FIDEL CASTRO THANKS CUBANS ON HIS 90TH BIRTHDAY CRITICIZES OBAMA

FIDEL CASTRO THANKS CUBANS ON HIS 9OTH BIRTHDAY CRITICIZES OBAMA

HAVANA — Fidel Castro thanked Cubans for their well-wishes on his 90th birthday on Saturday and criticized President Barack Obama in a lengthy letter published in state media.
"I want to express my deepest gratitude for the shows of respect, greetings and praise that I've received in recent days, which give me strength to reciprocate with ideas that I will send to party militants and relevant organizations," he wrote.
"Modern medical techniques have allowed me to scrutinize the universe," wrote Castro, who stepped down as Cuba's president 10 years ago after suffering a severe gastrointestinal illness.
Castro accompanied his thanks with reminiscences about his childhood and youth in eastern Cuba, describing the geology and plant life of the region where he grew up. He touched on his father's death shortly before his own victory in overthrowing U.S-backed strongman Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Castro returns at the end to criticize Obama, who appeared to anger the revolutionary leader with a March trip to Cuba in which he called for Cubans to look toward the future. A week after the trip, Castro wrote a sternly worded letter admonishing Obama to read up on Cuban history, and declaring that "we don't need the empire to give us anything."
In Saturday's letter, he criticizes Obama for not apologizing to the Japanese people during a May trip to Hiroshima, describing Obama's speech there as "lacking stature."

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Fidel Castro

On Aug. 13, 2016, Fidel Castro will turn 90. A controversial and divisive world figure, Castro has received several international awards and is recognized as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism. Let's take a look at the life of Castro, the revolutionary who ruled Cuba for almost five decades.

                   

1945 – Early Life

Castro was born in Cuba in 1926, the illegitimate son of Ángel Castro, a rich farmer. At school, he was an intelligent but not exceptional student — although his main passion was for sport, at which he excelled (pictured above after he was chosen as the best athlete of Belen High School in 1945). But it was when he went to study law at the University of Havana that Castro began to develop his political awareness, becoming involved with a variety of left-wing activist groups. In 1947, he joined a military expedition to try and overthrow the right-wing dictator of the Dominican Republic but when that failed, he returned to Cuba. In 1948, Castro married for the first time, wedding Mirta Díaz Balart, who came from a wealthy Cuban family. One of the wedding gifts he received was $1,000 from Cuban general Fulgencio Batista, a friend of Balart's family.

                   

1952 – Batista coup

Castro was working as a lawyer in 1952 when Batista — who had already served once as a left-leaning president of Cuba — staged a military coup three months before the elections were due. Unlike his legitimate first term as president, the US-backed Batista (pictured above, centre) ruled as a dictator in the interests of the wealthy, with both American business and American organised crime enriching themselves while ordinary Cubans became increasingly impoverished.

                   

1953 – Attempted uprising and jail

In response to the Batista coup, a number of revolutionary organisations in Cuba were formed with the intention of opposing the regime — one of which, known simply as "The Movement," was formed by Castro. In 1953, Castro led a group of over 100 rebels — including his brother Raúl — in an attack on a military garrison, the Moncada Barracks. Despite careful planning, the attempt to start an uprising was a disaster — the rebels were heavily outnumbered, and were quickly forced to retreat, with many of them captured or killed. Castro retreated to the mountains, but over the following days the remaining rebels were rounded up and either executed or, like Castro, put on trial. Castro is pictured on the left, giving his deposition to military and police chiefs at the Vivac in Santiago de Cuba in July 1953. On October 16, Castro was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment — although in the end, he would serve less than two years. At his trial, he said: "Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me."

                   

1956 – Mexico and Che

Despite being sentenced to 15 year, Castro was released in 1955, as the newly confident Batista regime — bolstered by support from the U.S. — believed the rebels to be of no threat to them. During his time in jail, Castro and his wife began divorce proceedings, after she began working for Batista's Ministry of the Interior. A few months after his release, in July 1955, Fidel followed his brother Raúl to Mexico, where Raúl introduced him to a young Argentinian doctor called Ernesto Guevara, commonly known as Che. Guevara was committed to helping spread revolutionary activities and fighting the U.S. influence across Latin America. Pictured above: Fidel (left) and Che are seen in jail in Mexico City after being arrested in June 1956, quite possibly the first picture of them together.

6/22 SLIDES © Hulton Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images

1956 - Revolutionaries

Guevara (above, right) and Castro (left, lighting a cigar) would become profoundly influential in each other's lives, as the Argentinian joined Fidel in his fight against the Batista regime. In December 1956, a group of revolutionaries — including Fidel and Raúl Castro, and Che Guevara — traveled back to Cuba, where they set up camp in the Sierra Maestra mountains, and began a grueling, years-long campaign of guerrilla warfare.

7/22 SLIDES © AP Photo

1957 – Guerrilla warfare

Throughout 1957, Castro and his allies led repeated attacks on military outposts of the Batista regime across the Sierra Maestra region while building support among locals and attracting new recruits from the cities. By 1958, the attacks had proven so successful that the Batista government withdrew its forces from the mountain area entirely, giving Castro's rebels control of virtually all of Oriente Province. Seeing the tide turning against Batista, the U.S. withdrew its support for Batista and hoped to replace him with a right-wing, military-led regime better placed to thwart Castro. Out of allies, Batista resigned on the New Year's Eve of 1958, and subsequently fled the country, taking a fortune estimated to be at $300 million with him.                    

1959 – Revolution achieved

After Batista's resignation, the U.S.-backed military — led by General Eulogio Cantillo — attempted to take control of the country. But the massive swell of popular support behind Castro was too great. On Jan. 1, Castro supporters took to the streets of the capital Havana to celebrate Batista's fall, burning casinos and other symbols of the old regime's power (above). On Jan. 2, Guevara-led revolutionary forces entered Havana, while Castro's forces took the second city of Santiago. A week later, on Jan. 8, Castro finally entered Havana to a hero's welcome.

                   

1959 – Becomes Prime Minister

With the fall of the Batista regime and the arrest of General Cantillo, a liberal lawyer named Manuel Urrutia Lleó — who had defended rebels in trials established by the Batista regime, and had been strongly backed by Castro — was declared President. But Castro and Urrutia quickly fell out; Urrutia and his prime minister José Miró wanted to establish democratic elections and restore the rule of law. Castro, however, opposed elections and was quick to oversee the execution of former Batista regime officials without proper trials. In mid-February, Miró unexpectedly resigned — leading to Castro being sworn in as prime minister, and leaving Urrutia isolated. A few months later, in July, Castro would briefly resign as prime minister and denounce Urrutia — who, out of allies, offered his resignation. Castro then resumed his duties as prime minister having appointed a replacement president of his own choosing.                    

1960 – Nationalization and purges

Unlike Che Guevara and his brother Raúl, during his time as a revolutionary Castro had always refused to identify himself as a communist, in the hope of building a broader coalition. But once in power, he began a widespread program of nationalization of property and business, socialization of healthcare and collectivization of agriculture and other means of production — winning him widespread support among the country's poor. Pictured, Castro signs the decree nationalizing all American-owned banks in Cuba in September 1960 as President Osvaldo Dorticos looks on. Simultaneously, he also set about purging Cuban society of opponents — not just backers of the Batista regime, but moderates and liberals as well. Opposition newspapers were closed, a surveillance network (the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution) was established to report on counter-revolutionary activities, and many opponents of his rule were arrested and imprisoned. Other groups who Castro disliked were also targeted — notably homosexuals, who were imprisoned on a large scale.

                    

1960 onwards – Embrace of Communism and US embargo

In 1961, Castro officially announced that Cuba was a socialist state, and formally allied the country with the Soviet Union, which in return established new trade deals and provided arms. Castro embraced the Soviet Union partly in response to a growing trade war with the U.S.; when the Cuban government had nationalized the properties of the U.S. companies, the U.S. imposed a tight quota on its sugar imports from Cuba, something that could severely damage the island's economy. Castro is pictured here greeting the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at the UN General Assembly in New York in September 1960. Over the following years, the U.S. trade restrictions would be tightened to a full-on embargo, preventing any trade with and travel to Cuba on the part of Americans, and even attempting to prevent any firm that did business with Cuba also doing business with the U.S. Shortly before President Kennedy formalized the trade embargo in 1962, he reportedly asked that 1,000 Cuban cigars be bought for him for his future enjoyment.

                   

1961 – Bay of Pigs

In addition to the trade war, since 1960 the U.S. had been actively trying to undermine and disrupt the new Cuban regime. This culminated in the disastrous April 1961 attempt by CIA-organised Cuban exiles to invade the island. On April 17, 1961, around 1,400 Cuban exiles, under the command of U.S. soldiers and CIA operatives, landed at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba's south coast. But Castro's government — which knew they were coming thanks to its intelligence network — easily defeated the invaders after three days of fighting. Castro himself was present at the battleground to oversee the military operations (above). The botched invasion was a huge embarrassment to the new Kennedy administration.

                   

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis

Following the Bay of Pigs invasion attempt, Castro moved to strengthen Cuba's military ties to the Soviet Union — including secretly agreeing to build bases that would hold Soviet R-12 MRBM nuclear missiles, enabling the Soviets to target the U.S. in the same way American nuclear bases in Europe could target the USSR. In October 1962, a U.S. surveillance flight obtained photographic proof of the missile bases (pictured), sparking an international incident that brought the world the closest it has ever been to nuclear war. After thirteen incredibly tense days in which it looked likely that the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. would go to war, the stand-off was resolved when Soviet Premier Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the Cuban bases and withdraw its missiles, in exchange for the U.S. secretly agreeing to do the same with its Italian and Turkish missile bases, and publicly pledging never to invade Cuba.

14/22 SLIDES © AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi

1960s – Assassination attempts

Since before the Bay of Pigs incident and for many years following it, in addition to invasion attempts, the CIA had repeatedly plotted to assassinate Castro — at least eight separate plots are known of, while Cuban sources estimate they made hundreds of attempts. Notoriously, one of the reported assassination methods supposedly would have involved an exploding cigar — although it's not clear if this was ever seriously considered by the agency. What is known that several real plots did involve attempts to poison Castro — including one that recruited his ex-lover, and another ongoing collaboration between the CIA and American gangsters from Al Capone's former criminal gang. Needless to say, all the assassination attempts fail                   

1970s and 1980s – Decades of rule

With Cuba sat in the middle of the Cold War's stand-off between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Castro continued to rule for decades with little major change. Cuba was cut off from much of the world by the U.S. embargo, severely limiting the civil rights of its citizens at home, but supported economically thanks to trade with the Soviet Union. During this time, Castro supported other Marxist revolutionary movements across both Latin America and parts of Africa, such as Angola and Ethiopia — the former winning him the admiration of the then-jailed Nelson Mandela                    

1991 – Fall of Soviet Union

Cuba's decades of relative — if tense — stability started to change at the end of the 1980s, as Castro grew disillusioned with Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist leadership of the Soviet Union and the decline of communism across Eastern Europe. In 1991, the collapse of the Soviet Union proved a devastating blow for Castro's Cuba. Losing its major trading partner, responsible for 80% of its imports and exports, while still being under economic embargo from its superpower neighbor, saw the country plunged into an economic crisis.

17/22 SLIDES © AP Photo/Hans Deryk

1989 - 1994 – Economic collapse

By 1992, Cuba's GDP had shrunk by over 40% in the 24 months since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Castro declared sweeping austerity measures known as the 'Special Period in Time of Peace,' closing all non-essential factories, rationing petrol and electricity and even using oxen to replace tractors on some farms. In 1994, Castro lifted restrictions on Cubans wishing to leave the country. The number of Cubans fleeing the country to seek refuge in the U.S.A., often on ramshackle rafts, grew significantly — around 30,000 made for the Florida coast (here Cuban refugees are seen stranded in the open sea halfway between Key West and Cuba in August 1994). Faced with a wave of immigration, the U.S. Government of Bill Clinton stopped accepting the refugees, returning them to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. naval base on Cuba.

                   

2001 – Hurricane Michelle

In 2001, the category 4 Hurricane Michelle struck Cuba. Thanks to an efficient evacuation process, only 4 people died but it caused an estimated $1.8 billion of damage, severely hurting the country's recovering-but-still-fragile economy. Castro is seen here as he inspects a citrus grove damaged by the hurricane. Although Castro refused the offer of aid from the U.S.A., he did agree to a one-off purchase of food from the U.S., the first shipment of food since the embargo was imposed.

                   

2001 onwards – Health rumors

In 2001, Castro fainted in public while in the middle of giving a seven-hour-long speech in the hot sun (above). It sparked ongoing rumors about the leader's failing health, and speculation about who would succeed him if he became too ill to govern.

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2006 – Handover to Raúl

At the end of July 2006, after undergoing major surgery, Castro officially handed over his presidential duties to his brother Raúl (above, right), marking the end of over 45 years as Cuba's de facto leader, both as prime minister and president (although he retained his official position). Over the following years, he was rarely seen in public, and rumors about his health continued to circulate.

                    

2008 – Retirement

Almost two years after handing over his duties, in February 2008, Castro officially retired as Cuban president, with Raúl taking over the role — although he remained as the leader of the Communist Party until 2011. In his retirement, and with his health apparently improved, Castro has remained active in Cuban political life — writing a weekly column for the official Communist Party newspaper Granma, and giving interviews with foreign journalists. He has spoken of some of the mistakes and regrets over his decades of rule — admitting economic blunders during the "special period," and (among other things) describing his regime's persecution of homosexuals as a "great injustice" for which he took responsibility.

                    

2009 onwards - Legacy

While no longer the ruler of Cuba, Castro's influence can still be seen across the island, including in the many pictures and murals of him still publicly displayed. In December 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. would restore diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending 50 years of hostility. However, Castro has yet to make any comment on the historic move and, as he not appeared in public since January 2014, rumors have begun to swirl about the former Cuban leader's health. In March of 2016, Obama and his family made a historic trip to the island nation, though there was no meeting between the two.

   

The Cuban government has taken a relatively low-key approach to Castro's birthday, in comparison with the large-scale gatherings that had been planned for his 80th. Government ministries have held small musical performances and photo exhibitions that pay tribute to the former head of state. On Saturday morning, state media showed images of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arriving in Havana and a tribute was planned at a Havana theater Sunday evening. The government did not say which Cuban officials would attend.
Castro last appeared in public in April, closing the twice-a-decade congress of the Cuban Communist Party with a call for Cuba to stick to its socialist ideals amid ongoing normalization with the U.S.
The need for closer economic ties with the U.S. has grown more urgent as Venezuela, Castro's greatest ally, tumbles into economic free-fall, cutting the flow of subsidized oil that Cuba has depended on the South American country for more than a decade. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Cubans are emigrating to the United States, hollowing out the ranks of highly educated professionals.
The brightest spot in Cuba's flagging economy has been a post-detente surge in tourism that is expected to boom when commercial flights to and from the United States, Cuba's former longtime enemy, resume on Aug. 31.
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