Fidel Castro: 1926 - 2016.

On April 8th 2013 (8/4/13) former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died. At the time I advised certain celebrities who were being pressured into commenting into making absolutely no comment at all.

That's because people who are old enough to remember her time in power either loved Margaret Thatcher or hated Margaret Thatcher. There was absolutely no middle ground. So whatever you said you were guaranteed to deeply offend someone.

Last Saturday (25/11/16) former President and Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro died at the age of 90. For once I decided to follow my own advice.

In March 1952 General Fulgencio Batista seized power in Cuba in a military coup.

Almost devoid of any political ideology Batista was essentially just a criminal. We sometimes talk of nations being run as; "Mafia States." Batista's main backers were in fact the Italian-American Mafia. However seeing it as restriction on his crime spree Batista was nominally opposed to the Cuban Communist Party that had initially backed him. As a result he enjoyed some support from the US.

Shortly after Batista has seized power a young lawyer by the name of Fidel Castro challenged the result of the coup in Cuba's Courts.  Having been defeated in his legal means Castro decided the only way to rid Cuba of Batista was armed struggle and revolution.

To this end he and his brother Raul Castro formed what was known as "The Movement." On July 26th 1953 (26/7/53) this small group of revolutionaries launched an attack on Batista's forces at the Moncada barracks in the Cuban city of Santiago and the Movement became known as; "The July 26th Movement."

The attack on Moncada barracks was an absolute disaster with 65 of Castro's 123 troops being killed. Having being captured both Fidel and Raul Castro were exiled to Mexico. There they met like-minded Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and along with others were trained in guerrilla warfare by Alberto Bayo who led the anti-Fascist Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936 to 1939.

While the Castro's were in exile Batista's rule had become so corrupt and so violent that another anti-Communist group - the Student Revolutionary Directorate (DRE) - staged an uprising against his rule in March 1957. Batista's crushing of that rebellion prompted the US to withdraw its support for him and impose an embargo on Cuba.

This American weakening of the Batista regime allowed Castro's July 26th Movement to fight their way down from the mountains to the city of Santa Clara on December 31st 1958 (31/12/58). With the Battle of Santa Clara lost Batista fled Cuba on January 1st 1959 (1/1/59) and Castro's choice of President - Manuel Urrutia - took up office on January 3rd (3/1/59). On February 16th (16/2/59) Fidel Castro became Cuba's Prime Minister.

One of Castro's first acts as Prime Minister was to appoint Che Guevara as Cuba's Supreme Prosecutor and put him in charge of the La Cabana Fortress prison camp. There Guevara summarily executed hundreds of soldiers, police officers, civilian servants and other civilians who were deemed to be; "Enemies of the Revolution." Sadly this type of revolutionary justice became a hallmark of Castro's 49 year rule over Cuba.

Almost immediately Fidel Castro resurrected Adolf Hitler's "Committees of Territorial Vigilance." Known in Cuba as the; "Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR)" these were essentially an extreme form of neighbourhood watch with a designated person tasked with keeping detailed notes on every aspect of the lives of everybody in their street/apartment block.

Those the CDR's deemed to be involved in anti-Revolutionary activities were disappeared to re-education camps and firing squads.

Gay men were particularly targeted for their anti-Revolutionary activity often being kidnapped to psychiatric hospitals were they were subjected to electroshock therapy in an effort to convert them to heterosexuality. When HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980's Castro declared that infection with the virus was a crime and jailed its carriers.

In April 1961 the US backed a group of Cubans who'd been exiled by Castro to launched a counter-revolution to oust him. They landed at Cuba's Bay of Pigs. In retaliation for this failed attempt to topple him in 1962 Castro invited the the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to base nuclear missiles in Cuba. This prompted the Cuban Missile Crisis - 13 days that took the World to the brink of all out nuclear war and likely destruction.

Fortunately Castro eventually backed down. Rather than risking direct war with the US-led NATO nations he instead dispatched Che Guevara to prepared armed revolutions across Latin America. Guevara himself was killed by the CIA in Bolivia in October 1967.

Although the NATO nations quickly secured the big Latin American states of Brazil, Argentina and Chile under Fascist military dictatorships this proxy war quickly spread across all other nations in the sub-continent. Prior to joining the July 26th Movement Che Guevara was particularly inspired by the suffering he'd seen in Central American nations such as Guatemala which were under the control of the American United Fruit Company. It is from those nations that we get the term; "Banana Republic."

Two of the most notable Latin American groups that Castro's Cuba supported were the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Colombia and the Sandanista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua. In order to counter particularly the FSLN the US established the "Contras." When Congress cut off funding for the Contras in the early 1980's the CIA turned to the Medellin cocaine cartel run by Pablo Escobar. That started the Narco-wars that continue to ravage Latin America to this day.

To give you an idea about the strength of feeling regarding Fidel Castro that continues across Latin America to this day on October 3rd (3/10/16) Colombian voters rejected a peace deal with the FARC. Many of those who voted "No" did so because they said they simply could not trust a deal negotiated by Castro's Cuba.

The Arc of Resistance that Castro helped establish was not limited to Latin America. Instead it stretched across the globe as far as the Japanese Red Army (JRA) in Japan and of course the Viet Cong in Vietnam.

In the UK/Ireland there was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). The much more famous Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) were formed as a rejection of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement in favour of a purely Nationalist Movement. Across continental Europe you had groups like Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain, the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey.

In response the NATO nations established the "Gladio Movement" starting in Italy made up of paramilitary groups such as the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey, Plan Bleu in France and Absalon in Denmark to counter these Cuban backed groups.

At the heart of the Marxist anti-Imperialist, Internationalist movement there was always Palestine and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). To this day at big global diplomatic events such as the United Nations you still hear echoes of the old Castro war cry of; "For the Palestinian Cause and the Third World!"

Of that third world Castro's Cuba was always very interested in Africa which Guevara saw as the weak link of western Imperialism. It is from this notion of pan-Africanism that you get US figures such as Malcolm X and groups like the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Nation of Islam (NoI) along with the idiot holiday of Kwanzaa.

Castro's Cuba always viewed the third world's main weapon against Imperialism to be education. In 1960 he established Cuban Literacy Campaign which in the space of a year raised the percentage of Cubans who could read and write from 60% to 96%. Versions of this literacy campaign were always Cuba's main export to what is now termed the; "Developing World." 

As a medical doctor Che Guevara also placed a huge priority on universal healthcare. Following his 1960 essay; "On Revolutionary Medicine" Cuba established a national system of healthcare with 58 doctors per 100,000 people, an infant mortality rate of 4.82 per 1000 births and a nation vaccination program that eradicated diseases such as Polio. Cuba's other great export to the developing world was medical professionals both to treat people and to train them.

However it must be said that prior to the Castro revolution healthcare in Cuba was ranked better than that in the UK, France and the Netherlands with the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world. The economic chaos caused by Castro's reforms also increased rates of diseases like Tuberculous and Hepatitis.

Apart from exporting teachers and doctors to Africa Castro's Cuba also supported a number of revolutionary wars there. Most notably Angola's brutal series of wars between 1961 and 1975. Here Castro's Cuba sent over 10,000 troops free of charge to support the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).

As they'd done in Latin America and Europe the NATO nations also supported armed groups in Angola to counter the Communist MPLA - most notably the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). With UNITA being backed by Apartheid South Africa their eventual defeat by the MPLA has always been celebrated as a great victory for the anti-Apartheid movement making Castro something of a hero.

However I can't escape the feeling that if people like Castro weren't fighting to install Communist government's in places like Angola the NATO nations wouldn't have had to put up with Apartheid South Africa for so long. 

After all the Cold War ended in 1990. Apartheid ended in 1991 which in geo-political terms is the blink of an eye.

So, yeah; 

Fidel Castro: 1926 to 2016.
It was certainly a life.


18:25 on 3/12/16 (UK date).