Fidel Castro Read online

  It wasn’t until the fall of the USSR that Cuba hit a deep recession, which began even before the Soviet Union collapsed. The Soviet economy itself had been struggling financially for years before the collapse, but the dissolution hit Cuba hard, economically speaking. Castro said, “The country took a stunning blow when, from one day to the next, that great power collapsed and left us out in the cold, all by ourselves, and we lost all our markets for sugar, we stooped receiving foodstuffs, fuel, even the wood to bury our dead in. From one day to the next, we found ourselves without fuel, without raw materials, without food, without soap, without everything.”

  In the years that followed, Fidel struggled to make new alliances and improve the Cuban economy. Castro explained, “Our basic problems are the economic blockade and the disappearance of the socialist camp. Some 85 percent of our trade was with those countries and we had reasonable prices—let us say the right prices. The value of our sugar, in fact, balanced the cost of the petroleum we got from the USSR. Our exports reached 80 billion [currency not stated] or just under. That trade has almost disappeared with the disappearance of the socialist countries. We have had to turn to new markets. We have lost imports, credit, and technology, and sought fuel, raw materials, and drugs elsewhere. Our sugar is no longer quoted at that price … To this must be added the fact that we are under a severe economic blockade from the United States.”

  In addition to making new alliances and trade partners, including a healthy relationship with Venezuela that lasted years, the Cuban economy has recovered due to better economic planning and limited private enterprise. While sugar is still the main crop grown and exported, a percentage of the land has been reallocated to other crops.

  The Cuban economy, while not alone in the world in this, is now struggling. To this end, the new leader, Raul Castro is working to initiate reforms to stimulate the economy. When asked by Atlantic Monthly reporter Jeffrey Goldberg if “Cuba’s model—Soviet-style communism—was still worth exporting to other countries,” Castro replied, “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” It will be interesting to see in the coming decades what will work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CASTRO AND NELSON MANDELA

  “Long live the Cuban Revolution. Long live comrade Fidel Castro … Cuban internationalists have done so much for African independence, freedom, and justice. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious imperialist campaign designed to destroy the advances of the Cuban revolution. We too want to control our destiny … There can be no surrender. It is a case of freedom or death. The Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people.”

  —Nelson Mandela

  To understand Nelson Mandela’s passion for Castro, for his work and his ideals, it’s important to appreciate where Nelson Mandela is coming from. A little background on Mandela: As a South African political activist who waged for decades against apartheid, Mandela became the first elected president of South Africa in 1994, and the first black man to hold the office. Mandela was elected just four years after serving a 27-year-long prison sentence after being arrested as one of eight men accused of conspiracy to overthrow the government and sabotage in the Rivonia Trial, and was sentenced to life in prison.

  Said Mandela before his conviction, “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live, and to see realized. But my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

  Mandela, like Castro, was born into a family of means—royalty, actually—and was given every opportunity possible. And Mandela, like Castro, became deeply involved in overturning oppression on underprivileged people as a young man at school. Like Castro, he studied to become a lawyer, and unlike Castro, became committed to nonviolent protest. Along with the South African Communist Party, Mandela cofounded the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK, “Spear of the Nation”), the armed wing of the African National Congress.

  Interestingly enough, while Mandela was older than Castro, he has said that the Cuban Revolution strongly influenced his own political convictions and actions, and that Castro’s troops in Angola during the 1970s and 1980s were instrumental in overturning apartheid and legitimizing the African National Congress.

  The feeling was mutual, however. Castro said, “… Nelson Mandela is one of the men I admire most, because of his merits and his history, his struggle.” The feeling between the two men was mutual. While Mandela was in prison while Castro sent troops to fight against apartheid in Angola in the 1970s, he was well aware of the fight the Cuban leader was waging against the racism both men abhorred.

  Castro sent more than 300,000 Cuban troops to South Africa to support independence, and was an instrumental figure in the fight Nelson Mandela spent his life, and would have given his life, to fight. His efforts on behalf of South Africa did not go unrecognized by Mandela.

  One of the first trips Mandela made upon his release from prison in 1990 was to visit Fidel Castro in Cuba for three days, where he celebrated the man who had helped out his country so much. For this, however, he was highly criticized by the American government. In Florida, five Cuban-American mayors signed a declaration demanding Mandela renounce Castro, and controversy persisted around his devotion to Fidel. He praised Castro, “Who trained our people, who gave us resources, who helped so many of our soldiers, our doctors?”

  Fidel Castro returned the admiration, stating, “If you want an example of a firm, valiant, heroic, serene, intelligent and capable man, this example, this man, is Mandela.”

  Interestingly enough, Fidel Castro hadn’t been to South Africa during the whole time his troops fought there. When Mandela asked him when he was coming, Castro responded, “I have not visited my homeland South Africa, but I love it as if it were my homeland.”

  In 1994, Castro would make the trip, however. When Mandela was elected president of South Africa, Fidel Castro was the guest of honor. Said Mandela of Castro, “What Fidel [Castro] has done for us is difficult to describe with words. First in the struggle against apartheid he did not hesitate to give us all his help and now that we are free, we have many Cuban doctors working here [in South Africa].”

  At one point, Castro brought up the war in Angola with Mandela, curious to know where some weapons ended up. Castro said, “One day I asked Nelson Mandela, ‘Mr. President, do you know where the weapons that South Africa had are?’ ‘No, I don’t know.’ ‘What have the South African military leaders told you?’ ‘They haven’t told me a word.’ That’s a time that nobody knows about, and the world doesn’t ask those questions, ever, anyone.”

  While the friendship between Castro and Mandela was strong and long-lived, formal diplomatic relations between the two countries did not exist before 1994. The relationship Mandela had with Fidel and Cuba allowed him to open doors of communication with other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Chile.

  As important as Castro was in South Africa, so was Mandela in Cuba. Cuba even celebrates Nelson Mandela International Day every July 18th.

  On Mandela’s 90th birthday, Castro wrote, in celebration of the great leader, “Glory to you, Nelson, who while in prison for 25 years defended human dignity! Slander and hatred could do nothing against your endurance of steel. You were able to resist and, without knowing or looking for it, you became a symbol of what is most noble in humanity. You will live in the memory of future generations, and in your memory the Cubans who died defending the liberty of their brothers in other lands of the world.”

  Mandela died on December 5, 2013.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CASTRO AND CHÁVEZ

  “Without a man like Hugo Chávez, who was born in humble circum
stances and educated under the disciplined eyes of military academies in Venezuela, where so many ideas of Latin American freedom, unity, and integration were taught by [Simon] Bolivar, there would never have emerged at this decisive moment in our hemisphere a process of such historical and international transcendence as the revolutionary process in this country.”

  Fidel Castro was 28 years older than Hugo Chávez, but Chávez was an incredibly important figure in Fidel’s life, and in the life of the Cuban nation in general, following the 1991 crumbling of the USSR and the economic turmoil that wrought in Cuba. While he wouldn’t come to power until he was voted into office during the 1998 election in Venezuela, Chávez had been making a name for himself since the early 1990s, and he hadn’t gone unnoticed by Castro and company.

  Unlike his mentor, Fidel Castro, Chávez came from a working-class background. Born in 1954, he became a career military officer instead of pursuing higher education, and as early as the 1980s, he founded the Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200 to overthrow the what he considered the corrupt Venezuelan political system. He was imprisoned following an unsuccessful coup he led against President Carlos Andres Perez in 1992 for two years.

  Despite the falling out in the 1960s, Castro had long had his eye on Venezuela as an ally, especially for the oil and wealth of that nation, but it hadn’t been possible for him to have his own coup on Romulo Betancourt, who he considered a pawn in the U.S.’s Alliance of Progress “game.” That Chávez had tried, even though he failed, was one of the things that endeared Chávez to Castro.

  While in prison, Chávez decided he needed to find his way to power, and after his release, he headed to Cuba, because he knew if anyone knew the way to come to power, it was Fidel Castro.

  Castro recalled, “Chávez visited us in 1994, nine months after he got out of prison and four years before his first election as president. It was very courageous of him, because he was strongly criticized for coming to Cuba. He came and we talked. We discovered an intelligent man, very progressive, and authentic Bolivarian. Then he won the elections. Several times. He changed the constitution. With formidable support from the people. His adversaries have tried to get rid of him both by force and economics. But he has faced all the oligarchies, all of imperialism’s assaults against the Bolivarian process.”

  In addition to communists Fidel and Raul Castro, Chávez would align himself with heads of socialist governments in Latin America, including Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega.

  Chávez started a socialist political party called the Fifth Republic Movement and ran for president of Venezuela in 1998; he won, and was again re-elected in 2000; then 2006; then again in 2012.

  While his presidency was marked with various socialist successes, including nationalizing key industries, creating worker-managed cooperatives, and introducing Boliviarian Missions and Communal Councils, he also had his share of enemies. Chávez was an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, imperialism, and capitalism; he called George W. Bush a “donkey” and “the devil.”

  While Venezuela and Cuba had a good relationship in the early 20th century, the Cuban Revolution damaged it. Then in 1961, the then-president of Venezuela, Romulo Betancourt, severed all ties with Cuba, and worked to have Cuba expelled from the Organization of American States in 1964 over controversy involving Cuba taking guerrilla action against Venezuela. Relations were restored, in the 1970s, though they remained strained for various reasons. Chávez would mend those fences, at least at the end of the 20th century and start of the 21st century, while he was president.

  Chávez was a huge fan of Castro and his reforms, and praised Castro whenever possible. When he spoke at the University of Havana in 1999, Chávez said, “Venezuela is traveling towards the same sea as the Cuban people, a sea of happiness and of real social justice and peace.”

  Throughout his presidency, Chávez maintained a close relationship with Castro, which made Venezuelan conservatives incredibly nervous. When in 2000, Chávez signed an agreement that gave Cuba 130,000 subsidized barrels of oil a day on “preferential terms,” conservatives got more nervous, even as Cuba sent hundreds of doctors, teachers, and sports trainers to Venezuela in exchange. Chávez said, “Here we are, as alert as ever, Fidel and Hugo, fighting with dignity and courage to defend the interests of our people, and to bring alive the idea of Bolívar and Martí. In the name of Cuba and Venezuela, I appeal for the unity of our two peoples, and of the revolutions that we both lead. Bolívar and Martí, one country united!”

  It all worked out great for Cuba, though. The struggle in the decade since the fall of the USSR was alleviated by this “gift.” Venezuela wasn’t thrilled about it, especially as their economy was shaky at the time. Ramifications would have to follow.

  Sure enough, on April 11, 2002, a coup took place to oust Chávez from office. He immediately called Castro for help and advice, as Castro recalled, “We talked about other things: the way he should leave the country temporarily, get in touch with some office with real authority among the coup members, assure them of his willingness to leave the country but not resign. From Cuba … we’d try to mobilize the diplomatic corps in our country and Venezuela; we’d send two planes with our foreign minister and a group of diplomats to pick him up. He thought about it for a few seconds, then finally agreed to my idea. It would all depend now on the enemy leader.”

  The coup had erupted in response to the way it appeared Chávez had been appointing his cronies to top government posts, not qualified people, and the nation was worried this would mean a collapse. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans marched against Chávez in Caracas. Following his arrest, thousands more marched the same streets in protest of his arrest. Before he was arrested however, Castro advised him, “‘Save those brave men who are with us now in that unnecessary battle.’ The idea came from my conviction that if a popular, charismatic leader such as Chávez, toppled in that deceitful way and under those circumstances, wasn’t killed, then the people—in this case with the support of the best members of his armed forces—would demand his return, and that return would be inevitable.” It had turned out just as Castro had predicted.

  During the coup, Castro was doing what he could to help his friend from Cuba. Castro said, “Using a mobile phone and a recorder … I’d become a kind of news reporter, receiving and broadcasting news and public statements. I was witness to the formidable counter-coup mounted by the people and the Bolivarian armed forces of Venezuela.”

  Within a few days, the coup had cooled, and Chávez was back in power. “I had not the slightest doubt that Chávez, in a very short time, would be back, and this time carried on the shoulders of his people and his troops,” Castro said. “Now, what I had to do was save him from death.”

  Chávez was grateful for all Castro had done for him during the crisis, later telling the Cuban Communist Party paper, Granma, “Fidel to me is a father, a comrade, a master of perfect strategy.”

  In 2011, Hugo Chávez was diagnosed with cancer, and he underwent treatment in Cuba where Castro had convinced him, and he believed, he would receive the best care. After a tumor the size of a baseball was removed from his pelvic region, Chávez remained confident that he would recover, and even ran for reelection in 2012—and won. But the cancer returned and proved too aggressive to treat. He died in Venezuela in March 2013.

  It was a devastating blow for Fidel. There was the issue that without Chávez in power, Cuba’s economy could go south again. Of course, Castro had already handed over the reins of government to Raul. But it was as though Castro had lost his son. “The best friend the Cuban people have had in the course of their history passed away,” he wrote after Chávez’s death. “Although we knew of his critical state of health, the news was a strong blow.”

  How relations will go between Cuba and Venezuela remains uncertain. However, what remained was Fidel’s loyalty to his fallen comrade. “Not even he suspected how great he was,” Castro wrote of Chávez. “O
nward to victory always, unforgettable friend!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  MENDING FENCES

  “I seriously hope that Cuba and the United States can eventually respect and negotiate our differences. I believe that there are no areas of contention between us that cannot be discussed and settled within a climate of mutual understanding. But first, of course, it is necessary to discuss our differences. I now believe that this hostility between Cuba and the United States is both unnatural and unnecessary—and it can be eliminated.”

  —Fidel Castro, from a letter to Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s

  Relations between Cuba and the United States weren’t just strained since the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, or since the Cuban Revolution threatened to bring “the Red Menace” to the west. Cuba had hard feelings with the U.S. even before the Batista’s military coup that followed years of him living several years in the United States, building interests he’d serve at the expense of the Cuban people. At least for Cuba, the unease can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, when Cuba was fighting against Spain to gain its independence, and the United States intervened in their own interest. Castro said, “North Americans don’t understand … that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.” And according to Castro, North Americans would continue not to see.

  After Cuba won independence from Spain, the United States, who had helped the cause, finally withdrew troops in 1901, on the condition that Cuba agreed to the Platt Amendment, a document that stipulated that U.S. would be permitted to intervene in Cuban affairs. The Cuban-American Treaty leased Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. This arrangement did not make the Cubans happy, but they went along with it. What choice did they have against a big world power like the U.S.?