50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution!

Cuba is this weekend celebrating 50 years since the start of the armed revolution which brought the communist leader Fidel Castro to power.

Frustrated with the corrupt regime of Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in his second coup in 1952, the young Castro planned an uprising. Guerrillas attacked two military barracks on 26 July 1953, but were defeated. Many were executed; Castro was jailed. At his trial he outlined what would become his revolutionary manifesto. In Mexico Castro met an Argentine doctor, Ernesto Guevara, who was convinced popular revolution was the solution to Latin America's ills. "Che", as he became known, joined the revolutionaries, became a commander and eventually took Cuba's third largest city.

The initial 1953 attack on the barracks has been commemorated as a turning point ever since the revolution. Half a million campesinos - farmers and rural people - assembled in Havana to mark the 26 July anniversary six months after Batista fled. The campesinos were key beneficiaries in newly-announced land reforms.

In April 1959, a smiling Castro met President Nixon and ate hamburgers in front of the press on an unofficial visit to Washington. Nixon afterwards wrote that the US had no choice but to try to "orient" the leftist leader in the "right direction". The following year, the US imposed a trade embargo in response to Castro's reforms. Relations deteriorated further in 1962 when the US released photos of Soviet nuclear missile silos in Cuba - triggering a crisis which took the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. Moscow agreed to remove the weapons if America withdrew its own nuclear missiles from Turkey. Castro retained his friendship with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushev.

Forty-four years after he led the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro - now aged 77 -remains in power. Famed for long, impassioned speeches, he continues to rail against US economic and political "imperialism" - and attracts criticism for his regime's human rights record.


Regardless what you think of Castro or his Castroism in general, i think its quite an achievement to survive over 40 years of US sanctions. We saw in Iraq what sanctions can do to a country. But despite economic problems life expectancy in Cuba is 75 years (men) and 79 years (women). the highest healthy life expectancy in the region.

Fidel himself has reputedly survived more than 600 CIA-sponsored attempts on his life(is that already added to the Guiness Book of Records?)