Fidel Castro Page 13

  But even despite the strain, Cuba and the United States were able to work together. Cuba is a huge exporter of sugar, and until the Revolution in 1959, the United States purchased its sugar from Cuba. Following the Revolution, not only did the U.S. stop buying sugar from Cuba, they also stopped supplying the small island nation with oil. By October 1960, the U.S. had prohibited all trade with Cuba. This was an issue for Cuba, to be sure, but Castro was not going to bend to the whims of capitalism, the system he’d spent his entire life trying to overthrow. “My idea, as the whole world knows, is that the capitalist system now doesn’t work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious,” he said.

  While Kennedy didn’t side with Cuba when he came to office, he did criticize how things had been handled, explaining, “We let Batista put the U.S. on the side of tyranny, and we did nothing to convince the people of Cuba and Latin America that we wanted to be on the side of freedom.” Still, Kennedy went through with the already-planned Bay of Pigs invasion, and throughout his short presidency didn’t do anything to try to fix the situation between the U.S. and Cuba. There had been interest on both sides to meet and talk, but nothing ever came of it.

  When Lyndon Johnson came to office, there was a little conversation, although despite a small hope of reconciliation, that reconciliation was not going to happen. Later, in the 1970s, a series of hijackings affecting both countries brought them a little closer together, and when Jimmy Carter was elected, he and Castro managed to get along, and even made some headway, relaxing the travel ban somewhat and loosening the embargo. But in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan came to office, the new president reversed everything Carter had managed to accomplish.

  In the 1990s, after first tightening sanctions on American businesses based internationally, President William Jefferson Clinton eased travel restrictions and even allowed two baseball games to be played between Cuba’s national team and the Baltimore Orioles in 1999. In 2000, Clinton and Castro actually met and shook hands, and in 2001, the U.S. was permitted to engage in some business in Cuba.

  However, when George W. Bush took over, he reversed all the progress and called for even tighter restrictions. When the U.S. was attacked on September 11, 2001, Castro pointed some of the blame at the U.S., but made a measure to mend fences. He also offered aid—money, medicine, doctors. The U.S. flatly refused.

  When tragedy struck the U.S. again, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Castro reached out again. Castro said, “[After Hurricane Katrina], we offered 1,610 doctors, and before a second hurricane came, even more, who’d have been able to save many lives, but the American government’s pride dictated that [rather than accept Cuban aid], their own citizens had to die on the roofs of their houses, or on the roofs of hospitals from which no one evacuated them, or in stadiums, or in nursing homes, where some of them were given euthanasia in order to prevent a more horrible death by drowning.”

  Castro found the situation appalling, and further cemented for him that capitalism is such an evil institution that defending it will allow for unnecessary deaths. He has a similar opinion about the American medical system. Castro said, “In the United States there are millions and millions of immigrants, millions and millions of people who don’t have means to pay for medical assistance, while here in Cuba, any citizen has full medical service without anybody every asking how they think, whether they support the blockade, as some miserable mercenaries do. That has never been asked, and never will—ever, of anyone!”

  Castro couldn’t understand how economics could play such a strong role in the culture of a people, blinding them to anything that makes sense, in his eyes. As he explained, “[the United States] portrays itself as a ‘defender of human rights’, that’s the country that in 1959 tried to leave us without doctors, but was without doctors itself …”

  In 2009, President Barack Obama once again opened the door of communication between the U.S. and Cuba, but indicated that the embargo would not be lifted unless significant change was made, even, as Castro insists, “Over 90 percent of the members of the United Nations condemn the blockade.”

  Fidel Castro has spoken in favor of Obama before, saying, upon his election, “The intelligent and noble face of the first black president of the United States since its founding two and one-third centuries ago as an independent republic had transformed itself under the inspiration of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King into a living symbol of the American dream.”

  However, when Obama quipped that change could be possible and fences could be mended between the U.S. and Cuba if Cuba would bend toward democracy, Castro retaliated, saying, with sarcasm, “How kind! How intelligent! Such kindness still has not allowed him to understand that 50 years of blockade and crimes against our country have not been able to bow our people.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  HEALTH AND CONSEQUENCES

  “Well, I’ll tell you, as usual, there’s been a lot of speculation about that [fall]. It’s true that on 23 June 2001, in El Cotorro, a neighborhood in Havana, on a day of intense heat, and during a speech that lasted more than three hours, broadcast live on television, I had a slight loss of consciousness. Something perfectly excusable. It was a slight fainting spell that lasted no more than a few minutes—due to the heat and the terrible sun. A few hours later, those people up there in Miami were already celebrating … It could have happened to anybody that stood that long in such hot sun.”

  In June of 2001, Fidel Castro was about to turn 75 years old. It was understandable that even a younger man would be affected by midday Caribbean heat, but Fidel foes were quick to excitedly jump on this happening as a harbinger of doom—his doom. Speculation ran rampant that Fidel’s health was failing, and some hoped it might be weeks, days even, before Fidel fell for good.

  The press was quick to point out every instance that might be a clue that Fidel was on his way out. Take as another example an incident in 2004 when Castro lost his footing and took a tumble, nearly face-planting and ending up with a broken arm. Castro said, “When I came to the area of concrete, about 15 or 20 yards from the first row of seats, I didn’t see that the granite pavement was raised. When I stepped out with my left foot, there was no pavement there, my foot found no purchase, and the law of gravity, discovered some time ago by Newton, combined with my forward motion, made me, as I stepped out, lurch forward and fall, in a fraction of a second, onto the pavement … It was my own fault. The emotion of that day filled with creations and symbolisms explains my carelessness.”

  In addition to breaking his arm, he also shattered his kneecap, and neither of those body parts seemed ever to have fully healed.

  One of the bigger health issues Fidel faced in later years is a serious bout with acute diverticulitis in 2006. Castro refused a temporary colostomy, and instead insisted the entire procedure take place at once. It didn’t take, and Castro’s haste, and distaste for wearing a colostomy bag, nearly killed him. Other internal organs became terribly infected, and the doctors had a great deal of trouble getting the situation under control. It was a terrible ordeal. “[T]he only thing I hoped for was for the world to stop,” he admitted in an interview for La Jornada. “Several times I asked myself if [doctors] were going to let me live in those conditions or if they’d let me die.” Within a week, he ended up having to have the colostomy anyway, or else he would have died.

  His recovery was slow and painful, and he could not eat solid foods for months, causing him to lose a terrifying amount of weight. “Stretched out on that [hospital] bed, I could only look around me, ignorant about those [medical] devices,” he continued. “I didn’t know how long that torment would last and the only thing I hoped for was for the world to stop.”

  Throughout this illness, he stayed out of the public eye. It wasn’t until several months later that he’d appeared on camera. Within a few months, he opted to undergo surgery again, to reconnect his intestines. He said, “‘I was able to recover fu
ll control of my mind, [and] read and meditated a lot.”

  In October 2012, Castro reportedly suffered a “serious embolic stroke” which, doctors said, put him in a “near neurovegetative state.” According to sources cited in a recent article in the Miami Herald, Castro was having trouble speaking and remembering things; however, in a news piece by Paul Haven published later that month, Castro was alive and well. “I don’t even remember what a headache feels like,” Castro quipped in an article published about him entitled, “Fidel is Dying.”

  Possibly the many and varied reports of Castro’s demise were pipe dreams of those who wanted him gone; perhaps he was in worse shape than he admitted.

  In February 2013, a few short weeks before his good friend and mentee Hugo Chávez’s death, Castro made his first public appearance in years, to vote in Cuba’s public election. It wasn’t easy for him, however. As he told reporters that had gathered around to take advantage of this rare appearance, “I asked various people who work with me the number of steps and the height of the stairway at the entrance. My shattered knee … has taken its toll.”

  So why come out and vote at all? As Castro explained, it was important to show that their way worked, to not give in to another country’s idea of successful government. Castro said, “The people are truly revolutionary; they have really sacrificed. We don’t have to prove it; history will. Fifty years of the blockade and they haven’t given in.” And apparently, neither did Fidel.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  STEPPING DOWN

  “My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That’s all I can offer. But it would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama.”

  When Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government at barely 33 years of age, it was his intent to keep control of that government, to keep making advances and reforms for the Cuban people, until his last breath. Of course, for a young man who lived on the edge of battle and death, it was likely he never imagined he’d live so long, and could not possibly imagine the toll age would take on his body, and hence, his mind and his ability to rule in the manner he believed Cuba should be ruled.

  On July 31, 2006, after his diagnosis of acute diverticulitis, he delegated his duties to Raul, naming him acting president while Fidel recovered. Fidel had no idea his recovery would take so long, however, and take so much out of him.

  By February 2007, Fidel was not yet able to step back into his leadership role, but was slowly starting to participate in government happenings again, though only to a point. Though even with his limited involvement, he knew he could never assume the full leadership reins again. On February 24, 2008, Raul became president, with Fidel as his main consult. Castro said, “I will not aspire to, neither will I accept—I repeat, I will not aspire to, neither will I accept—the position of president of the Council of State and commander in chief … It would betray my conscience to occupy a responsibility that requires mobility and the total commitment that I am not in the physical condition to offer.”

  Despite his diminished duties, Castro was realizing that he wasn’t up to official government responsibility any more, and within a handful of years, he resigned his role of party leader of the Communist Party central committee also to Raul. Fidel Castro said, “I am not saying goodbye to you. I only wish to fight as a soldier of ideas.” He continued to, as a figurehead, weigh in heavily on issues affecting Cuba and the world.

  Still, after his resignation, he slowly stepped away, he says, “To prepare the people for my absence, psychologically and politically,” explaining that this “was my first obligation after so many years of struggle.”

  In a letter to the people, Castro wrote, “This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write … Perhaps my voice will he heard … I shall be careful.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CASTRO’S RETIREMENT

  “I am someone who’s been in politics for 43 years and I know what I’m doing and what I should do. Have no doubt that I know how to tell the truth and to do so elegantly.”

  While Fidel Castro officially stepped down and handed over the reins to brother Raul on July 31, 2006, after undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding, he would not completely relinquish control for nearly two more years.

  Castro said, “I believe that all of us ought to retire relatively young,” but even into his eighties, he couldn’t walk away from his work. By February of the following year, he was strong enough to start taking on other responsibilities, including becoming president of the Non-Aligned Movement during its 14th Summit, which had been held in Havana to appoint Castro for a term of one year.

  Could Castro ever really walk away from being in power? It would seem he could not. “I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country. This is not a personal matter. We are not people driven by a wish to be in the government since [it] is for us the least attractive work, even though we are politicians,” he once said. In addition to being consulted on high-level government issues, he continued to interact with his countrymen and penned a regular column for Granma called “Reflections.” He kept on top of world affairs and even maintained a Twitter account. But each year, he began letting go of more and more. On April 19, 2011, he formally resigned from the Communist Party.

  Throughout his life, and even at the end of it, he maintained his deep Christianity, despite how he had been criticized for not practicing Christian ideals in his life and affairs. But he had his own take on it, saying, “If religious feeling is put in opposition to social change, then it does become an opium, but if it is joined to the struggle for social change, then it is a wonderful medicine.” So even to his mind, he wasn’t a textbook Catholic, but he believed devoutly in what he was doing—and believed it was deeper and more complex than typical religious belief. He said, “If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian.”

  In 2014, he was awarded the Confucius Peace Prize, but he never let go of his distrust of the United States and his resistance of capitalist policies, though he continued to meet with world leaders from other countries.

  Well before Barack Obama’s March 2016 visit to Cuba, Castro was sharing his opinions on relations between Cuba and the U.S., and while he wasn’t against Obama’s visit, he did as early as January 2015 make his opinions known about what had come to be understood as the “Cuban Thaw,” stating, in effect, that Cuba “has no need of gifts from the Empire.”

  In one of his last big public appearances in April 2015, he told the people that he knew he would die soon, but that communist ideals needed to live on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE CASTROS AND OBAMA

  “Obama made a speech in which he uses the most sweetened words to express: ‘It is time, now, to forget the past, leave the past behind, let us look to the future together, a future of hope. And it won’t be easy, there will be challenges and we must give it time; but my stay here gives me more hope in what we can do together as friends, as family, as neighbors, together.’ … I suppose all of us were at risk of a heart attack upon hearing these words from the President of the United States. After a ruthless blockade that has lasted almost 60 years, and what about those who have died in the mercenary attacks on Cuban ships and ports, an airliner full of passengers blown up in midair, mercenary invasions, multiple acts of violence and coercion?”

  In March 2016, Barack Obama did something unprecedented for any American president for decades: He traveled to Havana to meet with leader Raul Castro in an attempt to begin to mend fences between the two countries.

  During their fairly amicable news conference, the two leaders lay their issues with each other out on the table and both seemed amenable to trying to work together. For Raul Castro, the most significant course of action the
United States could take would be to lift the United States’s trade embargo of Cuba, which Castro called “the most important obstacle to our economic development and the well-being of the Cuban people.”

  After Fidel Castro’s passing, Obama made a statement that showed his respect for the work Castro had accomplished in his career, even if not in agreement. Said Obama:

  “For nearly six decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba was marked by discord and profound political disagreements. During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends—bonds of family, culture, commerce, and common humanity. This engagement includes the contributions of Cuban Americans, who have done so much for our country and who care deeply about their loved ones in Cuba.”

  It would be idealistic and even a little naïve to believe that Fidel Castro would have been in full support of Obama’s assessment, when he always pointed out a fundamental disconnect between the way the U.S. and Cuba perceive the world. Castro had said, “North Americans don’t understand … that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.”

  North Americans who are against Castro have certainly seen that differently than he did, though not all North Americans.

  While he had seen promise in relations healing between Cuba and the United States during the Obama presidency, even asking his countrymen, “How can we help President Obama?” Fidel Castro’s own words in his publication Granma following Obama’s visit paint a more skeptical perspective. “We don’t need the empire to give us anything,” he wrote, even as his brother was open to discussing what an Obama-led American government could provide the people of Cuba, understanding “that a long and complex path still lies ahead” but that “what is most important is that we have started taking the first steps to build a new type of relationship, one that has never existed between Cuba and the United States.”