Lone Communist clinging to power in Americas
Afp, Havana
Fidel Castro, who temporarily handed power to his brother Raul on Monday, has defied four decades of US attempts to oust him and has held on as the only Communist leader in Latin America. Castro has stayed in power despite a tough US economic embargo and a US-abetted invasion attempt and has seen 10 US presidents take office since his 1959 revolution, which ended decades of US dominance that followed the United States' 1898 victory in the Spanish-American War. But an intestinal ailment forced him to undergo surgery and cede power to his brother Raul, the defence chief, for the first time in his 47-year rule. After seizing power, Castro became an icon of international socialism, sending as many as 15,000 soldiers to help Soviet-backed troops in Angola in 1975, and dispatching forces to Ethiopia in 1977. A driving force behind the Non-Aligned Movement, Castro has been an energetic symbol to developing countries that a sovereign nation, however small, could thumb its nose at US policy and appear to get away with it. The Jesuit-educated lawyer, who came to power at age 32, was the perpetual thorn in the paw of the United States, which was alarmed and embarrassed by Castro's establishment of a Cold War Communist-bloc nation in the Americas, just 144km off its southeast flank. Known for his fiery, long-winded oratory, the tempestuous Cuban president drove his economic policy forward, fixing the blame for hardship on the US economic embargo that Washington hoped would foment rebellion against him. The United States had invaded before, Castro reminded Cubans constantly, and could do so again at any time.
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File photo shows Cuban President Fidel Castro (L) congratulated by his brother, Vice President and Minister of the Armed Forces Gen. Raul Castro. Castro on Monday delegated power to brother Raul before undergoing surgery. PHOTO: AFP |
