Rumors are trickling out of Havana and there are mixed feelings today from people all over the world after learning about the passing of longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Castro, 81, had not appeared in public since July last year when he underwent emergency intestinal surgery. There has been widespread speculation about his ailing health and death over the past the past 13 months.
Market News First (www.mn1.com) is first on the scene with news about the passing of arguably the most controversial figure since Adolph Hitler. Castro, no matter what your feelings toward him may be, has been a front page headline ever since he came to power in the 1950s.
Everyone remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis and Bay of Pigs. But not everyone is familiar with how this cigar-smoking, charismatic dictator came to power and how he gained the love and respect of so many of his countrymen.
Born on a sugar plantation on August 13, 1926, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was the most recent president of Cuba, though his duties were transferred while in such bad health.
Castro led the revolution overthrowing Fulgencio Batista, whom opponents described as a dictator, in 1959. Shortly thereafter he was sworn in as the prime minister of Cuba, and he became first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965 and then led his country’s transformation into a one-party socialist republic.
In 1976 Castro became president of the Council of State as well as of the Council of Ministers. He also held 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 U.S. political and corporate influence in Cuba. He gained an ardent, but limited, following and also drew the attention of the authorities. He eventually led the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks, after which he was captured, tried, incarcerated and later released.
Castro then travelled to Mexico to organize and train for the guerrilla invasion of Cuba that took place in December 1956. Since his assumption of power in 1959 he evoked both praise and condemnation (at home and internationally). He is described by opponents as a dictator while supporters see him as a charismatic liberator.
In Cuba Castro oversaw 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.
The final smoke from this Cuban gun came with his endorsement of democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama teaming up to win the U.S. presidential election.
“The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate,” he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
So that is how it ends for this unforgettable character in World History. Prophesizing the “winning ticket” for leadership in the country he threatened with nuclear missiles so many years ago. One characteristic that everyone should agree upon … no matter what the situation or circumstance, Fidel Castro always seemed to get in the last word while smoking a foot-long Cuban cigar, of course.
Excerpts from Wikipedia contributed to this article.