History of Cuba: Encyclopedia II - History of Cuba - Communist Cuba

History of Cuba - Communist Cuba

Relations between the United States and Cuba deteriorated rapidly as the Cuban government, in reaction to the U.S refusal to refine Soviet oil in refineries located in Cuba, expropriated U.S. properties, notably those belonging to the International Telephone and Telegraph Company (ITT) and the United Fruit Company. This was in line with Castro's anti-U.S. ideologies used to gain support at home and abroad. In the Castro government's first agrarian reform law on May 17, 1959 it sought to limit the size of land holdings, and to distribute that land to agricultural workers in "Vital Minimum" tracts. In compensation, the Cuban government offered to pay the landholders based on the tax assessment values for the land, in reality little or no compensation was paid. Reasons for this include that actual payment would be with twenty-year bonds paying 4.5% interest (instead of the then U.S. investment grade corporate bond rate of 3.8%). Landholders from most other countries settled on this basis. The problem was with the tax assessed values. Most of the large landholdings had been acquired in the 1920 period when world sugar prices were depressed, and the land could be bought at bargain-basement prices. In the intervening period, former Cuban governments friendly to these interests had kept these bargain prices as the basis for calculating property taxes, thus insuring that those taxes would be kept low. However, as Castro's control of the island's assets tightened and more nationalization campaigns took place, promises such as these were not honored.

In response to the seizure of American properties and the increased repression carried out by Castro's government on the people, the U.S. broke diplomatic relations on January 3, 1961 and imposed the U.S. embargo against Cuba on February 3, 1962. The embargo is still in effect as of 2005, although some humanitarian trade in food and medicines is now allowed. At first, the embargo didn't extend to other countries and Cuba trades with most European, Asian and Latin American countries and especially Canada. But now the United States pressures other nations and U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries to restrict trade with Cuba. This hinders Castro's historic argument of blaming the United States for Cuba's grave economic situation. Then again, due to Cuba's location, such trade is hindered by high transportation costs. Also, the Helms-Burton Act of 1996 makes it very difficult for companies that do business with Cuba to also do business in the United States, effectively forcing internationals to choose between the two. Another consideration here is that Cuba already was a very poor country in 1959 and hardly any poor countries, capitalist or socialist, have managed to escape poverty in the 20th century, so political orientation can't be conclusively said to be the determining factor.

The establishment of a Marxist system in Cuba led to the fleeing of many hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles to the United States and various other countries since Castro's rise to power. One major exception to the embargo was made on November 6, 1965 when Cuba and the United States formally agreed to start an airlift for Cubans who wanted to go to the United States. By 1971 these so-called Freedom Flights took 250,000 Cubans to the United States. Currently, there is an immigration lottery allowing 20,000 Cubans seeking political asylum to go to the United States legally every year. Perhaps a thousand or more take the terrible risks of escaping by sea.

History of Cuba - Bay of Pigs Invasion

Main article: Bay of Pigs Invasion

The United States then sponsored an unsuccessful attack on Cuba, using conservative political groups as the main source of support. The attack began on April 15, 1961, when exiles, flying planes provided by the United States bombed several Cuban air force bases. This attack did not succeed in destroying all of Castro's air force. In response, Castro declared Cuba a socialist state in a speech on April 16, 1961.

On April 17, 1961, a force of about 1,500 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by the CIA, landed in the south during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The CIA's assumption was that the invasion would spark a popular rising against Castro. Castro's forces were forewarned of the invasion and had arrested hundreds of thousands of suspected "subversives," before the invasion landed (Priestland, 2003). Castro executed high level defectors from his own ranks notably William Morgan and Sori Marin [26]. There was no popular uprising. Most of the invasion force made it ashore, however all their supplies did not, despite some initial advances in which thousands of Castro militia died was quickly defeated as President Kennedy did not allow the US Navy already on site to provide the air support he had promised. Many believe that the invasion, instead of weakening Castro, actually helped him consolidate his grip on power.

For the next 30 years, Castro pursued closer relations with the Soviet Union until its demise in 1991. Castro cast a big shadow in the Cold War. Castro’s enemies often died mysterious violent deaths. Castro-directed overt and covert operations were undertaken throughout much of the world.

The Organization of American States, under pressure from the United States, suspended Cuba's membership in the body on January 22, 1962 and the U.S. Government banned all U.S-Cuban trade a couple of weeks later on February 7. The Kennedy administration extended this on February 8, 1963 making travel, financial and commercial transactions by U.S. citizens to Cuba illegal.

Priestland, Jane (editor) 2003 British Archives on Cuba: Cuba under Castro 1959-1962. Archival Publications International Limited, 2003, London ISBN 1903008204

History of Cuba - The Cuban Missile Crisis

Main article: Cuban missile crisis

Tensions between the two governments peaked again during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The United States had a much stronger arsenal of long-range nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union, as well as some medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) in Turkey, whereas the Soviet Union had a large stockpile of medium-range nuclear weapons which were primarily located in Europe. Cuba agreed to let the Soviets to place secretly place MRBMs on their territory. Reports from in Cuba to exile sources questioned the need for large amounts of ice going to rural areas, and such lead to the discovery of the missiles, which was confirmed by U-2 flights. When the United States saw what was happening they put up a cordon in international waters to stop Soviet ships from bringing in any more missiles (named a quarantine rather than a blockade to avoid issues with international law). At the same time, Castro was getting a little too fanatic for the liking of Moscow, so, at the last moment, the Soviets decided to call back the ships. In addition, they agreed to remove the missiles that were already placed, in exchange for an agreement that the United States would not invade Cuba. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union it came out that another part of the agreement was the removal of the missiles in Turkey. It also turned out that some submarines that the U.S. Navy blocked were carrying nuclear missiles and that communication with Moscow was scarce, effectively leaving the decision of firing the missiles at the discretion of the captains of those submarines.

The United States have honored this agreement by not openly attacking Cuba anymore, but the CIA continued to support anti-Castro groups by mounting an extensive international campaign and several botched assassination attempts throughout the 1960s. And the agreement was specifically about Cuban territory. But Cuba provided military support to revolutions in Angola, Nigeria and South America. During one such campaign, Ernesto Che Guevara was captured by U.S. trained commandos in Bolivia in 1967 and then executed. A low quality copy of the photograph that was taken of him after his death became very popular on t-shirts and posters, which, along with his selfless ideology and untimely death, but ignoring his Sierra Maestra blood purges and his role in executions after Castro gained power, has helped 'el Che' become a symbol of revolution in the world.

History of Cuba - Cuba after the Soviet Union

When the Soviet Union broke up in late 1991, a major boost to Cuba's economy was lost, leaving it essentially paralyzed because the Cuban economy had a very narrow basis, focused on just a few products with just a few buyers. Also, supplies (including oil) almost dried up. Over 80% of Cuba's trade was lost and living conditions worsened. A periodo especial (special period) was declared, which included cutbacks on transport and electricity and even food rationing. In response, the United States tightened up the trade embargo even further, thinking this would surely mean the downfall of Castro. But Castro tapped into a pre-revolutionary source of income and opened the country to tourism, and entered into several joint ventures with foreign companies for hotel, agricultural and industrial projects. As a result, the use of U.S. dollars was legalized in 1994, with special stores being opened which only sold in dollars. Thus, there were now two separate economies, the dollar-economy and the peso-economy, creating a social split in the island because those in the dollar-economy made much more money (such as in the tourist-industry). However, in October 2004 the Cuban government announced an end to this policy: from November dollars would no longer be legal tender in Cuba, but would instead be exchanged for convertible pesos, with a 10% commission payable to the state.

Extreme shortages of food and other goods as well as electrical blackouts led to a brief period of unrest, including numerous anti-government protests and widespread increases in crime. In response the Cuban Communist party government formed hundreds of “rapid-action brigades” to confront protesters. According to the Communist Party daily, Granma, "delinquents and anti-social elements who try to create disorder and an atmosphere of mistrust and impunity in our society will receive a crushing reply from the people."

Some non-violent initiatives have been launched by Cubans in the island, aiming at political reform. In 1997, a group led by Vladimiro Roca, a decorated veteran of the Angolan war and the son of the founder of the Cuban Communist Party, sent a petition, entitled La Patria es de Todos ("the homeland belongs to all") to the Cuban general assembly requesting democratic and human rights reforms. As a result, Roca and his three associates were sentenced to jail, from which they were eventually released.

In 2001, a group backed by the Catholic church collected thousands of signatures for the Varela Project, a petition requesting a referendum on the island's political system. The process was openly supported by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter during his historic 2002 visit to Cuba. The petition gathered sufficient signatures, but was rejected on an alleged technicality. Instead. a plebiscite then was held in which it was formally proclaimed that Castro's brand of socialism would be perpetual.

In 2003 seventy-five anti-government activists were arrested and summarily sentenced to heavy jail terms. Cuban officials described it as a response to provocative actions by the head of the U.S. interests section in Cuba, who had been traveling around the country holding publicized meetings and press conferences with the dissidents. Castro's action was widely criticised by mainstream human rights organizations and even by U.S. leftists generally sympathetic to his government.

In an unrelated matter six men were sentenced to death for hijacking a ferry with guns and knives, steering it into international waters where it ran out of fuel, and threatening to kill the passengers. Some accounts confused the two and accused Castro of sentencing dissidents to death, something which did not happen. A second ferry was hijacked, several days later and this time the hijackers were apprehended and executed within a few weeks.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Communist Cuba", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki