[ad_1]
Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the charismatic icon of leftist revolution who thrust his Caribbean nation onto the world stage by provoking Cold War confrontation and defying U.S. policy through 11 administrations, has died. He was 90.
With his trademark fatigues and scruffy beard, Castro wore his defiance of Western capitalism like a badge of honor, accomplishing the unlikely feat of keeping communism alive in the Western Hemisphere two decades after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Castro was both bellicose and swashbuckling, a personality forged by prison, exile and revolution. But after early successes in healthcare and education, his government lost much of its luster in later years, as it failed to create economic opportunities and authorities resorted to repression to maintain control.
His last years were spent quietly as his brother Raul took the helm. The younger Castro launched cautious reforms in an effort to steer Cuba out of poverty, and in July 2015 restored diplomatic relations with the United States after a half-century breach.
For decades, however, Fidel Castro outmaneuvered his powerful neighbor to the north, coming out on top in the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and the bitter custody battle over young castaway Elian Gonzalez in 2000. He survived bizarre assassination plots, and his government’s challenge to Washington brought on decades of withering sanctions and a diplomatic freeze.
Castro’s revolution touched off an exodus, and the thousands of Cubans who reached Florida forever changed the character, culture and politics of the state. Miami became the center of the expatriate community, where many were convinced for years they could return home when he died.
The years became decades, and news of Castro’s death touched off noisy celebrations in Florida, especially Miami, early Saturday morning. A large crowd gathered outside the famous Versailles restaurant in Little Havana, heart of Miami’s Cuban community, and videos shared over social media showed people cheering, shouting, honking horns and beating on cowbells.
The website of Diario Las Americas, a Spanish-language newspaper in Florida, declared in bold type: «The Cuban Dictator Dies.»
Castro, the longest-reigning of the 20th century caudillos — Latin American military rulers — blamed the U.S. economic blockade, not his government’s communist economics, for the steady erosion of living standards in Cuba.
While a succession of U.S. presidents and hard-line Cuban exiles in Miami saw a dictator who trampled on the rights of his people, Castro won acclaim among Latin Americans who envied his nationalist dignity and cavalier attitude toward the powerful yanquis.
After the Soviet Union’s dissolution and an abrupt end to Moscow’s subsidies to Cuba, Castro agreed to allow some minor economic liberalization to attract foreign investment.
Cuban state companies collaborated with Canadian, Japanese and European counterparts to create a thriving tourism sector on the tropical island, undermining the U.S. embargo. The U.S. government put up barriers to its business community’s investment in Cuba — what increasing numbers of agricultural traders and others lamented as missed opportunity in recent years.
But other parts of the economy felt the effects of the end of the Cold War keenly. Once reliant on plentiful Soviet oil, Cuba turned to Venezuela, which became its key trading partner, providing half of its oil needs on preferential terms. A slump in sugar sales and wildly fluctuating worldwide prices for nickel also hurt.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans with relatives abroad were able to sustain themselves through the estimated $1 billion in remittances coming to the island each year.
::
On Thanksgiving Day in 1999, a 5-year-old Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez washed up on Florida’s shores, one of only three survivors of an ill-fated escape in which his mother and 10 others drowned. The subsequent custody battle between Elian’s anti-Castro relatives in Miami and the Cuban government ultimately gave Castro a platform to bolster his image as protector of Cuban sovereignty and dignity in the face of Yankee aggression.
U.S.-Cuban tensions seemed to be easing when, in 2003, the Cuban government jailed 75 dissidents pushing for democratic reforms. The last of them were finally released in 2011.
In his later years, Castro appeared increasingly frail. It was his hectic travel schedule in July 2006 that he blamed for the intestinal bleeding that led to surgery and compelled the first transfer of governing authority, to brother Raul, in the more than 47 years he had ruled the country.
And it would be years before he reappeared in public, his illness and long convalescence even forcing him to miss the 50th anniversary celebrations of the revolution on New Year’s Day 2009.
Instead, Castro expressed his thoughts in columns he purportedly penned and regularly published in the Cuban press and on the Internet, under the title “Reflections.” He wrote at length on themes including U.S. politics and a looming nuclear holocaust until the last few years of his life.
But in April he rallied enough to surprise the country with a surprise speech at the Communist Party Congress in Havana.
As Fidel Castro’s official role faded (he relinquished his last leadership post, as head of the Communist Party, in April 2011), Raul consolidated his own power and embarked on a reform program that would have been unthinkable under his brother. The changes included allowing Cubans to buy and sell cars and homes, to open small businesses and to leave the country without first applying for government permission.
On Dec. 17, 2014, Raul Castro and President Obama announced a stunning turnaround in U.S.-Cuban relations with their promise to restore diplomatic ties and bring the two nations into a more congenial relationship. An end to the U.S. embargo of Cuba, however, depends on action by Congress, where much opposition remains to normalizing relations with Havana as long as any Castro is in power.
In March, Obama became the first U.S. leader in nearly 90 years to visit the island nation, and in October he lifted several trade restrictions, a move that included an end to limits on the Cuban cigars Americans can bring home. Administration officials said at the time that the Obama was using the new rules to expand and solidify its opening to Cuba before Obama leaves the White House in January.
Castro did not publicly comment on the warming relations between the U.S. and Cuba, but this year did take swipes at his old rival.
He wasn’t impressed when Obama, in a television address to the Cuban people during his visit, struck a conciliatory tone, saying the two countries «can make this journey as friends, and as neighbors and as a family — together.»
In a long written response, Castro said Cubans could provide for themselves.
«We do not need the empire to give us anything,» he spat.
In another long letter released as Cubans marked his 90th birthday in August, Castro criticized Obama again for a speech the U.S. president had given months earlier during a visit to Japan. Castro’s complaint: Obama failed to apologize for the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
The former leader, long criticized for abusing human rights, wrote: «I believe that the United States’ president’s speech lacked stature when he visited Japan, and it lacked an apology for the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in Hiroshima, in spite of the fact that they knew the effects of the bomb.»
To the end, Castro clung to his belief that his revolution had succeeded in lifting a nation above self-interest and material obsessions.
His words to the court that tried him for the Moncada attack more than half a century ago echoed throughout his long career and late-night monologues. “Judgment is spoken by the eternal court of history,” Castro said then of his actions. “Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me.”
Besides Raul, his survivors include his longtime partner, Dalia Soto del Valle, son Fidelito, former mistress Naty Revuelta, two daughters and six other sons — five born of Soto del Valle.
Los Angeles Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson contributed to this report.
MORE ON FIDEL CASTRO
Obama’s Cuba visit to augur a ‘new beginning’ between nations
Former president Fidel Castro appears in public in Cuba
Pope meets Fidel Castro after delivering jab against communist system
Fidel Castro marks his 90th birthday with a letter, thanking Cuba and criticizing Obama
UPDATES:
11:35 p.m.: Updated with reaction from Florida.
11:10 p.m.: Updated with Castro’s criticisms of President Obama.
9:45-10:30 p.m.: Updated with the latest information about U.S.-Cuba relations.
This obituary was originally published at 9:40 p.m.
[ad_2]
fuente