Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Castro: Profile of the great survivor

Castro: Profile of the great survivor  
 
Castro: The communist on America's doorstep 
Fidel Castro has run Cuba for so long that nearly three-quarters of its
people have known no other leader. 
Although the US has tried hard to get rid of him, President Castro has
outlasted no fewer than nine American presidents during his 47-year rule.
While his (also elderly) brother Raul has long been his designated
successor, many people believe that Cuba's Communist Revolution will not
long outlast President Castro. 
Wealthy family 
The Communist leader - known for his long-winded anti-American rhetoric -
was born Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz in 1926 to a wealthy, landowning
family. 
He received a Jesuit education, and graduated from Havana University as a
lawyer. 
But, shocked by the contrast between his own comfortable lifestyle and the
dire poverty of so many others, he became a Marxist-Leninist
revolutionary. 
 
Castro's band included Che Guevara 
In 1953, he took up arms against the regime of President Fulgencio
Batista. 
Aiming to spark a popular revolt, on 26 July Mr Castro led more than 100
followers in a failed attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago
de Cuba. 
Fidel Castro and his brother Raul survived, but were imprisoned. 
Amnestied after two years, Mr Castro continued to campaign against the
Batista regime while in exile in Mexico, and established a guerrilla force
known as the 26 July Movement. 
His revolutionary ideals attracted support in Cuba and in 1959 his forces
overthrew Batista, whose regime had become a byword for corruption,
decadence and inequality. 
Cuba's new rulers - who included the legendary Argentine revolutionary Che
Guevara - promised to give the land back to the people and to defend the
rights of the poor. 
Cold war battleground 
Fidel Castro insisted his ideology was, first and foremost, Cuban. "There
is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social
justice in a well-planned economy," he said at the time. 
 
Castro's bond with Khrushchev alienated the US 
He was soon snubbed by US President Dwight Eisenhower and claimed he was
driven into the arms of the Soviet Union and its leader, Nikita
Khrushchev. Cuba became a Cold War battleground. 
In April 1961, the US attempted to topple the Castro government by
recruiting a private army of Cuban exiles to invade the island. 
At the Bay of Pigs, Cuban troops repulsed the invaders, killing many and
capturing 1,000. 
Missile crisis 
A year later, US reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missiles on their
way to sites in Cuba. The world was suddenly staring into the abyss of
all-out nuclear war. 
The superpowers stood eyeball to eyeball, but it was the Soviet leader who
gave way, pulling his missiles out of Cuba in return for a secret
withdrawal of US weapons from Turkey. 
Fidel Castro, though, had become America's enemy number one. 
The CIA tried to assassinate him - more than 600 times, according to one
Cuban minister. 
Getting him to smoke a cigar packed with explosives was one idea. 
Other anti-Castro plots were even more bizarre, including one to make his
beard fall out and ridicule him. 
 
Fidel Castro: America's most wanted 
The Soviet Union poured money into Cuba. It bought the bulk of the
island's sugar harvest and in return its ships crammed into Havana
harbour, bringing in desperately needed goods to beat the American
blockade. 
Despite his reliance on Russian help, President Castro put Cuba at the
head of the newly emerging Non-Aligned Movement. 
Yet, in Africa especially, he took sides, sending his troops in to support
Marxist guerrillas in Angola and Mozambique in the 1970s. 
Exodus
But the 1980s era of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev proved catastrophic
for President Castro's revolution. 
Moscow in effect pulled the plug on the Cuban economy by refusing to take
its sugar any more. 
Still under American blockade and with its Soviet lifeline cut off,
chronic shortages and empty shelves in Cuba were inevitable. Tempers grew
shorter as the food queues grew longer. 
By the mid-1990s, many Cubans had had enough. Thousands took to the sea in
a waterborne exodus to Florida. Many drowned. 
It was a crushing vote of no-confidence in their leader. 
Even his own daughter Alina Fernandez prefers a life of exile as a
dissident in Miami to rule under her "despotic" father. 
State of the nation 
President Castro has used US hostility as a reason to reject democratic
reforms to his one-party state. 
But Cuba under his rule has made impressive domestic strides. 
 
Pope John Paul II criticised Castro's human rights record  
Good medical care is freely available for all, there is 98% literacy, and
Cuba's infant mortality rates compare favourably with western nations.
Fidel Castro retains his ability to rattle and irritate the US, lately
engaging in a diplomatic tussle with the US embassy over a propaganda
display outside the building. 
He has also engineered a rapprochement with oil-rich Venezuela, run by his
great friend, Hugo Chavez. 
While many Cubans undoubtedly detest Castro, others genuinely love him. He
is the David who stood up to the Goliath of America. 
Even after nearly 50 years, he remains a divisive figure. 
 
-- 
visitate 
http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/frames/index.htm
http://cubainforma.interfree.it/
il film sul 9/11 : 
http://www.loosechange911.com/
http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Berlin.jpg
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 Castro: Profile of the great survivor
Ma non era morto?
Am.

amalric ha scritto:

lo vedi che confondi i tuoi sognoi con la realta' ?

 wrote:

Poco ci manca, fesso. 
Am.

 Poco ci manca, fesso.
perche' tu nazista omofobo pensi di arrivare a 80 anni con la tua già
evidente rincoglionitaggine? lol!


ci speri,eh ?
Sei in buona compagnia di tanti Neocon ma la cosa non ti infastidice...

 perche' tu
Fuori un altro rompicojoni, frocetto. Adesso non ci manca che il 
fratello. Poi, se ti vuoi accomodare, tanto la madre degli 
antimperialisti e' sempre incinta...
Am.
PS ricordati il condom con Raul

 Sei in buona compagnia di tanti Neocon ma la cosa non ti infastidice...
Sempre meglio che la compagnia dei neocondom come sergei tre-piume...
Am.

 PS ricordati il condom con Raul


 > PS ricordati il condom con Raul
E' un rimprovero? Un mero vezzeggiativo e un pensiero affettuoso. Sei 
troppo sensibile, Sergei, l'ho sempre detto.
Am.


Giusto,tu eri un ricco ed influente possidente ai tempi di Batista ed
ora speri di recuperare beni e potere...
buona fortuna ci-devant

"amalric" <ama...@TOGLIMIalice.it> ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:amalric-2F49B8...@reader4.news.tin.it...

ricordati le limonate
ancora tre cacate e poi plonk 

 wrote:

Grazie Pomero. Spero che le mie ultime tre cacate non siano come le tue:
Tre copiaincolla del Manifesto eppoi plonk.
Am.

"amalric" <ama...@TOGLIMIalice.it> ha scritto nel messaggio 
news:amalric-04B76F...@reader1.news.tin.it...

ma intanto strizza limoni e serba il sugo
3=plonk