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The Passionate Eye Sunday: Comandante
Biography of Castro> Printer Version
Broadcast
March 28th, 2004
BIOGRAPHY OF CASTRO
August 13, 1926: Fidel Castro
is born on his family's sugar plantation in Oriente province in Cuba.
From a very wealthy family, young Castro spent many of his early years
in Catholic boarding schools.
1945: Castro attends the University of Havana's
law school and earns a degree. During his student years, Castro becomes
a political activist. He is dedicated to social justice and committed
to reform of government, which he views as corrupt.
1947: Castro joins the Ortodoxos party, which
has a mandate to bring about peaceful revolutionary change through constitutional
means.
1948: Castro attends a Pan-American
conference in Bogata, Columbia. The student congress turns violent and
many people are killed in the riot. The passion and drama of the event
compel Castro to consider guerilla warfare as a means of revolutionary
change.
1949: Castro marries Mirta Diaz Balart and
has his first son, Fidelito. The marriage lasts only 5 years. Castro gets
custody of Fidelito and never re-marries (although he fathers many more
children in several common-law relationships).
1950: Fidel Castro opens a private law practice
in Havana and devotes himself to helping the poor.
1952: Edauro Chibas, Castro's politician
mentor, commits suicide during a radio broadcast. Fidel accompanies him
to the hospital.
Castro plans to run for the House of Representatives in the next election
but General Batista overthrows Cuba's government in a coup. Castro challenges
the new regime in court but is unsuccessful.
1953: Castro puts together a small band of
revolutionaries and organizes an armed attack on the Moncada barracks
in Oriente province on July 26th. Half of the attackers are killed. Castro
and his brother Raul are taken prisoner. He is sentenced to 15 years in
prison.
In response to the charges against him Castro gives a speech called 'History
will Absolve Me' which becomes the manifesto of his movement.
1955: Fidel Castro is released from prison
in a general amnesty. He goes to Mexico and organizes Cuban exiles into
a fighting force called the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. He meets
Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, an Argentinean doctor who is dedicated to radical
politics and socialist causes.
1956: A group of 82 men launch at attack
on the north coast of Oriente province. Only 12 survive and they re-treat
in the Sierra Maestra mountains and continue to wage guerilla warfare.
The movement grows to 800 men.
Casto's movement grows in popularity as he promises class and farming
reforms and an end to Batista's corrupt government.
1958: As the military campaigns continue,
the U.S. ceases to support Batista and orders an arms embargo. In May,
Batista pushes back with an offensive that he loses.
January 1, 1959: Batista flees Cuba and Castro's
small force makes a victorious entry into Havana. Tension with the U.S.
government grows as the Cuban government begins to expropriate American-owned
properties.
1960: Cuba becomes friendly with the USSR
and makes an agreement to buy Russian oil. The U.S. imposes an economic
blockade that is still in force today.
1961: Diplomatic relations end with the U.S.
A force of 1,300 Cuban exiles, trained and supported by the CIA, attempt
to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban army easily defeats the rebels.
1962: The U.S. government discovers that
the Soviet Union is setting up long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba.
This is perceived as a threat and President Kennedy institutes a naval
blockade of Cuba. President Kennedy warns the Russians that if they launch
a missile from Cuba, the U.S. will retaliate with full force against them.
On October 24, the Russian ships carrying the missiles turn back and the
missile sites in Cuba are dismantled.
Meanwhile, Castro is very popular in Cuba. He institutes sweeping land
reforms which give land to the masses of peasants. He nationalizes hundreds
of major companies in Cuba which had been previously foreign owned. He
also sets up free education and health care for all Cubans.
But the upper and middle class in Cuba grow disillusioned with Castro's
plan for the country. Thousands of Cubans risk their lives to escape to
the U.S. rather than live in Castro's communist state.
1991: The collapse of communism in the Soviet
Union throws Cuba into a domestic crisis. Economic aid ceases and Cuba
endures a massive recession. Castro tries to modernize Cuba's economy
by allowing some private enterprise.
2000: Elian Gonzalez, a young
Cuban boy is the lone survivor of a Cuban refugee boat wreck that claimed
his mother's life. His relatives in Miami fight to keep him in the U.S.
but Fidel Castro insists that the boy be returned to Cuba to live with
his Cuban father. A bitter battle ensues. The U.S. government finally
seizes the child from a home in Miami and returns him to Cuba with his
father.
2003: Fidel Castro is strongly
criticized after he orders the death of three men who had tried to hijack
a passenger ferry.
Castro has been with his current common-law wife Dalia
Soto del Valle for 30 years and they have 5 sons; Angel, Antonio, Alejandro,
Alexis and Alex.
He is now the longest serving leader of any country in the world.
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THE PASSIONATE
EYE SHOWCASE: COMANDANTE
On the Passionate
Eye Showcase on Sunday March 28
at 10PM & 1AM ET
and Friday April 2 at
10PM ET on
CBC Newsworld
An Interview
with Castro - Biography of Castro
Oliver Stone's Comandante - Resources
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