However, after the fall of communism in the Soviet Union in 1989 this economic help came to an end.

In 1991 Cuba suffered an economic crisis. Its outdated and unrepaired equipment meant that sugar and tobacco production fell. At the same time Cuba could no longer rely on former countries in Eastern Europe to buy its goods. Castro suffered great embarrassment when his own daughter sough asylum in the United States in 1994.

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(A1) Fidel Castro was at Belen College between 1942-45. When he left they wrote a report on him.

Fidel distinguished himself in all subjects... He was also an outstanding athlete, always courageously and proudly defending the school's colours. He has won the admiration and affection of all. We are sure that, after his law studies, he will make a brilliant name for himself. Fidel has what it takes and will make something of his life.

(A2) Teresa Casuso was a Cuban actress who met Castro in Mexico in 1956. She later allowed her house to be used as a hiding place for-the weapons that Castro was buying.

He looked eminently serene, and inspired confidence and a sense of security. His voice was quiet, his expression grave, his manner calm, gentle... He struck me as being a man who would never underestimate the value of anyone; everybody was important to him.

(A3) Melba Hernandez, a lawyer, met Fidel Castro for the first time in 1952. Later she participated in the attack on Moncada.

From the moment you shake hands with Fidel, you are impressed. His personality is so powerful. When I gave my hand to this young man I felt very secure. I felt I had found the way. When this young man began to talk, all I could do was listen.

(A4) In 1953, Fidel Castro complained about Cuba's economic relationship with the United States.

With the exception of a few food, lumber and textile industries, Cuba continues to be a producer of raw materials. We export sugar to import candy, we export hides to import shoes, we export iron to import ploughs.

(A5) Orlando de Cardenas helped Fidel Castro buy weapons in Mexico.

Fidel rarely tolerates any kind of dissent from his own views... Fidel's compulsive urge for personal control of whatever undertaking struck his fancy was not motivated by a mere lust for power but by the conviction that he was especially endowed with the wisdom for fulfilling the mission.

(A6) As a representative of the United States government, Peter Bourne met Fidel Castro in 1979.

Very few who meet him are not seduced by his personal charm, even those who violently disagree with him on ideological grounds. He has a special quality shared by few politicians, of giving his undivided attention to anyone speaking to him, no matter how lowly he is or how insignificant his comments. He also has the capacity to pick the brains of his visitors in a way that is flattering to them and at the same time of immense value to him.

(A7) After Nikita Khrushchev of the Soviet Union met Fidel Castro in New York in 1960 he told a colleague what he thought of him.

Castro is like a young horse that hasn't been broken. He needs some training, but he's very spirited - so we will have to be careful.

(A8) In his book The Perfect Failure, Trumbull Higgins argues that John F. Kennedy had a strong dislike of Fidel Castro and had been discussing his removal even before he became president.

As early as October 1960 Kennedy had discussed with his conservative friend Senator George Smathers of Florida the likely reaction of the American public to an attempt to assassinate Castro. Alternatively, Kennedy and Smathers had considered provoking a Cuban assault upon the base at Guantanamo to provide an excuse for a U.S. invasion of the island.

(A9) After the bombing raid on 14th April 1961, Fidel Castro made a speech to the Cuban people.

The imperialists plan the crime, organize the crime, furnish the criminals with weapons for the crime, pay the criminals, and then those criminals come here and murder the sons of seven honest workers. Why are they doing this? They can't forgive our being right under their very noses, seeing how we have made a revolution, a socialist revolution. Comrades, workers and peasants, this is a socialist and democratic revolution of the poor, by the poor and for the poor, we are ready to give our lives.

(A10) On February 4,1962 Fidel Castro made a speech in Havana where he considered the motivations behind the Bay of Pigs invasion.

What is hidden behind the Yankee's hatred of the Cuban Revolution... a small country of only seven million people, economically underdeveloped, without financial or military means to threaten the security or economy of any other country? What explains it is fear. Not fear of the Cuban Revolution but fear of the Latin American Revolution.

(A11) After the Bay of Pigs, Philip Bonsol, the United States Ambassador in Cuba, wrote about the consequences of the failed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

The Bay of Pigs was a serious setback for the United States... It consolidated Castro's regime and was a determining factor in giving it the long life it has enjoyed... It became clear to all concerned in Washington, in Havana and in Moscow that for the time being the Castro regime could be overthrown only through an overt application of American power.

(A12) Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Union's foreign secretary, book Through Russian Eyes: President Kennedy's 1036 Days was published in 1973. In the book Gromyko wrote about the background to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The United States over several years had established offensive military bases around the socialist countries and, primarily, near the USSR borders... the placement of medium-range effective Soviet missiles in Cuba was undertaken only after the United States ruling circles continually rejected proposals to remove American military bases, including missile sites, on foreign territory.

(A13) In 1984 Fidel Castro was interviewed by the American journalist, Tad Szulc. The journalist asked Castro why he was willing to allow Soviet missiles to be placed in Cuba.

It was necessary to make it clear to the United States that an invasion of Cuba would imply a war with the Soviet Union. It was then that they proposed the missiles... We preferred the risks, whatever they were, of a great tension, a great crisis, to the risks of the impotence of having to await a United States invasion of Cuba.

(A14) James Daniel and John Hubbell are two historians who wrote a book about the Cuban Missile Crisis. In their book, Strike in the West, they comment on why they believed the missiles were placed in Cuba.

The United States anticipated that by the mid-sixties they would have in the neighbourhood of 1,500 ballistic missiles... The total number of Soviet missiles which could reach targets in the United States was about 125... But by moving medium and intermediate-range missiles to Cuba, deep in the Western Hemisphere, Russia was rapidly narrowing the gap... The presence of Russian missiles in Cuba had drastically altered the balance of world power.

(A15) Mario Lazo, a Cuban lawyer was a supporter of the Batista regime that was overthrown by Castro. After the Cuban revolution he fled to the United States. In 1968 he wrote a book called Dagger in the Heart: American Failures in Cuba.

The accounts of the crisis did not make clear that it was a power confrontation, that the power of the USA was incomparably superior to that of the USSR, and that the leaders of both nations knew this to be a fact. The United States, it is worth repeating, could have erased every important Soviet military installation and population centre in two or three hours while the strike capability of the USSR was negligible. Although Kennedy held the trump cards, he granted the Communist Empire a privileged sanctuary in the Caribbean by means of the "no invasion" pledge.

(A16) I. F. Stone, a journalist, wrote an article on John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in 1963.

What if the Russians had refused to back down and remove their missiles from Cuba? What if they had called our bluff and war had begun, and escalated? How would the historians of mankind, if a fragment survived, have regarded the events of October?... Since this is the kind of bluff that can easily be played once too often, and that his successors
may feel urged to imitate, it would be well to think it over carefully before canonizing Kennedy as an apostle of peace.

(A17) Fidel Castro, speech in Kuala Lumpur (3rd March, 2003)

These are hard times we are living in. In recent months, we have more than once heard chilling words and statements. In his speech to West Point graduating cadets on June 1 2002, the United States president declared: "Our security will require transforming the military you will lead, a military that must be ready to strike at a moment's notice in any dark corner of the world." That same day, he proclaimed the doctrine of the pre-emptive strike, something no one had ever done in the political history of the world. A few months later, referring to the unnecessary and almost certain military action against Iraq, he said: "And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States army."

That statement was not made by the government of a small and weak nation, but by the leader of the richest and mightiest military power that has ever existed, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons, enough to obliterate the world's population several times over - and other terrifying conventional military systems and weapons of mass destruction.

That is what we are: dark corners of the world. That is the perception some have of the third world nations. Never before had anyone offered a better definition; no one had shown such contempt. The former colonies of powers that divided the world among them and plundered it for centuries today make up the group of underdeveloped countries.

There is nothing like full independence, fair treatment on an equal footing or national security for any of us; none is a permanent member of the UN security council with a veto right; none has any possibility of being involved in the decisions of the international financial institutions; none can keep its best talents; none can protect itself from capital flight or the destruction of nature and the environment caused by the squandering, selfish and insatiable consumerism of the economically developed countries.

After the last global carnage in the 1940s, we were promised a world of peace, a reduction of the gap between the rich and poor and the assistance of the highly developed to the less developed countries. It was all a huge lie. We had imposed on us an unsustainable and unbearable world order.

The world is being driven into a dead end. Within hardly 150 years, the oil and gas it took the planet 300 million years to accumulate will have been depleted. In just 100 years, the world population has grown from 1.5 billion to over 6 billion people, who will have to depend on energy sources that are still to be researched and developed. Poverty continues to grow while old and new diseases threaten whole nations with annihilation. The world's soil is being eroded and losing its fertility; the climate is changing; the air that we breathe, drinking water and the seas are increasingly contaminated.

Authority is being wrenched away from the United Nations, its established procedures are being obstructed and the organisation itself destroyed; development assistance is being reduced; there are continuous demands on the third world countries to pay a $2.5 trillion debt that cannot be paid under the present circumstances, while $1 trillion dollars are spent in ever more sophisticated and deadly weapons. Why and for what?

A similar amount is spent on commercial advertising, sowing consumerist longings that cannot be satisfied in the minds of billions of people. Why and for what? For the first time the human species is running a real risk of extinction due to the insane behaviour of the very same human beings, who are thus becoming the victims of this "civilisation".

However, no one will fight for us, that is, for the overwhelming majority, only we will do it. Only we can save humanity ourselves with the support of millions of manual and intellectual workers from the developed nations who are conscious of the catastrophes befalling their peoples. Only we can do it by sowing ideas, building awareness and mobilising global and North American public opinion. No one needs to be told this. You know it very well. Our most sacred duty is to fight, and fight we will.

(A18) BBC News Website (1st July, 2007)

Cuban President Fidel Castro has said recent CIA admissions of illicit Cold War activities disguise the fact the US is using such "brutal" tactics today.

Last week the CIA published documents called the "Family Jewels", revealing spy plots and assassination attempts.

The documents included plans to use Mafia help to kill Fidel Castro.

Mr Castro, still recovering after surgery last year, said in the official media the US was trying to pretend the tactics belonged to another era.

"Everything described in the documents is still being done, only in a more brutal manner around the entire planet, including an increasing number of illegal actions in the very United States," President Castro wrote.

In an editorial called the Killing Machine, he wrote: "Sunday is a good day to read what appears to be science fiction."

One of the key revelations of the documents was that the CIA tried to persuade mobster Johnny Roselli in 1960 to plot the assassination of the Cuban leader.

The plan was for poisoned pills to be put in Mr Castro's food, but it was shelved after the US-sponsored invasion of the Bay of Pigs failed a year later.

Mr Castro has long accused the US, including President George W Bush, of plotting to kill him.

In his editorial, Mr Castro also refers to the assassination of John F Kennedy, saying the US president was the victim of the CIA and anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

Mr Castro says Lee Harvey Oswald could not have acted alone in killing the president.

"You lose the target after every shot even if it is not moving and have to find it again in fractions of a second," Mr Castro, himself an expert marksman, says.

(A19) Fidel Castro, The Killing Machine (30th June, 2007)

It was announced that the CIA would be declassifying hundreds of pages on illegal actions that included plans to eliminate the leaders of foreign governments. Suddenly the publication is halted and it is delayed one day. No coherent explanation was given. Perhaps someone in the White House looked over the material.

The first package of declassified documents goes by the name of "The Family Jewels"; it consists of 702 pages on illegal CIA actions between 1959 and 1973. About 100 pages of this part have been deleted. It deals with actions that were not authorized by any law, plots to assassinate other leaders, experiments with drugs on human beings to control their minds, spying on civil activists and journalists, among other similar activities that were expressly prohibited.

The documents began to be gathered together 14 years after the first of the events took place, when then CIA director, James Schlesinger became alarmed about what the press was writing, especially all the articles by Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein published in The Washington Post, already mentioned in the "Manifesto to the People of Cuba". The agency was being accused of promoting spying in the Watergate Hotel with the participation of its former agents Howard Hunt and James McCord.

In May 1973, the Director of the CIA was demanding that "all the main operative officials of this agency must immediately inform me on any ongoing or past activity that might be outside of the constituting charter of this agency". Schlesinger, later appointed Head of the Pentagon, had been replaced by William Colby. Colby was referring to the documents as "skeletons hiding in a closet". New press revelations forced Colby to admit the existence of the reports to interim President Gerald Ford in 1975. The New York Times was denouncing agency penetration of antiwar groups. The law that created the CIA prevented it from spying inside the United States.

That "was just the tip of the iceberg", said then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger himself warned that "blood would flow" if other actions were known, and he immediately added: "For example, that Robert Kennedy personally controlled the operation for the assassination of Fidel Castro". The President's brother was then Attorney General of the United States. He was later murdered as he was running for President in the 1968 elections, which facilitated Nixon's election for lack of a strong candidate. The most dramatic thing about the case is that apparently he had reached the conviction that Jack Kennedy had been victim of a conspiracy. Thorough investigators, after analyzing the wounds, the caliber of the shots and other circumstances surrounding the death of the President, reached the conclusion that there had been at least three shooters. Solitary Oswald, used as an instrument, could not have been the only shooter. I found that rather striking. Excuse me for saying this but fate turned me into a shooting instructor with a telescopic sight for all the Granma expeditionaries. I spent months practicing and teaching, every day; even though the target is a stationary one it disappears from view with each shot and so you need to look for it all over again in fractions of a second.

Oswald wanted to come through Cuba on his trip to the USSR. He had already been there before. Someone sent him to ask for a visa in our country's embassy in Mexico but nobody knew him there so he wasn't authorized. They wanted to get us implicated in the conspiracy. Later, Jack Ruby, – a man openly linked to the Mafia – unable to deal with so much pain and sadness, as he said, assassinated him, of all places, in a precinct full of police agents.

Subsequently, in international functions or on visits to Cuba, on more than one occasion I met with the aggrieved Kennedy relatives, who would greet me respectfully. The former president's son, who was a very small child when his father was killed, visited Cuba 34 years later. We met and I invited him to dinner.

The young man, in the prime of his life, and well brought up, tragically died in an airplane accident on a stormy night as he was flying to Martha's Vineyard with his wife. I never touched on the thorny issue with any of those relatives. In contrast, I pointed out that if the president-elect had then been Nixon instead of Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs disaster we would have been attacked by the land and sea forces escorting the mercenary expedition, and both countries would have paid a high toll in human lives. Nixon would not have limited himself to saying that victory has many fathers and defeat is an orphan. For the record, Kennedy was never too enthusiastic about the Bay of Pigs adventure; he was led there by Eisenhower's military reputation and the recklessness of his ambitious vice-president.

I remember that, exactly on the day and minute he was assassinated, I was speaking in a peaceful spot outside of the capital with French journalist Jean Daniel. He told me that he was bringing a message from President Kennedy. He said to me that in essence he had told him: "You are going to see Castro. I would like to know what he thinks about the terrible danger we just experienced of a thermonuclear war. I want to see you again as soon as you get back." "Kennedy was very active; he seemed to be a political machine", he added, and we were not able to continue talking as someone rushed in with the news of what had just happened. We turned on the radio. What Kennedy thought was now pointless.

Certainly I lived with that danger. Cuba was both the weakest part and the one that would take the first strike, but we did not agree with the concessions that were made to the United States. I have already spoken of this before.

Kennedy had emerged from the crisis with greater authority. He came to recognize the enormous sacrifices of human lives and material wealth made by the Soviet people in the struggle against fascism. The worst of the relations between the United States and Cuba had not yet occurred by April 1961. When he hadn't resigned himself to the outcome of the Bay of Pigs, along came the Missile Crisis. The blockade, economic asphyxiation, pirate attacks and assassination plots multiplied. But the assassination plots and other bloody occurrences began under the administration of Eisenhower and Nixon.

After the Missile Crisis we would have not refused to talk with Kennedy, nor would we have ceased being revolutionaries and radical in our struggle for socialism. Cuba would have never severed relations with the USSR as it had been asked to do. Perhaps if the American leaders had been aware of what a war could be using weapons of mass destruction they would have ended the Cold War earlier and differently. At least that’s how we felt then, when there was still no talk of global warming, broken imbalances, the enormous consumption of hydrocarbons and the sophisticated weaponry created by technology, as I have already said to the youth of Cuba. We would have had much more time to reach, through science and conscience, what we are today forced to realize in haste.

President Ford decided to appoint a Commission to investigate the Central Intelligence Agency. "We do not want to destroy the CIA but to preserve it", he said.

As a result of the Commission's investigations that were led by Senator Frank Church, President Ford signed an executive order which expressly prohibited the participation of American officials in the assassinations of foreign leaders.

The documents published now disclose information about the CIA-Mafia links for my assassination.

Details are also revealed about Operation Chaos, carrying on from 1969 for at least seven years, for which the CIA created a special squadron with the mission to infiltrate pacifist groups and to investigate "the international activities of radicals and black militants". The Agency compiled more than 300,000 names of American citizens and organizations and extensive files on 7,200 persons.

According to The New York Times, President Johnson was convinced that the American anti-War movement was controlled and funded by Communist governments and he ordered the CIA to produce evidence.

The documents recognize, furthermore, that the CIA spied on various journalists like Jack Anderson, performers such as Jane Fonda and John Lennon, and the student movements at Columbia University. It also searched homes and carried out tests on American citizens to determine the reactions of human beings to certain drugs.

In a memorandum sent to Colby in 1973, Walter Elder who had been executive assistant to John McCone, CIA Director in the early 1970s, gives information about discussions in the CIA headquarters that were taped and transcribed: "I know that whoever worked in the offices of the director were worried about the fact that these conversations in the office and on the phone were transcribed. During the McCone years there were microphones in his regular offices, the inner office, the dining room, the office in the East building, and in the study of his home on White Haven Street. I don't know if anyone is ready to talk about this, but the information tends to be leaked, and certainly the Agency is vulnerable in this case".

The secret transcripts of the CIA directors could contain a great number of "jewels". The National Security Archive is already requesting these transcripts.

A memo clarifies that the CIA had a project called OFTEN which would collect "information about dangerous drugs in American companies", until the program was terminated in the fall of 1972. In another memo there are reports that manufacturers of commercial drugs "had passed" drugs to the CIA which had been "refused due to adverse secondary effects".

As part of the MKULTRA program, the CIA had given LSD and other psycho-active drugs to people without their knowledge. According to another document in the archive, Sydney Gottlieb, a psychiatrist and head of chemistry of the Agency Mind Control Program, is supposedly the person responsible for having made available the poison that was going to be used in the assassination attempt on Patrice Lumumba.

CIA employees assigned to MHCHAOS – the operation that carried out surveillance on American opposition to the war in Vietnam and other political dissidents – expressed "a high level of resentment" for having been ordered to carry out such missions.

Nonetheless, there is a series of interesting matters revealed in these documents, such as the high level at which the decisions for actions against our country were taken.

The technique used today by the CIA to avoid giving any details is not the unpleasant crossed out bits but the blank spaces, coming from the use of computers.

For The New York Times, large censored sections reveal that the CIA still cannot expose all the skeletons in its closets, and many activities developed in operations abroad, checked over years ago by journalists, congressional investigators and a presidential commission, are not in the documents.

Howard Osborn, then CIA Director of Security, makes a summary of the "jewels" compiled by his office. He lists eight cases – including the recruiting of the gangster Johnny Roselli for the coup against Fidel Castro – but they crossed out the document that is in the number 1 place on Osborn’s initial list: two and a half pages.

"The No. 1 Jewel of the CIA Security Offices must be very good, especially since the second one is the list for the program concerning the assassination of Castro by Roselli," said Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive who requested the declassification of "The Family Jewels" 15 years ago under the Freedom of Information Act.

It is notable that the administration which has declassified the least information in the history of the United States, and which has even started a process of reclassifying information that was previously declassified, now makes the decision to make these revelations.

I believe that such an action could be an attempt to present an image of transparency when the government is at an all time low rate of acceptance and popularity, and to show that those methods belong to another era and are no longer in use. When he announced the decision, General Hayden, current CIA Director, said: "The documents offer a look at very different times and at a very different Agency."

Needless to say that everything described here is still being done, only in a more brutal manner and all around the planet, including a growing number of illegal actions within the very United States.

The New York Times wrote that intelligence experts consulted expressed that the revelation of the documents is an attempt to distract attention from recent controversies and scandals plaguing the CIA and an Administration that is living through some of its worst moments of unpopularity.

The declassification could also be an attempt at showing, in the early stages of the electoral process that the Democratic administrations were as bad, or worse, than Mr. Bush's.

In pages 11 to 15 of the Memo for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, we can read:

"In August 1960, Mr. Richard M. Bissell approached Colonel Sheffield Edwards with the objective of determining whether the Security Office had agents who could help in a confidential mission that required gangster-style action. The target of the mission was Fidel Castro.

"Given the extreme confidentiality of the mission, the project was known only to a small group of people. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency was informed and he gave it his approval. Colonel J. C. King, Head of the Western Hemisphere Division, was also informed, but all the details were deliberately concealed from officials of Operation JMWAVE. Even though some officials of Communications (Commo) and the Technical Services Division (TSD) took part in initial planning phases, they were not aware of the mission's purpose.

"Robert A. Maheu was contacted, he was informed in general terms about the project, and he was asked to evaluate whether he could get access to gangster-type elements as a first step for achieving the desired goal.

"Mr. Maheu informed that he had met with a certain Johnny Roselli on several occasions while he was visiting Las Vegas. He had only met him informally through clients, but he had been told that he was a member of the upper echelons of the 'syndicate' and that he was controlling all the ice machines on the Strip. In Maheu's opinion, if Roselli was in effect a member of the Clan, he undoubtedly had connections that would lead to the gambling racket in Cuba.

"Maheu was asked to get close to Roselli, who knew that Maheu was a public relations executive looking after national and foreign accounts, and tell him that recently he had been contracted by a client who represented several international business companies, which were suffering enormous financial losses in Cuba due to Castro. They were convinced that the elimination of Castro would be a solution to their problem and they were ready to pay $ 150,000 for a successful outcome. Roselli had to be made perfectly aware of the fact that the U.S. government knew nothing, nor could it know anything, about this operation.

"This was presented to Roselli on September 14, 1960 in the Hilton Plaza Hotel of New York City. His initial reaction was to avoid getting involved but after Maheu's persuasive efforts he agreed to present the idea to a friend, Sam Gold, who knew "some Cubans". Roselli made it clear that he didn't want any money for his part in all this, and he believed that Sam would do likewise. Neither of these people was ever paid with Agency money.

"During the week of September 25, Maheu was introduced to Sam who was living at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. It was not until several weeks after meeting Sam and Joe – who was introduced as courier operating between Havana and Miami – that he saw photos of these two individuals in the Sunday section of Parade. They were identified as Momo Salvatore Giancana and Santos Trafficante, respectively. Both were on the Attorney General's list of the ten most wanted. The former was described as the boss of the Cosa Nostra in Chicago and Al Capone's heir, and the latter was the boss of Cuban operations of the Cosa Nostra. Maheu immediately called this office upon learning this information.

"After analyzing the possible methods to carry out this mission, Sam suggested that they not resort to firearms but that, if they could get hold of some kind of deadly pill, something to be put into Castro's food or drink, this would be a much more effective operation. Sam indicated that he had a possible candidate in the person of Juan Orta, a Cuban official who had been receiving bribery payments in the gambling racket, and who still had access to Castro and was in a financial bind.

"The TSD (Technical Services Division) was requested to produce 6 highly lethal pills.

"Joe delivered the pills to Orta. After several weeks of attempts, Orta appears to have chickened out and he asked to be taken off the mission. He suggested another candidate who made several unsuccessful."

Everything that was said in the numerous paragraphs above is in quotes. Observe well, dear readers, the methods that were already being used by the United States to rule the world.

I remember that during the early years of the Revolution, in the offices of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform, there was a man working there with me whose name was Orta, who had been linked to the anti-Batista political forces. He was a respectful and serious man. But, it could only be him. The decades have gone by and I see his name once more in the CIA report. I can't lay my hands on information to immediately prove what happened to him. Accept my apologies if I involuntarily have offended a relative or a descendent, whether the person I have mentioned is guilty or not.

The empire has created a veritable killing machine that is made up not only of the CIA and its methods. Bush has established powerful and expensive intelligence and security super-structures, and he has transformed all the air, sea and land forces into instruments of world power that take war, injustice, hunger and death to any part of the globe, in order to educate its inhabitants in the exercise of democracy and freedom. The American people are gradually waking up to this reality.

"You cannot fool all of the people all of the time", said Lincoln.

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Fulgencio Batista

2007-08-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

General Rubén Fulgencio Batista (IPA: [fəlˈhɛnsio bəˈtistə], [fulˈxensio baˈtihta̩]) y Zaldívar (January 16, 1901 – August 6, 1973) was the de facto military leader of Cuba from 1933 to 1940, and thus the eminence grise of Cuban politics for that period of time, and the de jure President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 after having won election. He then became the country's leader after staging a coup, from 1952 to 1959. His authoritarian government during this subsequent period generated opposition despite his attempt to placate critics with a "show" election in 1954 when he ran without opposition. The actual opposition included the entire coalition that had overthrown President Gerardo Machado in 1933, including Fidel Castro's guerrilla movement, by which Batista was overthrown, in what is known as the Cuban Revolution.
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Youth and the Revolution of 1933
* 2 Term as President (1940-44)
* 3 Term as a Senator and the 1952 Elections
* 4 The Second Coup
o 4.1 The Coup and the Constitution of 1940
o 4.2 Economic Stewardship
+ 4.2.1 The Gambling Sector
o 4.3 Political Unrest and the Revolution of 1959
* 5 Aftermath
* 6 See also
* 7 Books written by Batista
* 8 Bibliography on Batista
* 9 History of the era

[edit] Youth and the Revolution of 1933

Fulgencio was born in Banes, Holguín Province, in 1901 to Belisario Batista Palermo [2] and Carmela Zaldívar González, Cubans who fought for independence from Spain. Of very humble origins, Batista began working from an early age. A self-educated man, he attended school at night and is said to have been a voracious reader. Batista was considered socially a mulatto (mixed African and European blood). He bought a ticket to Havana and joined the army in 1921. [3] Sergeant Batista was the union leader of Cuba's soldiers, and the leader of the 1933 "Sergeants' Revolt" that replaced the provisional government of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, at the request of the coalition that had recently ousted President Machado. It is generally conceded that U.S. Special Envoy Sumner Welles approved of this since it was a fait accompli. Céspedes was a well-respected civil engineer and the most successful minister in the Machado government but lacked a political coalition that could sustain him. Initially a presidency composed of five members, one each from the anti-Machado coalition, was created, but within days the representative for the students and professors of the Universtity of Havana, Ramón Grau, was made president and Batista became the Army Chief of Staff, with the rank of colonel, and effectively controlled the presidency [citation needed]. The majority of the commissioned officer corps was "forcefully retired" (meaning executed).[citation needed]

During this period, Batista violently suppressed a number of attempts to defeat his control. This included the quashing of an uprising in the ancient Atarés fort (Havana) by Blas Hernández, a rural guerrilla who had fought Machado. Many of those who surrendered were executed. Another attempt was the attack on the Hotel Nacional in which former army officers of the Cuban Olympic rifle team (including one Enrique Ros) put up stiff resistance until being defeated. Again, Batista's troops executed many who surrendered. The irony is that many of these officers had helped overthrow Machado. There were many other often minor and almost unrecorded attempted revolts against Batista that were bloodily suppressed. These minor revolts included one in Guamá, a place in the Sierra Maestra south of Guisa, where the followers of an anti-Batista guerrilla leader known as Gamboa (apparently a member, or former member, of the Antonio Guiteras anti-Machado guerrillas) were defeated and dispersed.

Grau was president for just over 100 days before Batista forced him to resign in January 1934. He was replaced by Carlos Mendieta y Montefur and within five days the U.S. recognized Cuba's new government, which lasted 11 months. Succeeding puppet governments were led by José Barnet y Vinajeras (5 months) and Miguel Mariano Gómez (7 months) before Federico Laredo Brú managed to rule from December 1936 to October 1940.

Batista was well liked by American interests, who had feared Grau's socialistic reforms and saw him as a stabilizing force with respect for American interests. It was in this time period that Batista formed a renowned friendship and business relationship with gangster Meyer Lansky that lasted over three decades.

Through Lansky, the mafia knew they had a friend in Cuba. Gangster Lucky Luciano, after being deported to Italy in 1946, went to Havana with a false passport. A summit at Havana's Hotel Nacional, with mobsters such as Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Moe Dalitz, and others, confirmed Luciano's authority over the U.S. mob and coincided with Frank Sinatra's singing debut in Havana. It was here that Lansky gave permission to kill Bugsy Siegel for skimming construction money from the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

Many of Batista's enemies faced the same fate as the ambitious Siegel. One of his most bitter opponents, Antonio Guiteras (founder of the student group Joven Cuba) was gunned down by government forces in 1935 while waiting for a boat in Matanzas province. Others just seemed to disappear into thin air.

[edit] Term as President (1940-44)

Batista's chance to sit in the president's chair came in 1940. Supported by a coalition of political parties, which included the old Cuban Communist Party, he defeated his rival Grau in the first presidential election under the new Cuban constitution that he had guided to ratification.

During his presidency, trade relations with the U.S. increased, and a series of war taxes was imposed on the Cuban population. Following Grau's election in 1944, Cuba experienced its first peaceful transfer of power in two decades.

[edit] Term as a Senator and the 1952 Elections

While living luxuriously in Daytona Beach, Florida, Batista ran for and won a seat in the Cuban Senate in 1948. Four years later, he ran for president, but a poll published in the December 1951 issue of the popular magazine "Bohemia" showed him in last place. Not expected to win[citation needed], Batista staged a coup to take by force what he could not achieve again at the ballot box.

The 1952 election was a three-way race. Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr. Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and running a distant third was Batista, who was seeking a return to office. Both front runners, Agramonte and Hevia in their own camps, had decided to name Col. Ramon Barquín who was a diplomat in Washington DC to head the Cuban Armed Forces after the elections. Barquín was a top officer who commanded the respect of the professional army and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquin would oust him and his followers, and when it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on 10 March 1952 and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a “provisional president” for the next two years. Justo Carrillo told Barquín in Washington DC on March 1952 that the inner circles knew that Batista had aimed the coup at him; they immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restablish the democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed La Conspitacion de los Puros de 1956 (Agrupacion Montecristi).

[edit] The Second Coup

[edit] The Coup and the Constitution of 1940

On March 10, 1952, almost twenty years after the Revolt of the Sergeants, Batista took over the government once more, this time against elected Cuban president Carlos Prío Socorras. The coup took place three months before the upcoming elections that he was sure to lose. Also running in that election (for a different office) was a young, energetic lawyer named Fidel Castro. On March 27 Batista's government was formally recognized by U.S. President Harry Truman.

Shortly after this recognition, Batista declared that, although he was completely loyal to Cuba's constitution of 1940, constitutional guarantees would have to be temporarily suspended, as well as the right to strike. In April, writes Hugh Thomas in The Cuban Revolution, "Batista proclaimed a new constitutional code of 275 articles, claiming that the 'democratic and progressive essence' of the 1940 Constitution was preserved in the new law."

[edit] Economic Stewardship

Under Batista, Cuba continued the strong economic growth that had marked the preceding decade.

[edit] The Gambling Sector

Batista opened the way for large-scale gambling in Havana. He announced that his government would match, dollar for dollar, any hotel investment over $1 million, which would include a casino license. Havana became the "Latin Las Vegas," a playground of choice for many gamblers. Opposition was swiftly and violently crushed, and many began to fear the new government.

In 1956, in midst of the revolutionary upheaval, the 21-story, 383-room Hotel Riviera was built in Havana at a cost of $14 million. It was known as mobster Meyer Lansky's dream and crowning achievement. The hotel opened on December 10, with a floor show headlined by Ginger Rogers. Lansky's official title was "kitchen director," but he controlled every aspect of the hotel. He complained that Rogers "can wiggle her ass, but she can't sing a goddamn note!"

[edit] Political Unrest and the Revolution of 1959

Just over a year after Batista's second coup, a small group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago on July 26, 1953. Having easily defeated the rebellion, and with Castro and most of the others in jail or dead, business was back to normal in Cuba.

Due to popular unrest, and to appease the United States government, Batista held an election in which he was the only legal candidate. He won, becoming president of Cuba in 1954.

The distinguished Colonel Cosme de la Torriente, a surviving veteran of the Cuban War of Independence, emerged in late 1955 to offer compromise. A series of meetings led by de la Torriente became known as "El Diálago Cívico" (the civic dialogue). Writes Hugh Thomas: "This Diálago Cívico represented what turned out to be the last hope for Cuban middle-class democracy, but Batista was far too strong and entrenched in his position to make any concessions."

Batista was so confident of his power that on May 15, 1955, he released Castro and the remaining survivors of the Moncada attack, hoping to dissuade some of his critics. Within weeks it was rumored that Batista's military police was looking to kill Castro, so the rebel went to Mexico to plan the revolution.

The Havana Post, expressing the attitude of the U.S. business community after a survey of the four years of Batista's second reign, alluded to the disappearance of gangsterism and said: 'All in all, the Batista regime has much to commend it." Hugh Thomas disagrees with that commentary. "In a way," Thomas writes, "Batista's golpe formalized gangsterism: the machine gun in the big car became the symbol not only of settling scores but of an approaching change of government."

By late 1955 student riots and anti-Batista demonstration had become frequent. These were dealt with in the violent manner his military police had come to represent. Students attempting to march from the University of Havana were stopped and beaten by the police, and student leader José A. Echeverría had to be hospitalized. Another popular student leader was killed on December 10, leading to a funeral that became a gigantic political protest with a 5-minute nationwide work stoppage.

Instead of loosening his grip, Batista suspended constitutional guarantees and established tighter censorship of the media. His military police would patrol the streets and pick up anyone suspected of insurrection. By the end of 1955 they had grown more prone to violent acts of brutality and torture, with no fear of legal repercussions.

In March of 1956 Batista refused to consider a proposal calling for elections by the end of the year. He was confident that he could defeat any revolutionary attempt from the many factions who opposed him.

In April 1956, Batista had given the orders for Barquin to become General and Chief of the Army. But it was too late. Even after Barquin was informed, he decided to move forward with the coup to rescue the morale of the Armed Forces and the Cuban people. On April 6, 1956, a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Col. Barquin (then Vice Chair of the Inter-American Defense Board in Washington DC and Cuban Military Attache of Sea, Air and Land to the US) was frustrated by snitch amongst the troops, Rios Morejon. The coup broke the backbone of the Cuban Armed Forces when Batista tried in vain to negotiate the denial of the so colled conspiracy. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquin was sentenced to solitary confinement for 8 years. La Conspiración de los Puros resulted in the imprisonment of the top commanding brass of the Armed Forces and the closing of the military academies. Barquin was the founder of La Escuela Superior de Guerra (Cuba's War College) and past director of La Escuela de Cadetes (Cuba's Military Academy - West Point). Without Barquin's officers the army could not sustain a fight. In the words of scholars like Justo Carillo, Felipe Pazos, Jose Miro Cardona, Hugh Thomas and Louis Horowitz: "Al frustrarse la Conspiración de los Puros a Cuba le toco perder. Sin Batista no hay Fidel (With the frustrated coup Cuba lost. Without Batista there is no Fidel)."

Batista continued to rule without concerns, even after the landing of the Granma in December of 1956 (which brought the Castro brothers back to Cuba along with Che Guevara and marked the beginning of the armed conflict).

Due to its continued opposition to the dictator, the University of Havana was temporarily closed on November 30, 1956. (It would not reopen until early 1959, after a revolutionary victory.) But that did not end the flow of student blood, including Echeverría's, who was killed by police after a radio broadcast on March 13, 1957.

Batista's police also tracked down and killed Frank País, a coordinator with the 26th of July Movement, inciting a spontaneous strike in the three easternmost provinces of Cuba.

Another election in 1958 placed Andrés Rivero Agüero in the president's chair, but losing the support of the U.S. government meant his days in power were numbered.

On January 1, 1959, after formally resigning his position in Cuba's government and going through what historian Hugh Thomas describes as "a charade of handing over power" to his representatives, remaining family and closest associates boarded a plane at 3 a.m. at Camp Colombia and flew to Ciudad Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

Throughout the night various flights out of Camp Colombia took Batista's friends and high officials to Miami, New York, New Orleans and Jacksonville. Batista's brother "Panchín," governor of Havana, left several hours later, and Meyer Lansky, suffering from ill health, also flew out that night. There was no provision made for the thousands of other Cubans who had worked with Batista's regime.

[edit] Aftermath

Batista later moved to Portugal and then Marbella, Spain, where he lived and wrote books the rest of his life. He was also the Chairman of a Spanish Life Insurance company which invested in property and mortgages on the Spanish Riviera. He died of heart attack on August 6, 1973.

He was married to Elisa Godinez-Gomez (1905-?) on July 10, 1926 and they had three children, Mirta Caridad (April 1927), Elisa Aleida (B. 1933), and Fulgencio Ruben Batista Godinez (b 1933). He later married Marta Fernández-Miranda (1920-2006) and they had Jorge and Roberto Francisco Batista Fernández.

Marta Fernández de Batista, Batista's widow, died on October 2, 2006. Roberto Batista, her son, says that she died at her West Palm Beach home. She had a heart attack on September 8. Batista was buried with her husband in San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid after a mass in West Palm Beach.

Raoul G. Cantero, III, born in Spain, naturalized in the US, a graduate of Harvard Law School, a judge on Florida State Supreme Court, is the grandson of Fulgencio Batista.

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

2007-08-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is the current President of Cuba, though currently with his duties transferred.

Castro led the revolution overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and shortly after was sworn in as the Prime Minister of Cuba.[1] Castro became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965, and led the transformation of Cuba into a one-party socialist republic. In 1976 he became president of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also holds the supreme military rank of Comandante en Jefe ("Commander in Chief") of the Cuban armed forces.

Castro first attracted attention in Cuban political life through nationalist critiques of Batista and the United States political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities.[2] He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated and later released. He then travelled to Mexico[3][4] to organize and train for the guerrilla invasion of Cuba that took place in December 1956. Since his assumption of power in 1959 he has evoked both praise and condemnation (at home and internationally). Castro is described by opponents as a dictator[5][6] while supporters see Castro as a charismatic liberator.[7]

Outside of Cuba, Castro has been defined by his relationship with the United States and the former Soviet Union, both of whom courted Cuban attentions as part of their own global political game. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 by U.S. backed forces, the Castro-led government has had an openly antagonistic relationship with the U.S., which encouraged a closeness with the Soviet bloc. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 forced Castro to seek alliances regionally to counter U.S. and find like-minded partners in regional nationalist figures such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. Over time he has become a world icon,[8] and is the current Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement (his second term in that office, the first having been 1979-1983.

At home, Fidel Castro has overseen the implementation of various economic policies, leading to the rapid centralization of Cuba's economy, land reform, collectivization and mechanization of agriculture, and the nationalization of leading Cuban industries. The expansion of publicly funded health care and education has been a cornerstone of Castro's domestic social agenda. Cuba ranks better than many countries on the United Nations' List of countries by infant mortality rate, which is claimed by Castro's supporters as a success of his regime. Opponents note that Cuba's health care and infant mortality were the same if not better before the revolution than after [9].Castro and his policies are cited by some as being responsible for Cuba's economic problems, whilst others blame the U.S. embargo. Still others attribute the shortcomings to a mix of these factors.

On July 31, 2006, Castro, after undergoing intestinal surgery for diverticulitis,[10] transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro. On 2 June 2007, Castro appeared on Cuban Television with Vietnamese Communist Party Leader Nong Duc Manh looking somewhat healthier.[11]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Childhood and education
* 2 Political beginnings
* 3 Cuban Revolution
o 3.1 Attack on Moncada Barracks
o 3.2 26th of July Movement
o 3.3 Operation Verano
o 3.4 Battle of Yaguajay
o 3.5 Assumption of power
* 4 Years in power
o 4.1 Bay of Pigs
o 4.2 Cuban Missile Crisis
o 4.3 Assassination attempts
o 4.4 Embargo
o 4.5 Foreign relations
+ 4.5.1 Soviet Union
+ 4.5.2 Other countries
* 5 Succession issues
* 6 Human rights record
* 7 Religious beliefs
* 8 Public image
* 9 Personal
o 9.1 Family
o 9.2 Wealth
* 10 References and footnotes
* 11 Further reading
* 12 See also
* 13 External links

Childhood and education
A letter written by the twelve year old Castro to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, expressing admiration and asking for a $10 bill. Castro writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill," signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by [sic]. Your friend, Fidel Castro."
A letter written by the twelve year old Castro to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, expressing admiration and asking for a $10 bill. Castro writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill," signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by [sic]. Your friend, Fidel Castro."

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sugar plantation in Birán, near Mayarí, in the modern-day province of Holguín – then a part of the now-defunct Oriente province. He was the third child born to Ángel Castro y Argiz, a Galician immigrant who became relatively prosperous through hard work in the sugar industry and shrewd investments. His mother, Lina Ruz González, who was a household servant, was also of Galician background.[3] Angel Castro was married to another woman, Maria Luisa Argota,[12] until Fidel was 17, and thus Fidel as a child had to deal both with his illegitimacy and the challenge of being raised in various foster homes away from his father's house.

Castro has two brothers: Ramón and Raúl, and four sisters: Angelita, Juanita, Enma, and Agustina. All of them were born out of wedlock. He also has two half siblings, Lidia and Pedro Emilio who were raised by Ángel Castro's first wife.

Fidel was not baptized until he was eight, also very uncommon, bringing embarrassment and ridicule from other children.[13][14] Ángel Castro finally dissolved his first marriage when Fidel was 15 and married Fidel’s mother. Castro was formally recognized by his father when he was 17, when his surname was legally changed to Castro from Ruz, his mother’s name.[13][14] Although accounts of his education differ, most sources agree that he was an intellectually gifted student, more interested in sports than in academics, and spent many years in private Catholic boarding schools, finishing high school at Belen, a Jesuit school in Havana in 1945.[15]

Political beginnings

In late 1945, Castro entered law school at the University of Havana. He became immediately embroiled in the political culture at the University, which was a reflection of the volatile politics in Cuba during that era.
University student Fidel Castro (center, standing, in black suit) addressing fellow students during a protest on November 11, 1947.
University student Fidel Castro (center, standing, in black suit) addressing fellow students during a protest on November 11, 1947.

Since the fall of president Gerardo Machado in the 1930s, student politics had degenerated into a form of gangsterismo dominated by fractious action groups, and Castro, believing that the gangs posed a physical threat to his university aspirations, experienced what he later described as "a great moment of decision."[16] He returned to the university from a brief hiatus to involve himself fully in the various violent battles and disputes which surrounded university elections, and was to be implicated in a number of shootings linked to Rolando Masferrer's MSR action group. "To not return", said Castro later, "would be to give in to bullies, to abandon my beliefs".[16] Rivalries were so intense that Castro apparently collaborated in an attempt on Masferrer's life during this period,[16] while Masferrer, whose paramilitary group Les Tigres later became an instrument of state violence under Batista,[17] perennially hunted the younger student seeking violent retribution.[18]

In 1947, growing increasingly passionate about social justice lacking under Cuba's current system, Castro joined the Partido Ortodoxo which had been newly formed by Eduardo Chibás. A charismatic and emotional figure, Chibás was running for president against the incumbent Ramón Grau San Martín who had allowed rampant corruption to flourish during his term. The Partido Ortodoxo publicly exposed corruption and demanded government and social reform. It aimed to instill a strong sense of national identity among Cubans, establish Cuban economic independence and freedom from the United States, and dismantle the power of the elite over Cuban politics. Though Chibás lost the election, Castro, considering Chibás his mentor, remained committed to his cause, working fervently on his behalf. In 1951, while running for president again, Chibás shot himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast. Castro was present and accompanied him to the hospital where he died.[15]

Bogotazo

Main article: Bogotazo

Fidel Castro's role in the Bogotazo incident has been dogged by speculation and controversy but the following account seems to be generally agreed upon. In 1948 Castro traveled to Bogotá in Colombia for a political conference of Latin American students that coincided with the ninth meeting of the Pan-American Union Conference. The students had planned to use this opportunity to distribute pamphlets protesting United States dominance of the Western Hemisphere and to foment discontent. A few days after the conference began, the populist Colombian Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitán was assassinated, triggering massive riots in the streets in which many (mostly poor workers) were injured or killed. Rioting and looting spread to other cities in Colombia, beginning an era of turbulence that became known as "La Violencia". The students were caught up in the violence and chaos rocking the city, picking up rifles and roaming the streets distributing anti-United States material and stirring a revolt. When Castro was pursued by the Colombian authorities for his role in the riots, he took refuge in the Cuban Embassy and was flown back to Havana.[19][20] It seems clear that experiencing the power of popular insurrection had an effect on Castro and influenced his subsequent political thinking.

Castro returned to Cuba and married Mirta Díaz Balart, a student from a wealthy Cuban family where he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. In 1950 he graduated from law school with a Doctor of Laws degree and began practicing law in a small partnership in Havana, mostly representing the poor and underprivileged. By now he had become well known for his passionately nationalistic views and his intense opposition to the influence of the United States on Cuban internal affairs. Increasingly interested in a career in politics, Castro had become a candidate for a seat in the Cuban parliament when General Fulgencio Batista led a coup d'état in 1952, successfully overthrowing the government of President Carlos Prío Socarrás and canceling the election.

Batista established himself as de facto leader with the support of establishment elements of Cuban society and powerful Cuban agencies. His regime was formally recognized by the United States, buttressing his power. Castro, nearing thirty, was now a politician without a legitimate platform and thus he broke away from the Partido Ortodoxo to marshal legal arguments based on the Constitution of 1940 to formally charge Batista with violating the constitution. His petition, entitled Zarpazo, was denied by the Court of Constitutional Guarantees and he was not allowed a hearing.[21] This experience formed the foundation for Castro's opposition to the Batista regime and convinced him that revolution was the only way to depose Batista.[22]

Cuban Revolution

Main article: Cuban revolution

Attack on Moncada Barracks

Main article: Moncada Barracks

As discontent over the Batista coup grew, Castro abandoned his law practice and formed an underground organization of supporters, including his brother, Raúl, and Mario Chanes de Armas. Together they actively plotted to overthrow Batista. They collected guns and ammunition and finalized their plans for an armed attack on Moncada Barracks, Batista's largest garrison outside Santiago de Cuba. On the 26th of July, 1953, they attacked Moncada Barracks. The Céspedes garrison in Bayamo was also attacked as a diversion.[3] The attack proved disastrous and more than sixty of the one-hundred and thirty-five militants involved were killed.

Castro and other surviving members of his group managed to escape to a part of the rugged Sierra Maestra[23] mountains east of Santiago where they were eventually discovered and captured. Although there is disagreement over why Castro and his brother, Raúl, were not executed on capture as many of their fellow militants were, there is evidence that an officer recognized Castro from his university days and treated the captured rebels compassionately, despite the 'illegal' unofficial order to have the leader executed.[3] Others, such as Angel Prado, military commander of the 26th of July Movement, say that on the night of the attack Castro's driver got lost and he never reached the barracks. That night was the night of “El Carnaval de Santiago” and the streets of Santiago de Cuba were filled with party goers.

Castro was tried in the fall of 1953 and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison.[24] During his trial Castro delivered his famous defense speech History Will Absolve Me,[25] upholding his rebellious actions and boldly declaring his political views:
“ I warn you, I am just beginning! If there is in your hearts a vestige of love for your country, love for humanity, love for justice, listen carefully... I know that the regime will try to suppress the truth by all possible means; I know that there will be a conspiracy to bury me in oblivion. But my voice will not be stifled – it will rise from my breast even when I feel most alone, and my heart will give it all the fire that callous cowards deny it... Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me. ”

While he was being held at the prison for political activists on Isla de Pinos, he continued to plot Batista's overthrow, planning upon release to reorganize and train in Mexico.[3] After having served less than two years, he was released in May 1955 due to a general amnesty from Batista who was under political pressure, and went as planned to Mexico.[26]

26th of July Movement

Main article: 26th of July Movement

Once in Mexico, Castro reunited with other Cuban exiles and founded the 26th of July Movement, named after the date of the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks. The goal remained the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. Castro had learned from the Moncada experience that new tactics were needed if Batista's forces were to be defeated. This time, the plan was to use underground guerrilla tactics, at that time a form of combat unknown in Latin America.[3]

In Mexico Castro met Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a proponent of guerrilla warfare. Guevara joined the group of rebels and became an important force in shaping Castro's evolving political beliefs. Guevara's observations of the misery of the poor in Latin America had already convinced him that the only solution lay in violent revolution.

Since regular contacts with a KGB agent named Nikolai Sergeevich Leonov in Mexico City had not resulted in the hoped for weapon supply,[27] they decided to go to the United States to gather personnel and funds from Cubans living there, including Carlos Prío Socarrás, the elected Cuban president deposed by Batista in 1952. Back in Mexico, the group trained under a Spanish Civil War Veteran, Cuban-born Alberto Bayo[25] who had fled to Mexico after Francisco Franco's victory in Spain. On November 26, 1956, Castro and his group of 81 followers, mostly Cuban exiles, set out from Tuxpan Mexico aboard the yacht Granma. for the purpose of starting a rebellion in Cuba.[28]

The rebels landed at Playa Las Coloradas close to Los Cayuelos near the eastern city of Manzanillo on December 2, 1956. In short order, most of Castro's men were killed, dispersed, or taken prisoner by Batista's forces.[28] While the exact number is in dispute, it is agreed that no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the bloody encounters with the Cuban army and succeeded in fleeing to the Sierra Maestra mountains.[29] The group of survivors included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Those who survived were aided by people in the countryside. They regrouped in the Sierra Maestra in Oriente province and organized a column under Fidel Castro's command.

From their encampment in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the 26th of July Movement waged a guerrilla war against the Batista government. In the cities and major towns also, resistance groups were organizing until underground groups were everywhere. The strongest was in Santiago formed by Frank País.[30][31]

In the summer of 1955, País’s organization merged with the 26th of July Movement of Castro. As Castro's movement gained popular support in the cities and countryside, it grew to over eight hundred men. In mid-1957 Castro gave Che Guevara command of a second column. A journalist, Herbert Matthews from the New York Times, came to interview him in the Sierra Maestra, attracting interest to Castro's cause in the United States. The New York Times front page stories by Matthews presented Castro as a romantic and appealing revolutionary, bearded and dressed in rumpled fatigues.[32][33] Castro and Matthews were followed by the TV crew of Andrew Saint George, said to be a CIA contact person.[34] Through television, Castro's rudimentary command of the English language and charismatic presence enabled him to appeal directly to a U.S. audience.

Operation Verano

Main article: Operation Verano

Fidel Castro in his days as a guerrilla
Fidel Castro in his days as a guerrilla

In May 1958, Batista launched Operation Verano aiming to crush Castro and other anti-government groups. It was called "la Ofensiva" by the rebels (Alarcón Ramírez,1997). Although on paper heavily outnumbered, Castro's guerrilla forces scored a series of victories, largely aided by mass desertions from Batista's army of poorly trained and uncommitted young conscripts. During the Battle of La Plata, Castro's forces defeated an entire battalion. While pro-Castro Cuban sources later emphasized the role of Castro's guerrilla forces in these battles, other groups and leaders were also involved, such as escopeteros (poorly-armed irregulars). During the Battle of Las Mercedes, Castro's small army came close to defeat but he managed to pull his troops out by opening up negotiations with General Cantillo while secretly slipping his soldiers out of a trap.

When Operation Verano ended, Castro ordered three columns commanded by Guevara, Jaime Vega and Camilo Cienfuegos to invade central Cuba where they were strongly supported by rebellious elements who had long been operating in the area. One of Castro's columns moved out onto the Cauto Plains. Here, they were supported by Huber Matos, Raúl Castro and others who were operating in the eastern-most part of the province. On the plains, Castro's forces first surrounded the town of Guisa in Granma Province and drove out their enemies, then proceeded to take most of the towns that had been taken by Calixto Garcia in the 1895-1898 Cuban War of Independence.

Battle of Yaguajay

Main article: Battle of Yaguajay

In December 1958, the columns of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos continued their advance through Las Villas province. They succeeded in occupying several towns, and then began preparations for an attack on Santa Clara, the provincial capital. Guevara's fighters launched a fierce assault on the Cuban army surrounding Santa Clara, and a vicious house-to-house battle ensued. They also derailed an armored train which Batista had sent to aid his troops in the city while Cienfuegos won the Battle of Yaguajay. Defeated on all sides, Batista's forces crumbled. The provincial capital was captured after less than a day of fighting on December 31, 1958.

After the loss of Santa Clara and expecting betrayal by his own army, Batista (accompanied by president-elect Andres Rivero Agüero) fled to the Dominican Republic in the early hours of January 1, 1959. They left behind a junta headed by Gen. Eulogio Cantillo, recently the commander in Oriente province, the center of the Castro revolt. The junta immediately selected Dr. Carlos Piedra, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court, as provisional President of Cuba as specified in the Constitution of 1940. Castro refused to accept the selection of Justice Piedra as provisional President and the Supreme Court refused to administer the oath of office to the Justice.[35]

The rebel forces of Fidel Castro moved swiftly to seize power throughout the island.[35] At the age of 32, Castro had successfully masterminded a classic guerrilla campaign from his headquarters in the Sierra Maestra and ousted Batista.

Assumption of power
Castro arrives in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 1959.
Castro arrives in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 1959.

On January 8, 1959, Castro's army rolled victoriously into Havana.[36] As news of the fall of Batista's government spread through Havana, The New York Times described the scene as one of jubilant crowds pouring into the streets and automobile horns honking. The black and red flag of the 26th of July Movement waved on automobiles and buildings. The atmosphere was chaotic.[35] Castro called a general strike in protest of the Piedra regime. He demanded that Dr. Urrutia, former judge of the Urgency Court of Santiago de Cuba, be installed as the provisional President instead. The Cane Planters Association of Cuba, speaking on behalf of the island's crucial sugar industry, issued a statement of support for Castro and his movement.[37]

Law professor José Miró Cardona created a new government with himself as prime minister and Manuel Urrutia Lleó as president on January 5. The United States officially recognized the new government two days later.[38] Castro himself arrived in Havana to cheering crowds and assumed the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on January 8.

In February Miró suddenly resigned and on February 16, 1959, Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba.[1]

Friction with the U.S. developed as the new government began expropriating property owned by major U.S. corporations (United Fruit in particular) and announced plans to base the compensation on the artificially low property valuations that the companies themselves had kept to a fraction of their true value so that their taxes would be negligible.[37]

Between 15 April and 26 April, Castro and a delegation of industrial and international representatives visited the U.S. as guests of the Press Club. Castro hired one of the best public relations firms in the United States for a charm offensive visit by Castro and his recently initiated government. Castro answered impertinent questions jokingly and ate hotdogs and hamburgers. His rumpled fatigues and scruffy beard cut a popular figure easily promoted as an authentic hero.[39] He was refused a meeting with President Eisenhower. Rebuffed, he soon joined forces with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev.[36]

Years in power

On May 17, 1959, Castro signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, which limited landholdings to 993 acres (4 km²) per owner and forbade foreign land ownership.[40][41]
Fidel Castro addresses delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 1960.
Fidel Castro addresses delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 1960.

As early as July 1959, Castro's intelligence chief Ramiro Valdés contacted the KGB in Mexico City.[42] Subsequently, the USSR sent over one hundred mostly Spanish speaking advisors, including Enrique Líster Forján, to organize the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon afterward. To the concern of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba began to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union. A variety of pacts were signed between Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, allowing Cuba to receive large amounts of economic and military aid from the USSR. The mould was set. U.S. disappointment with their lack of power in Cuban decision making fueled Castro's fears leading to increasing Cuban dependence on USSR support.

In June 1960, Eisenhower reduced Cuba's sugar import quota by 7,000,000 tons, and in response, Cuba nationalized some $850 million worth of U.S. property and businesses. The revolutionary government grabbed control of the nation by nationalizing industry, expropriating property owned by Cubans and non-Cubans alike, collectivizing agriculture, and enacting policies which would benefit the population. While popular among the poor, these policies alienated many former supporters of the revolution among the Cuban middle and upper-classes. Over one million Cubans later migrated to the U.S., forming a vocal anti-Castro community in Miami, Florida, actively supported and funded by successive U.S. administrations.

Further information: Cuban-American lobby

By the early autumn of 1960, the U.S. government was engaged in a semi-secret campaign to remove Castro from power.[43]

On January 3, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower broke off ties with Cuba, saying that Fidel Castro had provoked him once too often.[44]

In April 1961, the U.S. government unsuccessfully attempted to depose Castro from power by supporting an armed force of Cuban exiles to retake the island. This attempt is known as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Bay of Pigs

Main article: Bay of Pigs Invasion

A timeline released by the National Security Archives shows the U.S. began planning to overthrow the government of Cuba in October 1959.[45] On April 17, 1961, approximately 1,400 members of a CIA-trained Cuban exile force landed at the Bay of Pigs, while the U.S. publicly denied any involvement.

Documents released by the National Security Archive show that the CIA expected the Cuban people to welcome a U.S.-sponsored invasion, spontaneously rising up against the Castro regime. It expected Cuban military and police forces to refuse to fight against the CIA's 1,400-man mercenary invasion force.[46] President Kennedy cancelled several planned bombing sorties designed to cripple the entire Cuban Air Force.[47]

The Cubans repelled the invaders, killing many and capturing a thousand. On May 1, 1961, as hundreds of thousands celebrating May Day roared their approval, Castro announced:
“ The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government. ... If Mr. Kennedy does not like Socialism, we do not like imperialism. We do not like capitalism.[48] ”

In a nationally broadcast speech on December 2, 1961, Castro declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was adopting Communism. On February 7, 1962, the U.S. imposed an embargo against Cuba. This embargo was broadened during 1962 and 1963, including a general travel ban for American tourists.[49]

Many theories are offered for the failure of the U.S. operation. Some argue that the Americans misjudged Cuban support for Castro.[50] They had believed the testimonies of the Cuban exiles, who told them that Castro was not well supported by the Cuban people. In the weeks prior to the invasion, the Castro regime had rounded up tens of thousands of Cubans, holing them up in sports stadiums across the island in order to quash discontent on the island and prevent its adversaries from joining exile forces. The idea that Cubans would rise up against Castro, while possibly correct judging by the discontent reported to be growing on the island at the time, never materialized, perhaps as a result of the incarcerations and reprisals that would likely ensue. Also, the CIA-trained force of 1,400, armed only with light arms, was greatly outnumbered by a Cuban force of tens of thousands armed with tanks and artillery.[citation needed] In addition, the covert placement of dozens of Cuban intelligence officials in the invasion force gave the Cuban government detailed information on the operation.[51]

Cuban Missile Crisis

Main article: Cuban Missile Crisis

Tensions between Cuba and the U.S. heightened during the 1962 missile crisis, which nearly brought the US and the USSR into nuclear conflict. Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to a possible U.S. invasion and justified the move in response to US missile deployment in Turkey. After consultations with his military advisors, he met with a Cuban delegation led by Raúl Castro in July in order to work out the specifics. It was agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBMs on Cuban soil; however, American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on 15 October 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed. The US government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons 90 miles south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to US security. As a result, the US publicly announced its discovery on 22 October 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Nikolai Sergevich Leonov, who would become a General in the KGB Intelligence Directorate[52] and the Soviet KGB deputy station chief in Warsaw, was the translator Castro used for contact with the Russians during this period.

In a personal letter to Khrushchev dated 27 October 1962, Castro urged Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States if Cuba were invaded, but Khrushchev rejected any first strike response.[53] Soviet field commanders in Cuba were, however, authorized to use tactical nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a US commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the US implemented a few months later. The missile swap was never publicized because the Kennedy Administration demanded secrecy in order to preserve NATO relations and protect Democratic candidates in the upcoming elections.

Assassination attempts

Fabian Escalante, who was long tasked with protecting the life of Castro has calculated the exact number of assassination schemes and/or attempts by the CIA to be 638. Some such attempts have included an exploding cigar, a fungal-infected scuba-diving suit, and a mafia-style shooting. Some of these plots are depicted in a documentary entitled 638 Ways to Kill Castro.[54] One of these attempts was by his ex-lover Marita Lorenz whom he met in 1959. She subsequently agreed to aid the CIA and attempted to smuggle a jar of cold cream containing poison pills into his room. When Castro realised, he reportedly gave her a gun and told her to kill him but her nerve failed.[55] Castro once said in regards to the numerous attempts on his life, "If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal."

According to the Family Jewels documents declassified by the CIA in 2007, one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion involved Johnny Roselli and Al Capone's successor in the Chicago Outfit, Salvatore Giancana and his right-hand man Santos Trafficante. It was personally authorized by US attorney general Robert Kennedy [56].

Giancana and Miami Syndicate leader Santos Trafficante were contacted in September 1960 about the possibility of an assassination attempt by a go-between from the CIA, Robert Maheu, after Maheu had contacted Johnny Roselli, a member of the Las Vegas Syndicate and Giancana's number-two man. Maheu had presented himself as a representative of numerous international business firms in Cuba that were being expropriated by Castro. He offered $150,000 for the "removal" of Castro through this operation (the documents suggest that neither Roselli nor Giancana and Trafficante accepted any sort of payments for the job). According to the files, it was Giancana who suggested using a series of poison pills that could be used to doctor Castro's food and drink. These pills were given by the CIA to Giancana's nominee Juan Orta, whom Giancana presented as being an official in the Cuban government who was also in the pay of gambling interests, and who did have access to Castro. After a series of six attempts to introduce the poison into Castro's food, Orta abruptly demanded to be let out of the mission, handing over the job to another, unnamed participant. Later, a second attempt was mounted through Giancana and Trafficante using Dr. Anthony Verona, the leader of the Cuban Exile Junta, who had, according to Trafficante, become "disaffected with the apparent ineffectual progress of the Junta". Verona requested $10,000 in expenses and $1,000 worth of communications equipment. However, it is unknown how far the second attempt went, as the entire program was cancelled shortly thereafter due to the launching of the Bay of Pigs invasion. [57] [58] [59]

Resulting from these numerous assassination attempts, Castro sent out warnings to the US government to stop the attempts or face retaliatory actions. This resulted in a theory stating that Cuba was behind the Kennedy assassination.

See also: Kennedy assassination theories

Embargo

Main article: United States embargo against Cuba

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Please discuss this issue on the talk page.

The embargo, which Castro denounced, has been in place for 40 years.[60] A former Prime Minister of Spain had written that the embargo was Castro's greatest ally, as it perpetuated the government; he asserted that if it were lifted, Castro would lose his presidency in three months[61] and some well known people have condemned the embargo, for humanitarian reasons, including Pope John Paul II (in 1998 and 2005),[62][63] and Steven Spielberg.[64]

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba was left bankrupt and isolated by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Eighty-five percent of its markets had disappeared, along with the subsidies and trade agreements that had supported its economy. The situation became desperate. Daily life was a struggle with extended gas and water outages, severe power shortages, and dwindling food supplies available for rationing.[65] By 1994, the island's economy, which had survived over 30 years of sanctions by the US, teetered on the brink of collapse. Cuba was plunged into what was called the "Special Period" during which there were shortages of everything. To survive Cuba legalized the US dollar, turned to tourism, and encouraged the transfer of remittances in US dollars from Cubans living in the USA to their relatives on the Island. Even as late as 2004, Castro was forced to shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors for the month of October to deal with a crisis caused by fuel shortages.[66] However Castro continues to exercise flexibility in coping with these crises. In 2005 thousands of Cuban doctors were sent to Venezuela in exchange for oil imports.[67]

After the massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. after declining a U.S. offer of humanitarian aid.[68] The U.S. authorized the shipment of food in 2001, the first since the embargo was imposed in 1962.[69]

Foreign relations

Main article: Foreign relations of Cuba

Soviet Union
Fidel Castro embracing former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Fidel Castro embracing former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Following the establishment of diplomatic ties to the Soviet Union, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military and economic aid. Castro was able to build a formidable military force with the help of Soviet equipment and military advisors. The KGB kept in close touch with Havana, and Castro tightened Communist Party control over all levels of government, the media, and the educational system, while developing a Soviet-style internal police force.

Castro's alliance with the Soviet Union caused something of a split between him and Guevara, who took a more pro-Chinese view following ideological conflict between the CPSU and the Maoist CPC. [citation needed] In 1966, Guevara left for Bolivia in an ill-fated attempt to stir up revolution against the country's government.

On 23 August 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian 'counterrevolutionaries', who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists". He called the leaders of the rebellion "the agents of West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble."[70] In return for his public backing of the invasion, at a time when many Soviet allies were deeming the invasion an infringement of Czechoslovakia's sovereignty, the Soviets bailed out the Cuban economy with extra loans and an immediate increase in oil exports.

In 1971, despite an Organization of American States convention that no nation in the Western Hemisphere would have a relationship with Cuba (the only exception being Mexico, which had refused to adopt that convention), Castro took a month-long visit to Chile, following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. The visit, in which Castro participated actively in the internal politics of the country, holding massive rallies and giving public advice to Salvador Allende, was seen by those on the political right as proof to support their view that "The Chilean Way to Socialism" was an effort to put Chile on the same path as Cuba.[71]

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, the comradely relationship between Havana and Moscow was strained by Gorbachev's implementation of economic and political reforms in the USSR. "We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very sad things," lamented Castro in November 1989, in reference to the changes that were sweeping such communist allies as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland.[72] The subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had an immediate and devastating effect on Cuba.

Other countries
Schafik Handal, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, in Havana in 2004.
Schafik Handal, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, in Havana in 2004.

On November 4, 1975, Castro ordered the deployment of Cuban troops to Angola in order to aid the Marxist MPLA-ruled government against the South African-backed UNITA opposition forces. Moscow aided the Cuban initiative with the USSR engaging in a massive airlift of Cuban forces into Angola. On Cuba's role in Angola, Nelson Mandela is said to have remarked "Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice."[73] Cuban troops were also sent to Marxist Ethiopia to assist Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden War with Somalia in 1977. In addition, Castro extended support to Marxist Revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, such as aiding the Sandinistas in overthrowing the Somoza government in Nicaragua in 1979. It has been claimed by the Carthage Foundation-funded Center for a Free Cuba[74] that an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Cuban military actions abroad.[75]

Cuba and Panama have restored diplomatic ties after breaking them off in 2005 when Panama's former president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro. The foreign minister of each country re-established official diplomatic relations in Havana by signing a document describing a spirit of fraternity that has long linked both nations.[76] Cuba, once shunned by many of its Latin American neighbours, now has full diplomatic relations with all but Costa Rica and El Salvador.[76]

Although the relationship between Cuba and Mexico remains strained, each side appears to make attempts to improve it. In 1998, Fidel Castro apologized for remarks he made about Mickey Mouse which led Mexico to recall its ambassador from Havana. He said he intended no offense when he said earlier that Mexican children would find it easier to name Disney characters than to recount key figures in Mexican history. Rather, he said, his words were meant to underscore the cultural dominance of the US.[77] Mexican president Vicente Fox apologized to Fidel Castro in 2002 over allegations by Castro that Fox forced him to leave a United Nations summit in Mexico so that he would not be in the presence of President Bush, who also attended.[78]

At a summit meeting of sixteen Caribbean countries in 1998, Castro called for regional unity, saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their domination by rich nations in a global economy.[79] Caribbean nations have embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro while accusing the US of breaking trade promises. Castro, until recently a regional outcast, has been increasing grants and scholarships to the Caribbean countries, while US aid has dropped 25% over the past five years.[80] Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all independent countries of the Caribbean Community.[81]

In the poorest areas of Latin America and Africa, Castro is seen as a hero, the leader of the Third World, and the enemy of the wealthy and greedy.[82] On a visit to South Africa in 1998 he was warmly received by President Nelson Mandela.[83] President Mandela gave Castro South Africa's highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope.[84] Last December Castro fulfilled his promise of sending 100 medical aid workers to Botswana, according to the Botswana presidency. These workers play an important role in Botswana's war against HIV/AIDS. According to Anna Vallejera, Cuba's first-ever Ambassador to Botswana, the health workers are part of her country's ongoing commitment to proactively assist in the global war against HIV/AIDS,[85]

The president of Venezuela Hugo Chávez is a grand admirer of his and Bolivian president Evo Morales called him the "Grandfather". In Harlem, he is seen as an icon because of his historic visit with Malcolm X in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa.[86]
Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was an honorary pall bearer at Trudeau's funeral in October 2000. They had continued their friendship after Trudeau left office until his death. Canada became one of the first American allies to openly trade with Cuba. Cuba still has a good relationship with Canada. In 1998, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien arrived in Cuba to meet President Castro and highlight their close ties. He is the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre Trudeau was in Havana in 1976.[87]

In December 2001, European Union representatives described their political dialogue with Cuba as back on track after a weekend of talks in Havana. The EU praised Cuba's willingness to discuss questions of human rights. Cuba is the only Latin American country without an economic co-operation agreement with the EU. However, trade with individual European countries remains strong since the US trade embargo on Cuba leaves the market free from American rivals.[88] In 2005, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel ended his visit to Cuba optimistic that relations with the communist state will become stronger. The EU is Cuba's largest trading partner. Cuba's imprisonment of 75 dissidents and the execution of three hijackers have strained diplomatic relations. However, the EU commissioner was impressed with Fidel Castro's willingness to discuss these concerns, although he received no commitments from Castro. Cuba does not admit to holding political prisoners, seeing them rather as mercenaries in the pay of the United States.[89]

Succession issues

According to Article 94 of the Cuban Constitution, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the president. At the moment (early 2007), that is Raúl Castro.

Due to the issue of presidential succession and Castro's longevity, there have long been rumors, speculation and hoaxing about Castro's health and demise. In 1998 there were reports that he had a serious brain disease, later discredited.[90] In June 2001, he apparently fainted during a seven-hour speech under the Caribbean sun.[91] Later that day he finished the speech, walking buoyantly into the television studios in his military fatigues, joking with journalists.[92]

In January 2004, Luis Eduardo Garzón, the mayor of Bogotá, said that Castro "seemed very sick to me" following a meeting with him during a vacation in Cuba.[93] In May 2004, Castro's physician denied that his health was failing, and speculated that he would live to be 140 years old. Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein said that the "press is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem", but maintained that Castro was in good health.[94]

On October 20, 2004, Castro tripped and fell following a speech he gave at a rally, breaking his kneecap and fracturing his right arm.[95] He was able to recover his ability to walk and publicly demonstrated this two months later.[96]

Due to his large role in Cuba, his well-being has become a continual source of speculation both on and off the island as he has grown older. The CIA has long been interested in Castro's health.[97]

In 2005, the CIA said it thought Castro had Parkinson's disease.[98][99] Castro denied such allegations, while also citing the example of Pope John Paul II in saying that he would not fear the disease.[100]

Illness and transfer of duties

See also: 2006 Cuban transfer of presidential duties

Castro's appearance on Cubavision 28 October 2006
Castro's appearance on Cubavision 28 October 2006

On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties has been described as temporary while Fidel recovers from surgery he underwent due to an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding".[101] Fidel Castro was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which also became his belated 80th birthday celebrations. Castro's non-appearance fueled reports that he has terminal pancreatic cancer and was refusing treatment,[102] but on December 17, 2006 Cuban officials stated that Castro has no terminal illness and will eventually return to his public duties.[103][104]

While Cuba continues to deny U.S.-made claims that Castro is suffering from a terminal cancer, on December 24, 2006, Spanish newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya reported that Spanish surgeon José Luis García Sabrido has been flown to Cuba on a plane charted by the Cuban government. Dr. García Sabrido is an intestinal expert who further specializes in the treatment of cancer. The plane that Dr. García Sabrido's traveled in also was reported to be carrying a large quantity of advanced medical equipment.[105][106] On December 26, 2006, shortly after returning to Madrid, Dr. García Sabrido held a news conference in which he answered questions about Castro's health. He stated that "He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system," and added, "His condition is stable. He is recovering from a very serious operation. It is not planned that he will undergo another operation for the moment."[107] Although most Cubans acknowledge that they are aware Castro is seriously ill, most also seem worried about a future without Castro.[108]

On January 16, 2007 the Spanish newspaper El País, citing two unnamed sources from the Gregorio Marañón hospital —who employs Dr. García Sabrido— in Madrid, reported Castro was in "very grave" condition, having trouble cicatrizing, after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection caused by a severe case of diverticulitis. However, Dr. García Sibrido told CNN that he was not the source of the report and that "any statement that doesn't come directly from [Castro's] medical team is without foundation."[109] Also, a Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment, while White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report appeared to be "just sort of a roundup of previous health reports. We've got nothing new."[110][111][112] On 30 January 2007, Cuban television and the paper Juventud Rebelde showed fresh video and photos from a meeting between Castro and Hugo Chavez said to have taken place the previous day.[113][114]

In mid-February 2007 it was reported by the Associated Press that Acting President Raul Castro had said that Fidel Castro's health was improving and he was taking part in all important issues facing the government. "He's consulted on the most important questions," Raul Castro said of Fidel. "He doesn't interfere, but he knows about everything."[115] On 27 February 2007, Reuters reported that Fidel Castro had called into Aló Presidente, a live radio talk show hosted by Hugo Chávez, and chatted with him for thirty minutes during which time he sounded "much healthier and more lucid" than he had on any of the audio and video tapes released since his surgery in July. Castro reportedly told Chávez, "I am gaining ground. I feel I have more energy, more strength, more time to study," adding with a chuckle, "I have become a student again." Later in the conversation (transcript in Spanish; audio) , he made reference to the fall of the world stock markets that had occurred earlier in the day and remarked that it was proof of his contention that the world capitalist system is in crisis.[116]

Reports of improvements in his condition continued to circulate throughout March and early April. On 13 April 2007, Chávez was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Castro has "almost totally recovered" from his illness. That same day, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque confirmed during a press conference in Vietnam that Castro had improved steadily and had resumed some of his leadership responsibilities.[117] On 21 April 2007 the official newspaper Granma reported that Castro had met for over an hour with Wu Guanzheng, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who was visiting Havana. Photographs of their meeting showed the Cuban president looking healthier than he had in any previously released since his surgery.[118]

As a comment on Castro’s recovery, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away." Hearing about this, Castro, who is an atheist, ironically replied: "Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."[119]

Human rights record

Main article: Human rights in Cuba

Some Cubans dissidents and political opponents were branded "counterrevolutionaries", "fascists," or "CIA operatives" and imprisoned in extremely poor conditions without trial;[120][121] many were executed.[122][123] Military Units to Aid Production, or UMAPs, were labor camps established in 1965 which confined "social deviants" including homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses in order to purge "counter-revolutionary" influences from certain segments of the population.[124] These camps were closed in 1968 in response to international outcries and internal political analysis.[125] Castro claims that Cuba does not hold political prisoners, arguing that Cuba is justified because these prisoners are not jailed because of their political beliefs, but have been convicted of "counter-revolutionary" crimes, including bombings.[126] Moreover, he claims opposition to the Cuban government to be illegitimate, and the result of an ongoing conspiracy fostered by Cuban exiles with ties to the United States or the CIA, and with abundant representation and access to the American media[citation needed]. Many Castro supporters also say that Castro's measures are justified to prevent the fall of his government, demonstrably under constant economic and military pressure from the US and allies for more than half a century, whereas his opposition says he uses the United States as an excuse to justify his continuing political control[citation needed].

In 2001, Hallgeir Langeland nominated Fidel Castro for the Nobel Peace Prize for sending medical and engineering aid to developing countries.[127]

Religious beliefs

Castro was raised a Roman Catholic as a child but doesn't practice as one. In Oliver Stone's documentary Comandante, Castro states "I have never been a believer", and has total conviction that there is only one life. A clip of this can be found here. [4] Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro in 1962 on the basis of a 1949 decree by Pope Pius XII forbidding Catholics from supporting communist governments. The excommunication was aimed at undermining support for Castro among Catholics. For Castro, who had previously renounced his Catholic faith, this was an event of very little consequence, nor was it expected to be otherwise. [citation needed]

In 1992, Castro agreed to loosen restrictions on religion and even permitted church-going Catholics to join the Cuban Communist Party. He began describing his country as "secular" rather than "atheist".[128] Pope John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, the first visit by a reigning pontiff to the island. Castro and the Pope appeared side by side in public on several occasions during the visit. Castro wore a dark blue business suit (in contrast to his fatigues) in his public meetings with the Pope and treated him with reverence and respect.[129] With Castro and other senior Cuban officials in the front row at a mid-morning Mass, the pope delivered a ringing call for pluralism in Cuba. He rejected the materialistic, one-party ideology of the Cuban state. And he said that true liberation "cannot be reduced to its social and political aspects," but must also include "the exercise of freedom of conscience — the basis and foundation of all other human rights." Later in the day, though, the pope also made his most critical reference yet to the American economic embargo of Cuba. At a departure ceremony at José Martí International Airport that evening, he said that Cuba's "material and moral poverty" arises not only from "limitations to fundamental freedoms" and "discouragement of the individual," but also from "restrictive economic measures — unjust and ethically unacceptable — imposed from outside the country."[129] He also criticized widespread abortion[130] in Cuban hospitals and urged Castro to end the government's monopoly on education to allow the return of Catholic schools. A month later Castro condemned the use of abortion as a form of birth control.[131]

In December 1998, Castro formally re-instated Christmas Day as the official celebration it was formerly before the Communist Party abolished it in 1969.[132] Cubans were again allowed to mark Christmas as a holiday and to openly hold religious processions. The Pope sent a telegram to Castro thanking him for restoring Christmas as a public holiday.[133]

Castro attended a Roman Catholic convent blessing in 2003. The purpose of this unprecedented event was to help bless the newly restored convent in Old Havana and to mark the fifth anniversary of the Pope's visit to Cuba.[134]

The senior spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian faith arrived in Cuba in 2004, the first time any Orthodox Patriarch has visited Latin America in the Church's history. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I consecrated a cathedral in Havana and bestowed an honour on Fidel Castro. His aides said that he was responding to the decision of the Cuban Government to build and donate to the Orthodox Christians a tiny Orthodox cathedral in the heart of old Havana.[135]

After the Pope's death in April 2005, an emotional Castro attended a mass in his honor in Havana's cathedral and signed the Pope's condolence book at the Vatican Embassy.[136] He had last visited the cathedral in 1959, 46 years earlier, for the wedding of one of his sisters. Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino led the mass and welcomed Castro, who was dressed in a black suit, expressing his gratitude for the "heartfelt way the death of our Holy Father John Paul II was received (in Cuba)."[137]

Public image

By wearing military-style uniforms and leading mass demonstrations, Castro projects an image of a perpetual revolutionary. He is mostly seen in military attire, but his personal tailor, Merel Van 't Wout, convinced him to occasionally change to a business suit.[138] Castro is often referred to as "Comandante", but is also nicknamed "El Caballo", meaning "The Horse", a label that was first attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré, who on hearing Castro passing in the Havana night with his entourage, shouted out "Here comes the horse!"[139] During the revolutionary campaign, fellow rebels knew Castro as "The Giant".[140] Large throngs of people gather to cheer at Castro's fiery speeches, which typically last for hours. Many details of Castro's private life, particularly involving his family members, are scarce and Castro insists that he does not promote a cult of personality. When asked about the matter in 1985 he replied,

Although we have been dogmatic, we have never preached cult of personality. You will not see a statue of me anywhere, nor a school with my name, nor a street, nor a little town, nor any type of personality cult because we have not taught our people to believe, but to think, to reason out."[141]

There are no streets in Cuba named after Castro, and no statues or peso bills bearing his image.[142] Despite this, Castro was accused by American anarchist Sam Dolgoff of "bask[ing] in the adulation and servility of his subordinates" and "creating a regime built around the cult of the personality functions" encouraging "the illusion that only he and his select group of revolutionaries have earned the right to wield unlimited power over the people of Cuba."[143] Castro has also been described as an example of the rise of a distinct "charismatic leader"[144] common to developing nations, and of encouraging the "personalistic political regime". This theory contends that Castro has maintained power largely through highly visible, charismatic leadership and popular appeals to the Cuban people, though the administration is successful only as long as the leader's charisma lasts.[145]

Personal

Family
Fidel Castro making a speech in Havana in 1978, image by Marcelo Montecino
Fidel Castro making a speech in Havana in 1978, image by Marcelo Montecino

By his first wife Mirta Díaz Balart, Castro has a son named Fidel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart. Díaz-Balart and Castro were divorced in 1955, and she remarried. After a spell in Madrid, Díaz-Balart reportedly returned to Havana to live with Fidelito and his family.[146] Fidelito grew up in Cuba; for a time, he ran Cuba's atomic-energy commission before being removed from the post by his father.[147] Díaz-Balart's nephews are Republican U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, vocal critics of the Castro government.

Fidel has five other sons by his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle: Alexis, Alexander, Alejandro, Antonio, and Angel.[147]

While Fidel was married to Mirta, he had an affair with Naty Revuelta resulting in a daughter named Alina Fernández-Revuelta.[147] Alina left Cuba in 1993, disguised as a Spanish tourist,[148] and sought asylum in the United States. She has been a vocal critic of her father's policies.

His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s and was featured in a film documentary by Andy Warhol in 1965.[149]

Wealth

In 2005, American business and financial magazine Forbes listed Castro among the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of $550 million. The estimates, which the magazine admitted was "more art than science",[150] claimed that the Cuban leader's personal wealth was nearly double that of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, despite anecdotal evidence from diplomats and businessmen that the Cuban leader's personal life was notable for its austerity.[151] This assessment was drawn by making economic estimates of the net worth of Cuba's state-owned companies, and used the assumption that Castro had personal economic control.[152] Forbes magazine later increased the estimates to $900 million, adding rumors of large cash stashes in Switzerland.[151] The magazine offered no proof of this information,[150] and according CBS news, Castro's entry on the rich list was notably brief compared to the amount of information provided on other figures.[150]

Castro, who had considered suing the magazine, responded that the claims were "lies and slander", and that they were part of a US campaign to discredit him.[151] He declared: "If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with $900m, with $1m, $500,000, $100,000 or $1 in it, I will resign."[151] President of Cuba's Central Bank, Francisco Soberon, called the claims a "grotesque slander", asserting that money made from various state owned companies is pumped back into the island's economy, "in sectors including health, education, science, internal security, national defense and solidarity projects with other countries."[152]

Maria Werla, a Cuban-American anti-Castro activist, claims that Castro and his loyalists control several billions of dollars in real estate, bank accounts, private estates, yachts and other assets — called “the Comandante's Reserves” — in Europe, Latin America and Asia - and a luxurious lifestyle for the top Cuban leadership.[153] These attempts often must rely on the testimonials of defectors who were close to Castro, and investigators have not been able to give hard evidence of his real worth.[citation needed]