Cuba
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Republic of Cuba [República de Cuba] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) | |
|---|---|
| Motto: Patria o Muerte (Spanish) "Our Homeland or Death"a | |
| Anthem: La Bayamesa ("The Bayamo Song") | |
| Ruling party: Communist Party of Cuba Logo of the Communist Party of Cuba (Logotipo del partido communista de cuba) File:Logo of the Communist party of Cuba.gif | |
 | |
| Capital and largest city | Havana |
| Official languages | Spanish |
| Ethnic groups | 65.05% European (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese), 10.08% West African, 23.84% Mulatto/Mestizo, 1.03% Chinese |
| Demonym(s) | Cuban |
| Government | Socialist Republic, Single-party communist state |
| Raúl Castro | |
• Premier | Raúl Castro |
| Independence from Spain | |
• Declaredc | October 10, 1868 |
• Republic declared | May 20, 1902 from United States |
| January 1, 1959 | |
| Area | |
• Total | 110,861 km2 (42,804 sq mi) (105th) |
• Water (%) | negligible |
| Population | |
• 2007 estimate | 11,394,043[1] (73rd) |
• 2002 census | 11,177,743 |
• Density | 102/km2 (264.2/sq mi) (97th) |
| GDP (PPP) | 2007 estimate |
• Total | $125.5 billion (2007 est.)[2] (not ranked) |
• Per capita | $11,000 (2007 est.)[2] (not ranked) |
| HDI (2007) | 0.838[3] Error: Invalid HDI value (51st[3]) |
| Currency | Cuban peso (CUP)Convertible peso d (CUC) |
| Time zone | UTC-5 |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 ((Starts March 11; ends November 4)) |
| Driving side | right |
| Calling code | 53 |
| ISO 3166 code | CU |
| Internet TLD | .cu |
a As shown on the obverse of the 1992 coin[4] (Note that the Spanish word "Patria" is feminine and is translated into English as either "Cradle" or "Place of Birth" or "Homeland".) bThe Constitution of Cuba states that "Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist state [Article 1] and that the name of the Cuban state is Republic of Cuba [Article 2]."[5] The usage "socialist republic" to describe the style of government of Cuba is nearly uniform, though forms of government have no universally agreed typology. For example, Atlapedia[6] describes it as "Unitary Socialist Republic"; Encyclopædia Britannica[7] omits the word "unitary", as do most sources. c At the start of the Ten Years' War. d From 1993 to 2004 the U.S. dollar was used in addition to the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso. | |
The Republic of Cuba (/ˈkjuːbə/, Spanish: or Template:IPAes), consists of the island of Cuba (the largest and second-most populous island of the Greater Antilles), Isla de la Juventud and several adjacent small islands.
Cuba is the most populous insular nation in the Caribbean. Its people, culture and customs draw from several sources including the aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples, the period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of African slaves, and its proximity to the United States.
The name "Cuba" comes from the Taíno language; the exact meaning is unclear, but may be translated either "where fertile land is abundant" (cubao)[8] or "great place" (coabana).[9]
The national flower is the "flor de mariposa" (Butterfly Flower) and the national bird is the Tocororo or Cuban Trogon.[10]
Geography
Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States and The Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti, east of Mexico and north of the Cayman Islands and Jamaica.
Cuba's main island, at 766 miles (1,233 km) long, is the world's 17th largest.
Cuba is an archipelago of islands located in the Caribbean Sea, with the geographic coordinates 21°3N, 80°00W. Cuba is the principal island, which is surrounded by four main groups of islands. These are the Colorados, the Sabana-Camagüey, the Jardines de la Reina and the Canarreos. The main island of Cuba constitutes most of the nation's land area or Template:Km2 to mi2 and is the seventeenth-largest island in the world by land area. The second largest island in Cuba is the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) in the southwest, with an area of Template:Km2 to mi2. Cuba has a total land area of Template:Km2 to mi2.
The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains. At the southeastern end is the Sierra Maestra, a range of steep mountains whose highest point is the Pico Real del Turquino at Template:M to ft.
Climate
The local climate is tropical, though moderated by trade winds. In general (with local variations), there is a drier season from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October. The average temperature is 21 °C in January and 27 °C in July.
The warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that the island of Cuba sits across the access to the Gulf of Mexico combine to make Cuba prone to frequent hurricanes. These are most common in September and October.
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Natural resources
The most important Cuban mineral economic resource is nickel. Cuba has the second largest nickel reserves in the world after Russia.[12] Sherritt International, a Canadian energy company, operates a large nickel mining facility in Moa, Cuba. Another leading mineral resource is cobalt, a byproduct of nickel mining operations. Cuba ranks as the fifth largest producer of refined cobalt in the world.[12]
Recent oil exploration has revealed that the North Cuba Basin could produce approximately 4.6 billion barrels (730,000,000 m3) to 9.3 billion barrels (1.48×109 m3) of oil. As of 2006, Cuba has now started to test-drill these locations for possible exploitation.[13][14][15]
Provinces and municipalities
Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Better known smaller towns include Baracoa which was the first Spanish settlement on Cuba, Trinidad, a UNESCO world heritage site, and Bayamo.
Fourteen provinces and one special municipality (the Isla de la Juventud) now compose Cuba. These in turn were formerly part of six larger historical provinces: Pinar del Río, Habana, Matanzas, Las Villas, Camagüey and Oriente. The present subdivisions closely resemble those of Spanish military provinces during the Cuban Wars of Independence, when the most troublesome areas were subdivided.
| 1 | Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) | ||
| 2 | Pinar del Río | 9 | Ciego de Ávila |
| 3 | La Habana (Havana) | 10 | Camagüey |
| 4 | Ciudad de la Habana (Havana City) | 11 | Las Tunas |
| 5 | Matanzas | 12 | Granma |
| 6 | Cienfuegos | 13 | Holguín |
| 7 | Villa Clara | 14 | Santiago de Cuba |
| 8 | Sancti Spíritus | 15 | Guantánamo |
The provinces are further divided into 170 municipalities.
Demographics
| Race % | 1899 | 1907 | 1919 | 1931 | 1943 | 1953 | 1981 | 2002 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | 66.9 | 69.7 | 72.2 | 72.1 | 74.3 | 72.8 | 66.0 | 65.05 |
| Black | 14.9 | 13.4 | 11.2 | 11.0 | 9.7 | 12.4 | 12.0 | 10.08 |
| Mulatto | 17.2 | 16.3 | 16.0 | 16.2 | 15.6 | 14.5 | 21.9 | 24.86 |
| Asian | 1.0 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 1.0 |
According to Cuba's Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas ONE 2002 Census, the Cuban population was 11,177,743,[19] including 5,597,233 men and 5,580,510 women. The racial make-up was 7,271,926 whites, 1,126,894 blacks and 2,778,923 mulattoes (or mestizos).[20] The Chinese population in Cuba which numbers at 40,000 are descended mostly from indentured laborers who arrived in the 19th century to build railroads and work in mines. Many of these laborers stayed in Cuba because they could not afford return passage to China. 34,000 Indo-Pakistanis who also worked building railroads live in Cuba. Due in part to Cuba's Communist history 22,000 Russians live in Cuba.[21]
The population of Cuba has very complex origins and intermarriage between diverse groups is so general as to be the rule. The ancestry of White Cubans (65.05%) comes primarily from the ethnically diverse Spanish nations:
During the 18th, 19th and early part of the 20th century large waves of Canarian, Catalan, Andalusian, Galician and other Spanish people emigrated to Cuba In which an estimated 4,000 Spaniards came to Cuba.
Other European people that have contributed include:[21]
Africans make up 10.08% to 24.86% of the population. The ancestry of Afro-Cubans comes primarily from the following:
People from Asia (2%):
Minor but significant ethnic influx is derived from diverse peoples from Middle East:
Black people from other Caribbean countries live in Cuba known as Afro-Caribbeans:
The Cuban government controls the movement of people into Havana on the grounds that the Havana metropolitan area (home to nearly 20% of the country's population) is overstretched in terms of land use, water, electricity, transportation, and other elements of the urban infrastructure. There is a population of internal migrants to Havana nicknamed "Palestinos" (Palestinians); these mostly hail from the eastern region of Oriente.[23] Cuba also shelters a population of non-Cubans of unknown size. There is a population of several thousand North African teen and pre-teen refugees.[24]
Cuba's birth rate (9.88 births per thousand population in 2006)[25] is one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Its overall population has increased continuously from around 7 million in 1961 to over 11 million now, but the rate of increase has stopped in the last few decades, and started falling in 2006, with a fertility rate of 1.43 children per woman.[26] This drop in fertility is among the largest in the Western Hemisphere.[27] Cuba, which has unrestricted access to legal abortion, has an abortion rate of 58.6 per 1000 pregnancies in 1996 compared to a Caribbean average of 35, a Latin American average of 27 (the latter mostly illegally performed), and a European average of 48. Additionally, contraceptive use is estimated at 79% (in the upper third of countries in the Western Hemisphere).[28] With its high abortion rate, low birth rate, and aging population, Cuba's demographic profile more resembles those of former Communist Eastern European countries such as Poland or Ukraine rather than those of its Latin American and Caribbean neighbors. It is currently the only Latin American country with a shrinking population, and it and Puerto Rico are the only entities in Latin America with sub-replacement fertility.
Immigration and emigration have had noticeable effects on the demographic profile of Cuba during the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1930 close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain; many of these and their descendants left after the Castro government took power. On a smaller scale, of thousands of Jewish immigrants who arrived prior during and after World War II, more than 90% have left Cuba.[29]
Emigration
| Year of Immigration |
White | Black | Other | Asian | Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959-64 | 93.3 | 1.2 | 5.3 | 0.2 | 144,732 |
| 1965-74 | 87.7 | 2.0 | 9.1 | 0.2 | 247,726 |
| 1975-79 | 82.6 | 4.0 | 13.3 | 0.1 | 29,508 |
| 1980 | 80.9 | 5.3 | 13.7 | 0.1 | 94,095 |
| 1981-89 | 85.7 | 3.1 | 10.9 | 0.3 | 77,835 |
| 1990-93 | 84.7 | 3.2 | 11.9 | 0.2 | 60,244 |
| 1994-2000 | 85.8 | 3.7 | 10.4 | 0.7 | 174,437 |
| Total | 87.2 | 2.9 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 828,577 |
Emigration from Cuba (sometimes referred to as 'the Cuban exodus') in the last half century has led more than two million Cubans of all social classes to the United States, [30] and to Spain, Mexico, Canada, Sweden, and other countries.
Since 1959 many Cubans have emigrated to Miami, Florida, where a vocal, well-educated and economically successful exile community exists (see Cuban-American lobby).[31]
The exodus that occurred immediately after the Cuban Revolution was primarily of the upper and middle classes that were predominantly white. This contributed to a demographic shift back in Cuba. The Exodus of 1980 demonstrated problems deriving from the lack of personal freedom and chronic economic austerity.[32] Seeking to normalize migration between the two countries, particularly after the chaos that accompanied the Mariel boatlift, Cuba and the United States in 1994 agreed, in what is commonly called the 1994 Clinton-Castro accords,[33] to limit emigration to the United States. The United States grants a specific number of visas to those wishing to emigrate; 20,000 have been granted since 1994. Cubans picked up at sea trying to emigrate without a visa are returned to Cuba while those that make it to U.S. soil are allowed to seek asylum.[34] The U.S. Attorney General has discretion to grant permanent residence to Cuban natives or citizens seeking adjustment of status if they have been present in the United States for at least one year after admission or parole and are admissible as immigrants;[35] In 2005 an additional 7,610 Cuban emigrants from Cuba entered the United States by September 30.[citation needed] Citizens of Cuba must obtain an exit permit before they may leave the country legally.[citation needed] Human Rights Watch has criticized the Cuban restrictions on emigration and its alleged keeping of children as "hostages" in order to prevent defection by Cubans traveling abroad.[36][37] Over the years, thousands of Cubans ("balseros") have attempted to escape across the Florida Strait to reach the United States with many succeeding (over a hundred thousand in the Mariel Boatlift alone). It has been estimated that between 30,000 to 40,000 Cubans may have perished attempting to flee the island.[38] This has led to a safer route through Mexico where organized traffickers ferry asylum seekers for a price.[34]
The Cuban government strips almost all property from most of those leaving the island.[citation needed] Many prominent Cubans, including artists, professionals, sports stars, etc. traveling abroad, have chosen to defect and seek asylum in other countries.
Economy
The Cuban Government adheres to socialist principles in organizing its largely state-controlled planned economy. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government and most of the labor force is employed by the state. Recent years have seen a trend towards more private sector employment. By the year 2006, public sector employment was 78% and private sector 22%, compared to 91.8% to 8.2% in 1981.[39] Capital investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods. Moreover, any firm wishing to hire a Cuban must pay the Cuban government, which in turn will pay the company's employee in Cuban pesos.[citation needed]
While the government of Cuba is theoretically opposed to class privilege, preferential treatment exists for those who are members of the Communist Party or who hold positions of power within the government.[40] Access to transportation, work, housing, university education and better health care are a function of status within the government or the Communist Party.[41]
From the late 1980s, Soviet subsidies for Cuba's state-run economy started to dry up. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba depended on Moscow for sheltered markets for its exports and substantial aid. The Soviet Union had been paying above-market prices for Cuban sugar, while providing Cuba with petroleum at below-market prices. At one point, Cuba received subsidies amounting to six billion dollars. The removal of these subsidies sent the Cuban economy into a rapid depression known in Cuba as the Special Period. In 1992 the United States tightened the trade embargo. Some believe that this may have contributed to a drop in Cuban living standards which approached crisis point within a year.[39]
Like some other Communist and post-Communist states following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba took limited free market-oriented measures to alleviate severe shortages of food, consumer goods, and services to make up for the ending of Soviet subsidies. These steps included allowing some self-employment in certain retail and light manufacturing sectors, the legalization of the use of the U.S. dollar in business, and the encouragement of tourism. In 1996 tourism surpassed the sugar industry as the largest source of hard currency for Cuba. Cuba has tripled its market share of Caribbean tourism in the last decade; as a result of significant investment in tourism infrastructure, this growth rate is predicted to continue.[42] 1.9 million tourists visited Cuba in 2003, predominantly from Canada and the European Union, generating revenue of $2.1 billion.[43] The rapid growth of tourism during the Special Period had widespread social and economic repercussions in Cuba. This has led to speculation of the emergence of a two-tier economy [44] and the fostering of a state of tourist apartheid on the island.[45] [infringing link?]
The Cuban government has significantly developed its medical tourism capabilities as a key means to generate income. For many years, Cuba has operated a special division of hospitals that treat foreigners and diplomats exclusively. Every year, thousands of European, Latin American, Canadian and American consumers visit for medical care at up to 80 percent less than U.S. costs. There are some who criticize Cuba's medical tourism industry because ordinary Cubans do not have access to the kind of quality healthcare that medical tourists receive.[46][infringing link?][47][infringing link?]
Since 1959 Cuba has experienced slow growth in its Gross Domestic Product relative to other countries that were in a similar situation in the 1950s,[48] stagnant trade.[49] and amassed a significant debt amounting to some 16.62 billion in convertible currency and 15 to 20 billion dollars with Russia.[50][51][52] Cuban citizens themselves have experienced a decrease in their caloric intake and a shortage of housing.
For some time, Cuba has been experiencing a housing shortage because of the state's failure to keep pace with increasing demand.[53] Moreover, the government instituted food rationing policies in 1962, which were exacerbated following the collapse of the Soviet Union and, according to supporters of the government, the tightening of the US embargo. Studies have shown that, as late as 2001, the average Cuban's standard of living was lower than before the downturn of the post-Soviet period. Paramount issues have been state salaries failing to meet personal needs under the state rationing system chronically plagued with shortages. As the variety and quantity of available rationed goods declined, Cubans increasingly turned to the black market to obtain basic food, clothing, household, and health amenities. The informal sector is characterized by what many Cubans call sociolismo. In addition, petty corruption in state industries, such as the pilferage of state assets to sell on the black market, is still common.[54] In recent years, since the rise of Venezuela's Socialist President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan economic aid has enabled Cuba to improve economically. Venezuela's assistance to the Cuban economy comes chiefly through its supply of up to 80,000 barrels (13,000 m3) of oil per day in exchange for professional services and agricultural products. In recent years, Cuba has rolled back some of the market oriented measures undertaken in the 1990s. In 2004 Cuban officials publicly backed the Euro as a "global counter-balance to the U.S. dollar", and eliminated the US currency from circulation in its stores and businesses. Increased US government restrictions on travel by Cuban-Americans and on the numbers of dollars they could transport to Cuba strengthened Cuban government control over dollars circulating in the economy. In the last decade Cubans had received between US$600 million and US$1 billion annually, mostly from family members in the U.S.[43] This number is influenced by the fact that U.S. government forbids its citizens to send more than $1,200 to Cuba to immediate family members, and then only once per year.
In 2005 Cuba had exports of $2.4 billion, ranking 114 of 226 world countries, and imports of $6.9 billion, ranking 87 of 226 countries.[55] Its major export partners are the Netherlands 21.8%, Canada 21.6%, China 18.7%, Spain 5.9%. Major import partners are Venezuela 27%, China 15.8%, Spain 9.7%, Germany 6.5%, Canada 5.6%, Italy 4.4% and the US 4.4% (2006).[56] Cuba's major exports are sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus, and coffee;[57] imports include food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Cuba presently holds debt in an amount estimated to be $13 billion,[58] approximately 38% of GDP.[59] According to the Heritage Foundation, Cuba is dependent on credit accounts that rotate from country to country.[60] Cuba's prior 35% supply of the world's export market for sugar has declined to 10% due to a variety of factors, including a global sugar commodity price drop making Cuba less competitive on world markets.[61] At one time, Cuba was the world's most important sugar producer and exporter. As a result of diversification, underinvestment and natural disasters, however, Cuba's sugar production has seen a drastic decline. In 2002 more than half of Cuba's sugar mills were shut down. Cuba's most recent sugar harvest of 1.1 million metric tons was its worst in nearly a century, comparable only to those of 1903 and 1904. Cuba holds 6.4% of the global market for nickel[62] which constitutes about 25% of total Cuban exports.[63] Recently, large reserves of oil have been found in the North Cuba Basin leading US Congress members Jeff Flake and Larry Craig to call for a repeal of the US embargo of Cuba.[64]
Culture
Cuban culture is much influenced by the fact that it is a melting pot of cultures, primarily those of Spain and Africa. It has produced more than its fair share of literature, including the output of non-Cubans Stephen Crane, Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway
Sport is Cuba's national passion. Due to historical associations with the United States, many Cubans participate in sports which share popularity in North America, rather than sports traditionally promoted in other Latin American nations. Baseball is by far the most popular; other sports and pastimes in Cuba include basketball, volleyball, cricket, and athletics. Cuba is the dominant force in amateur boxing, consistently achieving high gold medal tallies in major international competitions. The government of Cuba however, will not be sending competitors to the "World Boxing Championships, based in the U.S. city of Chicago from October 21 to November 3; this to avoid the "theft" of athletes. The Cuban government official newspaper alleges: "As our people are all too well aware, the theft of anyone who stands out in Cuban society, whether s/he is an athlete, educationalist, doctor, artist, or any kind of scientist, has been the practice of various U.S. governments within that country's constant policy of aggression against our people. That felony was instigated at the very triumph of the Revolution in 1959 with the exit of thousands of doctors and engineers."[65]
Cuban music is very rich and is the most commonly known expression of culture. The "central form" of this music is Son, which has been the basis of many other musical styles like salsa, rumba and mambo and an upbeat derivation of the rumba, the cha-cha-cha. Rumba music originated in early Afro-Cuban culture. The Tres was also invented in Cuba, but other traditional Cuban instruments are of African and/or Taíno origin such as the maracas, güiro, marímba and various wooden drums including the mayohuacan. Popular Cuban music of all styles has been enjoyed and praised widely across the world. Cuban classical music, which includes music with strong African and European influences, and features symphonic works as well as music for soloists, has also received international acclaim thanks to composers like Ernesto Lecuona.
Havana, the Cuban capitol, was the heart of the rap scene in Cuba when it began in the 1990s. During that time, reggaetón was also growing in popularity. The formation of Cubanitos in 2002 by ex-members of pioneering “underground” rap group Primera Base was a pivotal moment in the emergence of reggaetón in the capital and a watershed in Cuban rap. In the wake of this successful bid for a higher commercial profile, most rappers have followed one of two paths: dancing with the enemy and embracing reggaetón, or resisting the new genre vociferously. The resisters deride reggaetón for being trite and mindless, for promoting pointless diversion and dancing over social commitment and reflection with its lack of meaningful lyrics. Rap, on the other hand, was seen as a way to lyrically express their opinions about things such as racism, sexism, peace, the environment, sexuality, poverty and social inequalities. Despite this controversy, reggaetón has become the dominant form of popular music among Cuban youth. The relationship between Cuban rap and reggaetón continues to be debated today.[66][67]
In addition, Cuban reggaeton has in the mind of conventional musicians of Cuba, "sold out" on their established culture. Prior to reggaeton, Cuba had a long established professionalism in music towards the early and mid 90's. The release and popular acceptance of reggaeton has created many openings for those with little or no experience in music. Music in Cuba is not the same as it was before, and much of the new artists that are exposing their creations now utilize electronics, synthetic sounds and technology to create music that was otherwise unheard of. This, created much dissent among the professionalized music industry within Cuba.[66]
Dance in Cuba has taken a major boost over the 1990s. Although lyrics may be censored, bodily movements and provocative dance can not be. Provocative dance allows inhabitants to free the mind and allows people of all social classes to rebel against the political and social injustices within the period. Although this has strayed from the conventional rap, bodily usage has become a commonly accepted form of rebellion among the young communities. Particularly "Perreo", an exotic and slightly different form grinding, has become one of the most accepted forms of dancing in clubs and music videos.[68]
Cuban literature began to find its voice in the early 19th century. Dominant themes of independence and freedom were exemplified by José Martí, who led the Modernist movement in Cuban literature. Writers such as Nicolás Guillén and Jose Z. Tallet focused on literature as social protest. The poetry and novels of José Lezama Lima have also been influential. Writers such as Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and more recently Daína Chaviano, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Zoé Valdés, and Leonardo Padura have earned international recognition in the postrevolutionary era, though many of these writers have felt compelled to continue their work in exile due to ideological control of media by the Cuban authorities.
Cuban cuisine is a fusion of Spanish and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. Now food rationing, which has been the norm in Cuba for the last four decades, restricts the common availability of these dishes.[69] Traditional Cuban meal would not be served in courses; rather all food items would be served at the same time. The typical meal could consist of plantains, black beans and rice, ropa vieja (shredded beef), Cuban bread, pork with onions, and tropical fruits. Black beans and rice, referred to as Platillo Moros y Cristianos (or moros for short), and plantains are staples of the Cuban diet. Many of the meat dishes are cooked slowly with light sauces. Garlic, cumin, oregano and bay leaves are the dominant spices.
Haitian Creole is the second most spoken language in Cuba, where over 300,000 Haitian immigrants speak it. It is recognized as a language in Cuba and a considerable number of Cubans speak it fluently. Surprisingly enough, most of these speakers have never been to Haiti and do not possess Haitian ancestry, but merely learned it in the communities they lived in. In addition, there is a Haitian Creole radio station operating in Havana.
Religion
Cuba has many faiths representing the widely varying culture. Catholicism was brought to the island by the Spanish, and is the most dominant faith. After Fidel Castro took over, Cuba became atheistic and punished religious practice. Since the Fourth Cuban Communist Party Congress in 1991, restrictions have been eased and, according to the National Catholic Observer, direct challenges by state institutions to the right to religion have all but disappeared,[70] though the church still faces restrictions of written and electronic communication, and can only accept donations from state-approved funding sources.[70] The Roman Catholic Church is made up of the Cuban Catholic Bishops' Conference (COCC), led by Juan García Rodríguez, Archbishop of Camaguey.[71] It has eleven dioceses, 56 orders of nuns and 24 orders of priests. In January 1998 Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to the island, invited by the Cuban government and Catholic Church.
The religious landscape of Cuba is also strongly marked by syncretisms of various kinds. This diversity derives from West and Central Africans who were transported to Cuba, and in effect reinvented their African religions. They did so by combining them with elements of the Catholic belief system, with a result very similar to Brazilian Umbanda. Catholicism is often practised in tandem with Santería, a mixture of Catholicism and other, mainly African, faiths that include a number of cult religions. La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Virgin of Cobre) is the Catholic patroness of Cuban, and a symbol of the Cuban culture. In Santería, She has been syncretized with the goddess Ochún. The important religious festival La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre is celebrated by Cubans annually on September 8. Other religions practised are Palo Monte, and Abakuá, which have large parts of their liturgy in African languages.
Protestantism, introduced from the United States in the 18th century, has seen a steady increase in popularity. Three hundred thousand Cubans belong to the island's 54 Protestant denominations. Pentecostalism has grown rapidly in recent years, and the Assemblies of God alone claims a membership of over 100,000 people. The Episcopal Church of Cuba claims 10,000 adherents. Cuba has small communities of Jews, Muslims and members of the Bahá'í Faith.[72] Havana has just three active synagogues and no mosque.[73] Most Jewish Cubans are descendants of Polish and Russian Ashkenazi Jews who fled pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century. There is, however, a sizeable number of Sephardic Jews in Cuba, who trace their origin to Turkey (primarily Istanbul and Thrace). Most of these Sephardic Jews live in the provinces, although they maintain a synagogue in Havana. In the 1960s almost 8,000 Jews left for Miami. In the 1990s approximately 400 Jewish Cubans relocated to Israel in a co-ordinated exodus using visas provided by nations sympathetic to their desire to move to Israel.
History
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On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus claimed the island for Spain, [74] and named it Isla Juana for Prince Juan.[75] The island had been inhabited by Native American peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney whose ancestors had come from South and possibly North and Central America at least several and perhaps 60 to 80 centuries before.[76] The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were farmers and hunter-gatherers; some have suggested that copper trade was significant and mainland artifacts[77] have been found.
In 1511 the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa; other towns including the future capital of the island San Cristobal de la Habana (founded in 1515) soon followed.
The Spanish oppressed and enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people that resisted conversion to Christianity and within a century they had all but disappeared. Most scholars now believe that infectious disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the indigenous people.[78][79]
Colonial Cuba
Cuba was in Spanish possession for almost 400 years (circa 1511-1898). Its economy was based on plantation agriculture, mining and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe and later to North America. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, the small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, supported by a population of Spaniards born on the island (called Criollos by the Iberian born Spaniards), other Europeans and African-descended slaves.
In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence, leading the Spanish Crown to give it the motto "La Siempre Fidelisima Isla" (The Always Most Faithful Island). This loyalty was due partly to Cuban settlers' dependence on Spain for trade, protection from pirates, protection against a slave rebellion and partly because they feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish rule.
Cuba's proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Throughout the 19th century, Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island's annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S., and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848 a pro-annexation rebellion was defeated and there were several attempts by annexation forces to invade the island from Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain.
Cuban independence from Spain was the motive for a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a wealthy lawyer landowner from Oriente province who freed his slaves, proclaimed war and was named president of the Cuban Republic-in-arms. This resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish army, allied with local supporters. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily or to recognize the legitimacy of the Cuban government in arms, even though many European and Latin American nations had done so.[80] In 1878 the Pact of Zanjón ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba. After this conflict pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. In 1879-1880, Cuban patriot Calixto Garcia attempted to start another war, known as the Little War, but received little support.[81]
Partly in response to U.S. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893. During this period rural poverty in Spain provoked by the Spanish Revolution of 1868 and its aftermath led to even greater Spanish emigration to Cuba. During the 1890s pro-independence agitation revived, fueled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain's increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. Few of Spain's promises for economic reform in the Pact of Zanjon were kept.
In April 1895 a new war was declared, led by the writer and poet José Martí who had organized the war over 10 years while in exile in the U.S. and proclaimed Cuba an independent republic — Martí was killed at Dos Rios shortly after landing in Cuba with the eastern expeditionary force. His death immortalized him and he has become Cuba's national hero. The 200,000 Spanish troops outnumbered a much smaller rebel army which relied mostly on guerilla and sabotage tactics. The Spaniards began a campaign of suppression. General Valeriano Weyler, military governor of Cuba, herded the rural population into what he called reconcentrados, described by international observers as "fortified towns." These are often considered the prototype for 20th century concentration camps.[82] Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease during this period in the camps. These numbers were verified by the Red Cross and U.S. Senator (and former Secretary of War) Redfield Proctor. U.S. and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed.[83]
In 1897, fearing U.S. intervention, Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The rebels rejected this offer and the war for independence continued.
The Maine incident
The U.S. battleship Maine arrived uninvited in Havana on January 25, 1898 allegedly to offer protection to the 8,000 American residents in the island; the Spanish and their Cuban supporters saw this as intimidation. On February 15 the Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing 266 men (including 81 foreigners). A naval court of inquiry on March 22, 1898, after examination of the ship, was "unable to obtain evidence fixing the responsibility for the destruction of the Maine upon any person or persons",[84] the inference was widely drawn that if there was a submarine mine, the Spanish government had probably caused that mine to be laid. The facts are still disputed. Swept on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention[85] and President William McKinley was quick to comply.
Independence
As an outcome of the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded Cuba, along with Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the U.S. under the 1898 Treaty of Paris.[86]
Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President of the United States in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year treaty proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on May 20, 1902, with the independence leader Tomás Estrada Palma becoming the country's first president. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay.
In 1906, following disputed elections, an armed revolt led by Independence War Veterans defeated the meager government forces loyal to Estrada Palma and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention.[87] The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor, Charles Edward Magoon, took charge for three years. Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter, believing that much political corruption was introduced during Magoon's years as governor.[88] In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs.
1912 Race War
In 1912 Partido Independiente de Color attempted to establish a separate black republic in Oriente Province.[89] Perhaps because the group lacked sufficient weaponry, the main tactic was to set businesses and private residences on fire.[90] The movement was a failure and General Monteagudo suppressed the rebels with considerable bloodshed. Historians differ on the interpretation of this circumstance.
World War I and after
Cuba shipped considerable quantities of sugar to Britain, avoiding U-boat attack, by the subterfuge of shipping sugar to Sweden. The Menocal government declared war on Germany very soon after the U.S. did, and as a result the Mexican government broke off relations with Cuba.
Machado's government had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. However, it was during this period that Soviet intrusion into Cuban affairs began with the arrival in Cuba of Fabio Grobart.
Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, constitutional government was maintained until 1930, when Gerardo Machado y Morales suspended the constitution. During Machado's tenure, a nationalistic economic program was pursued with several major national development projects undertaken (see Infrastructure of Cuba. Carretera Central and El Capitolio).
Machado's hold on power was weakened following a decline in demand for exported agricultural produce due to the Great Depression, and to attacks first by War of Independence veterans, and later by covert terrorist organizations, principally the ABC.[91]
During a general strike in which the communist party took the side of Machado[92] the senior elements of the Cuban army forced Machado into exile and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, son of Cuba's founding father, as President. During September 4-5, 1933 a second coup (led by sergeants, most notably Fulgencio Batista) overthrew Céspedes, leading to the formation of the first Ramón Grau San Martín government. Notable bloody events in this violent period include the separate sieges of Hotel Nacional and Atares Castle (see Blas Hernandez). This government lasted 100 days but engineered radical socialistic changes in Cuban society and a rejection of the Platt amendment.
In 1934 Batista and the army, who were the real center of power in Cuba, replaced Grau with Carlos Mendieta y Montefur. In 1940 Batista decided to run for president himself. Because of a split with the leader of the opposition, Ramón Grau San Martín, Batista turned instead to the Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.
Batista's control ends with democratic rule
With the support of the communist-controlled labor unions, Batista was elected President and his administration carried out major social reforms. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. Batista's administration formally took Cuba into World War II as a U.S. ally, declaring war on Japan on December 9, 1941, then on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stepped down and Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau initiated increased government spending on health, education and housing. Grau's auténticos were bitter enemies of the Communists and Batista, which opposed most of Grau's programs.
World War II and after
Cuba was not greatly involved in combat during World War II; however it supplyed significant quantities of sugar and strategic manganese, and U.S. air bases were established; some Cuban freighters were sunk. During World War II the Nazis counterfeited vast sums of U.S. currency which was sent via the Dozenberg group to Cuba and other parts of Latin America.
Grau completed his presidential term, and in 1948 was succeeded by Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau's minister of labor and was particularly hated by the Communists. Corruption is generally believed to have increased under Prío's administration; however not all accusations of corruption were proven, and Eduardo Chibás, leader of the Ortodoxo party to which Fidel Castro belonged, committed suicide when his allegations were not substantiated. Corruption is partially attributed to the influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a safe haven for mafia operations. Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilizing the Cuban currency. The influx of investment fueled a boom which did much to raise living standards across the board and create a prosperous middle class in most urban areas, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.[93]
From Batista to Castro
The 1952 election was a three-way race. Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and running a distant third was Batista, seeking a return to office. Both Agramonte and Hevia had decided to name Col. Ramon Barquin to head the Cuban armed forces after the elections. Barquin, then a diplomat in Washington, DC, was a top officer who commanded the respect of the professional army and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquin would oust him and his followers, and when it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on March 10, 1952 and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a “provisional president” for the next two years. Justo Carrillo told Barquin in Washington in March 1952 that the inner circles knew that Batista had aimed the coup at him; they immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restore democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed La Conspiracion de los Puros de 1956 (Agrupacion Montecristi). In 1954 Batista agreed to elections. The Partido Auténtico put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance.
Fidel Castro directed a failed assault on the Moncada Barracks, in Santiago de Cuba, and on the smaller Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks on July 26, 1953.[94]
In April 1956 Batista had given the orders for Barquin to become General and chief of the army. But he decided to move forward with the coup to rescue the morale of the armed forces and the Cuban people. On April 4, 1956 a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Col. Barquin was frustrated by Rios Morejon. The coup broke the backbone of the Cuban armed forces. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquin was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years. La Conspiración de los Puros resulted in the imprisonment of the commanders of the armed forces and the closing of the military academies. Without Barquin's officers the army's ability to combat the revolutionary insurgents was severely curtailed.
On December 2, 1956 a party of 82 revolutionaries, led by Castro, landed in a yacht named Granma with the intention of establishing an armed resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra. The yacht had come from Mexico, where Castro had been exiled and where his army was strengthened with the help of Ernesto Che Guevara, who became one of the most important people in the Cuban revolution and one of Castro's closest allies. Castro had gone to Mexico after serving two years of a 20-year prison sentence for his part in the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks.[95][infringing link?] Castro received his pardon from Batista on the request of the Archbishop of Santiago, Monseñor Enrique Perez Serantes and Senator Rafael Diaz-Balart, at the time Fidel Castro's brother-in-law. After the landing, Batista launched a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency. With Barquin's professional officers in La Prison Modelo de Isla de Pinos in the Gulf of Mexico, the army lacked the leadership and will to fight the insurgents.
Through 1957 and 1958 opposition to Batista grew, especially among the upper and middle classes and students, among the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and in many rural areas. In response to Batista's plea to purchase better arms from the U.S. to root out insurgents in the mountains, the United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on March 14, 1958. By late 1958 the rebels had broken out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista's crackdown on dissent in the cities. When the rebels captured Santa Clara, East of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in Portugal and later Spain. Batista named Gen. Eulogio Cantillo chief of the army and gave him instructions not to release Barquin and his officers. Nevertheless, Barquin, who had the backing of the U.S., was rescued from Isla de Pinos and assumed the post of chief of Staff (serving as chief of the armed forces and de facto President of Cuba for a short period) in an effort to establish order. He negotiated the symbolic change of command between Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Raul Castro and his brother Fidel Castro, after the Supreme Court decided that the Revolution was the source of law and its representative should assume command. With fewer than 300 men, Camilo took over the post from Barquin who in Camp Colombia alone commanded 12,000 professional soldiers. Castro's rebel forces entered the capital on January 8, 1959. Shortly afterwards Dr Manuel Lleo Urrutia assumed power.
Cuba following revolution
Fidel Castro became prime minister of Cuba in February 1959. In its first year, the new revolutionary government expropriated private property with little or no compensation (sometimes based on property tax valuations that the owners themselves had kept artificially low),[citation needed] nationalised public utilities, tightened controls on the private sector and closed down of the gambling industry. The government also evicted many US citizens, including mobsters (who, in collaboration with Batista, ran the gambling casinos in Havana)[96][97] from the island. Some of these measures were undertaken by Fidel Castro's government in the name of the program outlined in the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra,[98] while in the Sierra Maestra. However, he failed to enact one element of his reform program, which was to call elections under the Electoral Code of 1943 within the first 18 months of his time in power and to restore all of the provisions of the Constitution of 1940 that had been suspended under Batista.
Castro flew to Washington, D.C. in April 1959, but was not met by President Eisenhower, who attended a golf tournament instead.[99] Questions about the nature of the new government were raised by Summary executions of thousands of suspected Batista supporters [citation needed] and members of the opposition following show trials, the seizure of privately owned businesses and the rapid demise of the independent press [88].[who?]
The nationalization of private property and businesses, totaling about $25 billion U.S. dollars[100] and, particularly, U.S.-owned companies (to an excess of 1960 value of US $1.0 billions)[101][102] aroused hostility within the US Eisenhower administration. Anti-Castro Cubans began to leave their country in great numbers and formed a burgeoning expatriate community in Miami. The United States government became increasingly hostile towards the Castro-led government throughout 1959.
Marxist-Leninist Cuba
In 1961, John F. Kennedy became President of the United States. He supported the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, which led to closer ties between Cuba and the Soviet Union. One immediate strategic result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the decision to place Soviet medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. This precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The Kennedy administration, confronted with a next-door nuclear threat from the Soviet Union, denounced the missiles at the United Nations and demanded their immediate withdrawal. The idea to place missiles in Cuba was brought up either by Castro or Khrushchev, but agreed by the USSR for the reason that the U.S. had their nuclear missiles placed in Turkey and the Middle East. With minutes to go until the Soviet ships carrying a further shipment of missiles reached a United States Navy blockade (which was referred to as a "quarantine," as blockades are acts of war), the Soviets backed down, and made a agreement with Kennedy in which all missiles were to be withdrawn from Cuba and the U.S. would secretly remove its missiles from Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East within a few months. Kennedy also agreed not to invade Cuba in the future.
In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was a resumption of contact between the U.S. and Cuba, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs to the U.S. in exchange for an aid package. However in 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a full-fledged Communist system modeled on the Soviet Union.[103] The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba, and began Operation Mongoose. In the beginning, U.S. influence in Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective and Cuba was forced to divert virtually all its trade towards the Soviet Union and Soviet-aligned states. However, public declarations of support from Latin American governments for American policies were harder to come by. The Mexican Ambassador to the United States told the Kennedy administration: "If we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing."
In 1965 Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with Blas Roca as Second Secretary. Roca was succeeded by Raúl Castro, who, as Defense Minister and Fidel's closest confidant, became and has remained the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro's position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful attempts at insurrectionary movements in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, President of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, was a figurehead of little importance. Castro introduced a new constitution in 1976 under which he became President himself, while remaining chairman of the Council of Ministers.
Although Cuba's relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated considerably during the mid 1960s, relations between the two countries improved following the Cuban government's endorsement of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. As a result, the Soviet Union increased its aid to Cuba. Indeed, through the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the strategic asset of an ally under the nose of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro's considerable prestige in the developing world.[104]
During the 1970s Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for Third World “anti-imperialist” governments. He provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in Angola (see Cuba in Angola), Ethiopia, Yemen and other African and Middle Eastern trouble spots. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets [citation needed], the significant size of the force placed a considerable strain on Cuba's fragile economy [citation needed], which was adversely affected by the loss of manpower. Cuba's economic growth was also hampered by its dependence on sugar exports, which forced the Soviets to provide further economic assistance by buying the entire Cuban sugar crop, even though domestic producers in the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to supply domestic demand. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its fuel, since it could not import oil from any other source.
By the 1970s the ability of the U.S. to keep Cuba isolated was declining. Cuba had been expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962 and the OAS had cooperated with the U.S. trade boycott for the next decade, but in 1975 the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba and both Mexico and Canada broke ranks with the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries said that they hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume — in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionist movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.
The Cuban exile community in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power and politicized elements effectively opposed liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba, and have been accused of many terrorist acts, including the bombing of civilian Cubana flight 455 in 1976, resulting in the death of all 73 passengers.[105] However, the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, met with limited success. On Sunday, April 6, 1980 ten thousand Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. On Monday, April 7 the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy.[106] On April 16 500 Cuban citizens left the Peruvian Embassy for Costa Rica. On April 21 many of those Cubans started arriving in Miami via private boats and were halted by the US State Department on April 23. The boat lift continued, however, since Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel and this emigration became known as the Mariel boatlift. The Cuban government took the opportunity to empty Cuban prisons of all serious offenders, place them on boats and dupe the US into accepting them. Many formerly incarcerated individuals established themselves in Miami, Florida, and help to account for the high crime rate in that area. In all, over 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the United States before the flow of vessels ended on June 15.[107]
Post Cold War Cuba
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. It led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, which eventually slowed to a few thousand a year thanks to U.S.-Cuban accords; it again increased in 2004-06 although at a far slower rate than before.
Castro's popularity, which is difficult to assess, was severely tested by the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (a time known in Cuba as the Special Period). The loss of the nearly five billion US Dollars which the Soviet government provided to the Cuban government in the form of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar and cheap oil, had a significant impact on the country's economy.
As in all Communist countries, the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully “building socialism” and providing a model that other countries should follow. However, this event, even combined with a tightening of the embargo by the US government, was insufficient to undermine Cuban Communist society. There were numerous popular uprisings in the early 1990s, the most notable of which was the "Maleconazo" of 1994. By the later 1990s the situation in the country had stabilized.[108][109]
By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. China also emerged as a new source of aid and support. Cuba also found new allies in President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and President Evo Morales of Bolivia, both major oil and gas exporters.
Transfer of presidency from Fidel Castro to Raúl Castro
On July 31, 2006 Fidel Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of State, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother and First Vice President, Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties was described as temporary while Fidel Castro recovered from surgery undergone after suffering from an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding". Castro was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which fueled speculation that Castro had stomach cancer,[110] though Spanish doctor Dr. García Sabrido stated that his illness was a digestive problem and not terminal, after an examination of the subject on Christmas Day.[111][112]
On January 31, 2007 footage of Castro meeting Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez was broadcast, in which, according to international media reports, Castro "appeared frail but stronger than three months ago". On February 19, 2008 Castro announced that he was resigning as President of Cuba.[113] On February 24, 2008 Raúl Castro was elected as the new President.[114] In his acceptance speech, Raúl Castro promised that some of the restrictions that limit Cubans' daily lives would be removed.[115]
Government and politics
Domestic politics
Following enactment of the Socialist Constitution of 1976, adopted without following procedures laid out in the Constitution of 1940, the Republic of Cuba was defined as a socialist republic. This constitution was replaced by the Socialist Constitution of 1992, the present constitution, which claimed to be guided by the ideas of José Martí, and the political ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin.[117] The constitution also ascribes to the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) the role of "leading force of society and of the state".[117] The first secretary of the Communist Party, is concurrently President of the Council of State (President of Cuba) and President of the Council of Ministers (sometimes referred to as Prime Minister of Cuba).[118] Members of both councils are elected by the National Assembly of People's Power.[119] The President of Cuba, who is also elected by the Assembly, serves for five years and there is no limit to the number of terms of office.[119]
The Supreme Court of Cuba serves as the nation's highest judicial branch of government. It is also the court of last resort for all appeals from convictions in provincial courts.
Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), is the supreme organ of power; 609 members serve five-year terms.[119] The assembly meets twice a year, between sessions legislative power is held by the 31 member Council of Ministers. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over 16 who have not been found guilty of a criminal offense can vote. Article 131 of the Constitution states that voting shall be "through free, equal and secret vote". Article 136 states: "In order for deputies or delegates to be considered elected they must get more than half the number of valid votes cast in the electoral districts". Votes are cast by secret ballot and counted in public view. Individual vote totals, which are invariably high, are not verified by non-partisan, independent, or non-state organs and observers. Nominees are chosen at local gatherings from multiple candidates before gaining approval from election committees. In the subsequent election, there is one candidate for each seat, who must gain a majority to be elected.
No political party is permitted to nominate candidates or campaign on the island, though the Communist Party of Cuba has held five party congress meetings since 1975. In 1997 the party claimed 780,000 members, and representatives generally constitute at least half of the Councils of state and the National Assembly. The remaining positions are filled by candidates nominally without party affiliation. Other political parties campaign and raise finances internationally, while activity within Cuba by oppositional groups is minimal and illegal. While the Cuban constitution has language pertaining to freedom of speech, rights are limited by Article 62, which states that "None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to... the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism.[120] Violations of this principle can be punished by law." Because the means of production are in the hands of the state and under the control of the government, there have been numerous cases in which violations of this law have cost dissidents their employment. Because of these conditions, opponents of the present Cuban government sustain Cuban elections are neither free nor fair.
Cubans participate in the community-based Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which play a central role in daily life. These groups are designed to coordinate public projects, ensure that the population remains loyal to the government's specific brand of socialism, and act as neighbourhood watchdogs against "counter-revolutionary" activities.
Military
Under Fidel Castro, and partially because of invasions, assassination attempts and terrorist attacks, Cuba became a highly militarized society. From 1975 until the late 1980s Soviet military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities. Since the loss of Soviet subsidies Cuba has scaled down the numbers of military personnel, from 235,000 in 1994 to about 60,000 in 2003. [121] The government now spends roughly 1.7% of GDP on military expenditures.
Internationalism / Foreign relations
From its inception the Cuban Revolution defined itself as internationalist. Within a year after the revolution Cuba took on civil and military assignments in the southern hemisphere; supporting anti-colonial liberation movements, leftist governments and insurgencies against dictatorships. Although still a third world country itself, Cuba supported African, Central American and Asian countries with military, health and educational resources.
Latin America
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (June 2008) |
The Cuban Government's military involvement in Latin America has been extensive. The Sandinista in Nicaragua, which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, was openly supported by Cuba and can be considered its greatest success in Latin America. Apart from that, Cuban efforts have borne little fruit in this region.
The most well-known of these failures was the attempted insurgency by Ernesto Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. Lesser known actions include the 1959 missions into the Dominican Republic[122] and Panama. Almost all countries in Latin America, most of which had autocratic governments at the time, witnessed this kind of infiltration. Arnaldo Ochoa, the eventual commander of Cuban forces in Angola, is said to be the only survivor of the Camilo Cienfuegos contingent sent on the doomed expedition to the Dominican Republic.[123]
The position of the Cuban government is that allegations are not substantiated. The alleged presence of "armed Cuban military advisors" on the island of Grenada was given as one reason for the US government invasion of the island and the overthrow of its government in 1981. The US State Department estimated 50 Cubans were killed and 59 wounded following the U.S. landing on Grenada.
Africa
In Africa Cuba supported 17 liberation movements or leftist governments. In some countries it suffered setbacks, such as in eastern Zaire (Simba Rebellion), but in others Cuba had significant successes. Major engangements took place in Algeria, Zaire, Yemen,[124] Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique. Among all the countries Cuba ever supported, Angola takes an exceptional position (see Cuba in Angola and Namibia).
Soviet advisers
As early as 1959 Soviet Advisers were seen in Cuba. The agents were in place in September 1959 when KGB colonel, Valdim Kotchergin (or Kochergin) was seen in Cuba.[125] Vadim Kochergin as well as KGB Colonel (later General) Victor Simonov went on to train overseas personnel including Carlos the Jackal and Subcomandante Marcos (commonly believed to be a non-indigenous student called Rafael Sebastián Guillén.)[126] Jorge Luis Vasquez, a Cuban who was imprisoned in East Germany, states that the Stasi trained the personnel of the Cuban Interior Ministry(MINIT).[127]
Cuba-United States relations
Since Cuba became a socialist republic in 1961 the United States Government has initiated various measures against Cuba's government, applying standards on Cuba which some believe it did not apply to countries with equally poor human rights records, including other Communist countries such as Vietnam and China. These measures have had a considerable political and economic effect on the island; they have been designed to encourage Cubans to remove the leadership and to undertake political change towards liberal democracy. The most significant of these measures was the United States embargo against Cuba and the subsequent Helms-Burton Act of 1996. The US government, its supporters and other observers contend that the Cuban government does not meet the minimal standards of a democracy, especially through its lack of multi-party contests for seats and the limitations on free speech that limit a candidate's ability to campaign.[128] The Cuban government, its supporters and other observers within and outside Cuba argue that Cuba has a form of democracy, citing the extensive participation in the nomination process at the national and municipal level.
The US government funds Radio Marti and TV Marti, both of which include news and cultural programming intended for residents of Cuba.[3].
In 2000 the Trade Sanctions Reform and Enhancement Act allowed exports directly from the United States to Cuba in the areas of food and medical products with approval from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Human rights
The Cuban government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extra-judicial executions.[129] Dissidents complain of harassment and torture.[130] While the Cuban government placed a moratorium on capital punishment in 2001, it made an exception for perpetrators of an armed hijacking 2 years later. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have issued reports on Cuban prisoners of conscience.[131] Opponents claim the Cuban government represses free expression by limiting access to the Internet.[132]
Human Rights Watch claims that the true number of political prisoners may be understated.[133] According to them, political prisoners, along with the rest of Cuba's prison population, are confined to jails with substandard and unhealthy conditions.[133]
In the last weeks of March 2003 the Cuban government sentenced 75 members of the opposition to prison terms of up to 28 years. The activists were charged with "disrespect" toward the Revolution, “treason,” and “giving information to the enemy”.[134][135]
The numbers of recognized political prisoners varies over time. All former political prisoners are subject to arbitrary re-arrest.[136] Political arrests continue.[137]
The Ladies in White are the wives and relatives of a group imprisoned in 2003 for collusion with the United States and attempting to overthrow the Cuban government.
Racial progress has eroded in the last few years.[138]
Freedom of information in Cuba
Factors limiting accuracy of information about Cuba include the censorship by the Government[139]. [140]
Trade unions
There are unions in Cuba, with a membership totaling 98% of the island's workforce. Unions do not register with any state agency, and are self financed from monthly membership dues. Their supporters claim that union officers are elected on an open basis, and differing political views are found within each of the unions.[141] However, all unions are part of an organization called the Confederación de Trabajadores Cubanos (Confederation of Cuban Workers, CTC), which does maintain close ties with the state and the Communist Party. Supporters claim that the CTC allows workers to have their voice heard in government; opponents claim that the government uses it to control the trade unions and appoint their leaders. The freedom of workers to express independent opinions is also a subject of debate. Supporters of the system argue that workers' opinions have in fact shaped government policy on several occasions, as in a 1993 proposal for tax reform,[141] while opponents, citing studies by international labor organizations, point out that workers are required to pledge allegiance to the ideals of the Communist Party, and argue that the government systematically harasses and detains labor activists, while prohibiting the creation of independent (non-CTC affiliated) trade unions, that the leaders of attempted independent unions have been imprisoned, and that the right to strike is not recognized in the law.[142]
International intrigue in Cuba
Examples of international intrigue in Cuba, dating to the Gerardo Machado regime, when Marxist Pole Fabio Grobart first entered the Island, are given by Roger Fontaine.[143]
Education
Before and during the present government, Cuba has boasted some of the highest rates of education and literacy in the Americas.[144][145][146] The Cuban state, through tax receipts, funds education for all Cuban citizens including university education. Private educational institutions are not permitted. School attendance is compulsory from ages six to the end of basic secondary education (normally at 15), and all students, regardless of age or gender, wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level. Primary education lasts for six years, secondary education is divided into basic and pre-university education. Higher education is provided by universities, higher institutes, higher pedagogical institutes, and higher polytechnic institutes. The University of Havana was founded in 1728 and there are a number of other well established colleges and universities. The Cuban Ministry of Higher Education also operates a scheme of distance education which provides regular afternoon and evening courses in rural areas for agricultural workers. Education has a strong political and ideological emphasis, and students progressing to higher education are expected to have a commitment to the goals of the Cuban government.[147] Cuba has also provided state subsidized education to foreign nationals, including U.S. students, who are trained as doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine. The program provides for full scholarships, including accommodation, and its graduates are meant to return to their countries to offer low-cost healthcare.[148][149] Internet access is limited.[150]
It is required that all applicants to universities in Cuba gain a letter from the government (the "Committee for the Defense of the Revolution")[151] stating that they have a good "political and moral background" in order to apply. There have been claims that such letters are withheld because of an applicant (or relative) being politically undesirable. The validity of these claims or how often letters are refused is not easily verifiable and so there is no consensus on whether this amounts to widespread political oppression or just a few isolated cases.
Public health
The Cuban government operates a national health system and assumes full fiscal and administrative responsibility for the health care of its citizens. Historically, Cuba has ranked high in numbers of medical personnel and has made significant contributions to world health since the 19th century.[144] However, after the Batista government fell in 1959 nearly half of Cuba's 6,000-6,500 physicians were among those who left the country, requiring the rebuilding of the health care system.[152] A network of community-based primary health care clinics was built across the country with many new clinics in previously underserved rural areas.[153] The number of women doctors has increased dramatically and, as of 2001, women made up more than half the students at Havana's medical school.[154]
Cuba stands out among nations in the Global South in children's health care. While most states with a similar GDP have death rates for children five and under that greatly exceed those of developed countries (primarily due to malnutrition, diarrhea, and parasitic disease), Cuba's epidemiological profile is closer to that of the United States or Britain.[155] Incidence of AIDS is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere; each pregnant woman receives an HIV test, and Cubans with AIDS receive a full course of AZT produced in Cuba.[156]
In 1992, Cuba ranked at the median level in the Human Development Index created by the United Nations Development Programme, which had as key measurements life expectancy, educational attainment, and per capita income. Of 174 nations, Cuba ranked 30th in life expectancy (average 75.3 years), above Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. It also ranked high in literacy but had only about half the per capita income of Chile, the Latin American leader in income.[157] According to World Health Organization statistics, life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Cuba have been comparable to developed countries since such information was first gathered in 1957. According to the 2008 UNICEF report on world child survival, Cuba ranks 175 among the world's nations in infant mortality, with seven deaths per 1000 live births (better than the United States, which ranked 174, but worse than Canada, which ranking 180).[158]
Pan American Health Organization's examined WHO statistics for Cuba and concluded that these statistics are prepared by each government[159] and published unchanged by WHO; thus some authors called into question.[160] Nevertheless, the CIA World Factbook cites life expectancy and infant mortality rates that are similar to those for the USA.[161] However, given the extensive and specific data, which have been promptly published in Cuba since 1970, the high rate of autopsies and the low number of deaths attributed to undefined causes (an important indicator for the accuracy of vital statistics), a high level of confidence can be placed in Cuban health statistics.[162] Cuban officials have acknowledged that some health care indicators worsened during the 1990s after the loss of Soviet aid and while the United States embargo of health supplies remained in effect.[163]
A separate, second division of hospitals cares specifically for foreigners and diplomats.[citation needed] While tourists can get health care from public clinics on an emergency basis, they are expected to use a fee-for-service health care network called "Servimed" for non-emergency health care needs. There are about 40 Servimed health care centers across the island.[164] Many foreigners travel to Cuba for reliable and affordable health care.
Cuba provides medical care as foreign aid, providing free care to victims of disasters, including 16,000 victims of Chernobyl, and sends medical teams to scores of poor nations, numbering some 26,000 medical personnel as of 2005.[165] Teams of Cuban doctors have been sent to Haiti and the poorest nations of Africa to fight malaria, TB, and HIV.[166] In 1996, at the request of the South African government, Cuba sent 600 English-speaking doctors to make up for the shortfall caused by the emigration of South African doctors.[167] By 2002 80 percent of the doctors in rural South Africa were Cuban.[168] Cuba has had up to ten percent of its doctors serving abroad, fielding more doctors than the World Health Organization.[169] Cuban doctors have won a reputation for being willing to endure primitive living conditions, for being able to improvise when equipment and supplies are lacking, and for maintaining warm relationships with the local population.[170]
Cuba spends about twice as much of its GDP on health care (about 6.6 percent) as the Latin American average. It maintains a high ratio of doctors to patients, about one doctor per 150 families in 2001.[171] Being from a country with very few social discrepancies, Cuban doctors are not well-paid by capitalists standards. The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and NPR have all reported on Cuban doctors defecting to other countries.[172][173][174]According to the San Francisco Chronicle, at least 63, and perhaps hundreds of the approximately 20,000 Cuban doctors sent to work in the barrios in Venezuela, have deserted, in part, because their salary in Cuba is only $15 per month.[175] The United States has announced a policy of preference for Cuban medical workers who seek asylum.[176]
See also
References
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- ^ a b Human development Reports: Cuba, United Nations Development Programme, 2007/2008, retrieved 2008-01-01
{{citation}}: Check date values in:|year=(help) - ^ Sonic.net. "1992 coin". Retrieved 2006-09-26.
- ^ Government of Cuba. "The Cuban constitution". Retrieved 2007-01-29.
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- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica. "Cuba". Retrieved 2007-01-29.
- ^ www.alfredcarrada.org/notes8.html
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- ^ National Symbols, DTCuba, retrieved 2008-02-09
- ^ Cuba Climate data
- ^ a b http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/1997/9509097.pdf The Mineral Resources of Cuba 1997
- ^ Cuban Oil, Gas Output Grow - Prensa Latina - Cuba Business News - Havana Journal
- ^ theTrumpet.com
- ^ Wayne S Smith: After 46 years of failure, we must change course on Cuba | Comment is free | The Guardian
- ^ a b Cuba 1953 UN Statistics; Ethnic composition. Page: 260.May take time to load page
- ^ a b Cuba Statistics Demographic and Immigrants to the USA. Page 156.
- ^ TABLA II.3 POBLACION POR COLOR DE LA PIEL Y GRUPOS DE EDADES, SEGUN ZONA DE RESIDENCIA Y SEXO
- ^ Government of Cuba (2002). "Cuban Census". Retrieved 2007-01-29.
- ^ DePalma, Anthony (1998). "Cuban Site Casts Light on an Extinct People". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b http://www.joshuaproject.net/peopctry.php
- ^ Etat des propriétés rurales appartenant à des Français dans l'île de Cuba from http://www.cubagenweb.org
- ^ Castro's Cuba in Perspective
- ^ "Sahrawi children inhumanely treated in Cuba, former Cuban official". MoroccoTimes.com. 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ thepeninsulaqatar.com
- ^ Population Decrease Must be Reverted
- ^ "United Nations World Fertility Patterns 1997". un.org. 1997. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ Stanley K. Henshaw, Susheela Singh and Taylor Haas. "The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide". International Family Planning Perspectives, 1999, 25(Supplement):S30 – S38. Retrieved May 11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) This publication notes, however, that: "The relatively high rate in Cuba (78 per 1,000 [women, per year]) includes menstrual regulation, an early abortion procedure carried out without pregnancy testing, as well as termination of known pregnancies. In 1996, 60% of the procedures were menstrual regulations." - ^ Asís, Moisés 2000 Judaism In Cuba 1959 – 1999 ICCAS Occasional Paper Series December 2000 http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuban-jews.htm “However, it was a paradox that Jews, who historically have been involved in social reforms and revolutions because it is a part of Judaism to look forward to a world of justice and peace, took a different approach: 94 percent of the 15,000 Cuban Jews left the country in the first years of the Revolution and went to the United States, Israel, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, and other countries. The history of the Jewish community of Cuba during the past 40 years is the history of the remaining 6 percent of a successful and proud community; it is the history of those who stayed and their children”
- ^ Pedraza, Silvia 2007 Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics)) Cambridge University Press ISBN-10 0521687292, ISBN-13 978-0521687294 p. 2 and many other sections of this book
- ^ Quiñones, Rolando García Quiñones. "International Migrations in Cuba: persinting trends and changes". Technical Corporation. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ "Cuba. Encyclopedia Encarta".
- ^ "Bill Clinton 1993-2001". history.acusd.edu. Retrieved 2006-02-09.
{{cite web}}: Text "authorlink" ignored (help) - ^ a b Rush of Cuban migrants use Mexican routes to U.S.
- ^ "Cuban Natives or Citizens Seeking Lawful Permanent Resident Status". U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 1996. Retrieved 2006-05-06.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|month=(help) - ^ "Human Rights Overview: Cub". hrw.org. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ http://www.haciendapub.com/castro20.html [infringing link?]
- ^ Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution—Escape From a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Inc., Macon, Georgia, pp. 415-416.
- ^ a b "Social Policy" (PDF). oxfamamerica.org. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/Research_Studies/BLatell.pdf
- ^ Cuba's Repressive Machinery
- ^ Nicolás Crespo and Santos Negrón Díaz, "Cuban tourism in 2007: economic impact", (University of Texas, accessed on 2006-07-09)
- ^ a b "Background Note: Cuba". U.S. Department of State. 2005. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ http://www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/conferences/cuba/TLCP/Volume%201/Facio.pdf Tourism in Cuba during the Special Period
- ^ Fidel Castro, Fine Rum and Cuban Cigars
- ^ Socialized Medicine in Cuba 2002 (Part I): A Poor State of Health!
- ^ Socialized Medicine in Cuba 2002 (Part II): Other Hidden Faces of Cuban Medicine
- ^ La Nueva Cuba
- ^ Cuba Facts
- ^ Welcome to the Cuba Transition Project at the University of Miami
- ^ Cuba's Foreign Debt
- ^ CIA - The World Factbook - Cuba
- ^ Focus on Cuba
- ^ Schweimler, Daniel (2001). "Cuba's anti-corruption ministry". BBC News. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Rank Order Exports". CIA:The World Fact Book. 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Cuba". CIA World Fact Book. 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Cuba Exports - commodities". IndexMundi.vom. 2005. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Calzon, Frank (2005). "Cuba makes poor trade partner for Louisiana". ShreveportTimes.com. Retrieved 2005-12-21.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Rank Order - GDP (purchasing power parity)". CIA Fact Book. 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Cuba". heritage.org. 2004. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ "Cuba's Sugar Industry and the Impact of Hurricane Michele" (PDF). International Agricultural Trade Report. 2001. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Global Nickel Mine Production 2002". 2002. Retrieved 2006-08-23.
- ^ Frank, Marc (2002). "Cuba's 2002 nickel exports top 70,000 tonnes". Center for International Policy. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Smith-Spark, Laura (2006). "Cuba oil prospects cloud US horizon". BBC. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
- ^ Granma 2007 Cuba will not be going to the World Boxing Championships. Digital Granma International Havana. August 30, 2007 http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/agosto/juev30/36boxeo.html
- ^ a b Baker, Geoffrey. 2008. "The Politics of Dancing." In Reading Reggaeton (forthcoming, Duke University Press).
- ^ Cuban hip hop, rap music, reggaeton, reggae & electro acoustic, Alamar festival, LAS KRUDAS, ORISHAS, DOBLE FILO, CUBANITO 102, Obsesión, OGGERE, EDDY- K, EXPLOSIóN SUPREMA, ANóNIMO CONSEJO, FREE HOLE NEGRO, BABY LORES AND INSURRECTO, LOS ALDEANOS, GENTE DE ZONA
- ^ Dancing Reggaeton - Perreo - Dancing Perreo
- ^ José, Alvarez 2000 "Rationed Products and Something Else: Food Availability and Distribution in 2001" Cuba in Transition 11 pp. 305-322 http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/asce/pdfs/volume11/alvarez.pdf “To blame the U.S. economic sanctions for the existence of a rationing system of basic food products is not a very intelligent argument to justify Cuba's socialist system. It is an admission that Cubans cannot even produce what grows very easily on Cuban soil. If one lists the food products that have been rationed since 1962, it becomes evident that almost all of them were in abundance before the 1959 revolution. Granted, all Cubans were not able to consume a wide variety of products because the instrument for rationing was the price system. But even after the rationing system was established, there have been periods in which the abundance of several products demonstrated the feasibility of returning to a stable and ample supply of food products. I remember the proliferation of a chain of government stores called FrutiCuba devoted exclusively to the selling of numerous fruits and vegetables in the mid-1960s. The existence of the free farmers’ markets in the 1980s, the free agricultural markets after 1994, and the new food outlets described below testify to the ability of Cuban farmers, now including urban inexperienced farmers, to produce abundant food supplies despite the U.S. economic sanctions, that could do away with the food rationing system. It is interesting to recall that, when the Soviet bloc was subsidizing the Cuban economy to the tune of five billion dollars per year, food was still rationed in Cuba."
- ^ a b Catholic church in Cuba strives to reestablish the faith National Catholic Observer
- ^ "Official Web site of Conferencia de Obispos Catolicos de Cuba". Conferencia De Obispos Catolicos de Cuba. 2008.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Government officials visit Baha'i center". Baha'iWorldNewsService.com. 2005.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Islam in Cuba
- ^ Gott, Richard : Cuba A New History. Yale University Press. p13
- ^ Andrea A.J., Overfield O.H. (2005). The Human Record, Vol 1; Letter by Christopher Columbus concerning recently discovered islands. Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 8. ISBN 0-618-37040-4.
- ^ AFP 2007 (accessed 11-18 2007) Arqueología Hallazgo podría dar pistas sobre primeros habitantes de la Isla. Cuba en el Encuentro, jueves 15 de noviembre de 2007 http://www.cubaencuentro.com/es “"oficialmente se habla de la presencia de los primeros humanos (en Cuba) en un periodo que oscila entre 6.000 y 8.000 años".”
- ^ Image: Greenstone zoomorphic amulet in form of Condor of the Andes, University of Cambridge, retrieved 2007-12-18
- ^ The Rise and Fall of Smallpox
- ^ The Story Of… Smallpox—and other Deadly Eurasian Germs
- ^ "Historia de las Guerras de Liberación de Cuba".
- ^ "The Little War (La Guerra Chiquita)".
- ^ Anne Applebaum. Gulag: A History of the German Concentration Camps. "the first modern concentration camps were set up not in Germany or Russia, but in colonial Cuba, in 1895. In that year, to put an end to local insurgencies, imperial Spain began to prepare a policy of reconcentratión, intended to remove Cuban peasants from their land and 'reconcentrate' them in camps, depriving the insurgents of food, shelter and support. By 1900 the Spanish term reconcentratión had already been translated into English, and was used to describe a British project, initiated for similar reasons, during the Boer War in South Africa."
- ^ The Spanish-American War. "Cuban Reconcentration Policy and its Effects". Retrieved 2007-01-29.
- ^ Official Report of the Naval Court of Inquiry into the loss of the Battleship MAINE (Sampson Board), spanamwar.com, March 22, 1898, retrieved 2008-01-22
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- ^ "Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain". The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School. Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. December 10, 1898.
- ^ Middletown Daily Times-Press 2006 Palma will Resign Beaten President to Call Special Session of congress and Give Up His Seat. Middletown Daily Times-Press Wednesday, September 26, 1906 Middletown, New York, page 2. “… All the Members of the cabinet and the heads of departments have presented resignations to President Palma. He has accepted them, but the officers will retain their positions until the resignation of the president has been presented to congress. O’Farrill secretary of state and justice, said their probably would be a government by a commission appointed by the American government. He mentioned Senor Barreiro chief justice of court and General Mario Menocal as commissioners. …”
- ^ a b Thomas, Hugh (1971). Cuba; the Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 283–287. ISBN 0060142596.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) Cite error: The named reference "Thomas" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ Sources include Portuondo Linares, Serafin 1950 Los Independientes de Color. Historia del Partido Independiente de Color. Direccion de Cultura. Havana. (Fermoselle Lopez, Rafael 1974. Politica y Color in Cuba, La Guerrita de 1912. Ediciones Geminis Montevideo. Other sources give peripheral mention to burning of property at that time
- ^ there are the physical acts of arson, in intent and action indistiguishable from the recent Balkan ethnic cleansing. Take for example the incident a La Maya (Fermoselle pp. 243-245) where the town was Take for example the incident a La Maya (Portuondo pp. 243-245) where the town was burned including houses bought by Mambi "de color" using their pensions.
- ^ Dutcher, Rodney (NEA) 1933 Machado Fights Terrorists With Terror To Hold Iron-Handed Foes: of "ABC” Copy Gangster Methods to Rid Island of Despot Who Has Ruled Since-1924 Syracuse Herald Friday evening, April 28, 1933. Front Page “Terrorism has been met "with terrorism in this unique outbreak waged mostly by students and young intellectuals who brand Machado as a tyrant. On one side is the "ABC", secret terrorist, organization that has copied the methods of gangsters in the fine art of assassination. On the other side are Machado's strong-armed and equally, ruthless secret police. Murder has followed murder in a series of spectacular killings. The Law of Flight Typical were assassinations of Dr Clemente Vasquez Bella, president of the Cuban Senate and political ally of Machedo, and Capt. Miguel Calvo former head of the secret police Both were slain on busy throughfares, in daylight, by men who dashed past in autos firing shot guns. Many members, or suspected members of the "ABC" have been slain by the secret police in equally ruthless manner. Often, those killings have been defended on the ground that the victims preferred death to capture, though the evidence. In many cases Is not convincing. One police official alone is accused of 40 official assassinations. Police have also defended killings on the ground that the ley de fuga (law of flight) recognized the right of an officer to shoot an escaping prisoner. But, according to witnesses, prisoners have been released told to flee and then shot down they ran. Bombing has been common. Incendiary fires have destroyed much property. Great numbers of political prisoners have been jailed. President Machado, whose life has been threatened many times, is heavily guarded by soldiers and machine gun crews in his palace. He rides to and from his country estate in a bullet-proof auto, under escort of soldiers armed with rifles and machine guns. NEXT: Cuba economic distress and America's vast stake on the Island
- ^ Argote-Freyre, Frank, 2006 Fulgencio Batista: Volume 1, From Revolutionary to Strongman. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey ISBN 978-0813537010 p. 50 and later explained by the communists themselves in: Massón Sena, Caridad 2004 (accessed 6-9-07) Dos visiones sobre el nacionalismo y las alianzas: Mella y Villena. Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana “Juan Marinello”. La Habana, Cuba. http://168.96.200.17/ar/libros/cuba/marin/nacion.rtf. “ Según explicara Fabio Grobart a posteriori: “ Esta miopía política se reflejó también en una errónea conclusión que los dirigentes del Partido sacaron, de la justa apreciación de que sustituir a Machado por un gobierno de la oposición burgués-terrateniente significaba dejar a Cuba en su estado de semicolonia y a las masas populares en la misma miseria y esclavitud y que únicamente un gobierno de trabajadores podía producir los cambios radicales que el país necesitaba /.../Dicha a conclusión fue profundamente falsa por ser mecánica, por no basarse en un análisis correcto del desarrollo dialéctico de la situación y, esencialmente, por no tener en cuenta que las masas revolucionarias, enardecidas por la victoria sobre Machado y orientadas en su acción por una justa política de su vanguardia marxista-leninista, sí podría asegurar los cambios profundos, es decir, la realización del programa agrario-antimperialista, por el cual abogaba y luchaba desde su fundación el Partido Comunista.(22)” Reference 22 is Fabio Grobart, 1985, p. 93, This author also refers in this regard to Leonel Soto, 1977, vol. II, p. 8
- ^ José Alvarez (2004), "Cuban Agriculture Before 1959: The Social Situation" (PDF), Cuba's Agricultural Sector, University Press of Florida, ISBN 0813027543, retrieved 2008-01-08
"Law No. 5 created the Banco de Fomento Agrícola e Industrial de Cuba (BANFAIC), which was enacted on December 20, 1950, by President Carlos Prío Socarrás. (In fact, Law No. 13 of 1948, establishing Cuba's national bank, envisioned an agricultural bank as a necessary complement.) Law No. 15 of 1949 authorized the issuance of $200 million in bonds. Of the $25 million going to BANFAIC, an equal distribution went to the agricultural and industrial branches. … It is clearly stated in the ACU study: “The city of Havana is living an epoch of extraordinary prosperity, while in the countryside, people, especially the agricultural workers, are living in sluggish, miserable, and desperate conditions too difficult to believe” (Gastón et al., 1957, p. 6). Thus it is obvious that the living conditions in the city of Havana, and perhaps in a few other urban areas of Cuba, did not parallel those described in this fact sheet for the countryside." - ^ de La Cova, Antonio Rafael 2007 The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution. University of South Carolina Press ISBN-10 1570036721 ISBN-13 978-1570036729
- ^ Fidel Castro and the 26th of July Movement
- ^ CIA conspired with mafia to kill Castro | World news | The Guardian
- ^ Meyer Lansky
- ^ Familia Chibás > Raul Antonio Chibás > Manifiesto Sierra Maestra
- ^ Thomas E. Bogenschild (January 30, 2008), Dr. Castro's Princeton Visit, April 20-21, 1959, Princeton University: Program in Latin American Studies, retrieved 2008-01-30
- ^ Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970 Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240
- ^ Lazo, Mario, American Policy Failures in Cuba--Dagger in the Heart! 1970, Twin Circle Publishing Co., New York, pp.198-200, 240
- ^ Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution--Escape from a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Macon, Georgia, pp.105,182,248
- ^ Faria, Miguel A. Cuba in Revolution -- Escape From a Lost Paradise, 2002, Hacienda Publishing, Inc., Macon, Georgia, pp. 163-228
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- ^ "U.S. Arrests Cuban Exile Accused in Deadly '76 Airline Bombing". New York Times. 2005-05-18. Retrieved 2008-01-30.
- ^ "The Daily News -- April 1980". The Eighties Club - The Politics and Pop Culture of the 1980s. 1980. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "The Daily News -- June 1980". The Eighties Club - The Politics and Pop Culture of the 1980s. 1980. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D. (November 2, 2002), Cuba (Part I): The Silent War Against the Environment, haciendapub.com (Reprinted from NewsMax.com), retrieved 2008-01-01
{{citation}}: soft hyphen character in|title=at position 6 (help) [infringing link?] - ^ Miguel A. Faria Jr., M.D. (November 10, 2002), Cuba (Part II): The Hunter and the Hunted in the Lost Caribbean Paradise, haciendapub.com (Reprinted from NewsMax.com), retrieved 2008-01-01
{{citation}}: soft hyphen character in|title=at position 6 (help) [infringing link?] - ^ Castro not dying, US envoys told. BBC News, December 18, 2006.
- ^ "Castro does not have cancer, says Spanish doctor". Times Online. Retrieved 2006-12-26.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|accessyear=(help) - ^ [1][infringing link?]
- ^ "Castro resigns as Cuban president: official media". AFP. 2008-02-19. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Raul Castro named Cuban president". BBC. 2008-02-24. Retrieved 2008-02-24.
Raul, 76, has in effect been president since and the National Assembly vote was seen as formalising his position.
- ^ "Byte by byte". The Economist. 2008-03-19.
{{cite news}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=ignored (help) - ^ "Arquitectura y Urbanismo en la República de Cuba (1902-1958)…Antecedentes, Evolución y Estructuras de Apoyo" (PDF). Retrieved 2006-03-24.
- ^ a b Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, 1992. Cubanet.
- ^ Country profile: Cuba BBC online
- ^ a b c Inter-American commission on Human Rights
- ^ The Cuban Samizdat: Can It Be Stopped?
- ^ Cuban army called key in any post-Castro scenario Anthony Boadle Reuters 2006
- ^ AP 1950 Invasion Wiped Out Says Trujillo Waterloo Daily Courier Wednesday, June 24, 1959 Waterloo, Iowa, page 7 “The government announcement said Capt. Enrique Jimenez Moya, described by' the exiles as the expedition leader, was killed as he tried to escape, it identified six other bodies among the rebel dead, but did not list the total casualties or the size of the invasion force (other sources give the figure at about 89).”
- ^ Hernández, Félix José (accessed 10-22-07) Fidel Castro: la Infancia de un Jefe, Consejo Militar Cubano Americano. [2][dead link]
“Franqui narra como después de la muerte de Camilo, su tropa fue enviada a “liberar” a la República Dominicana, osea, a una muerte segura. Sus oficiales de la Sierra pasaron a ocupar puestos de segunda categoría. ¡El único que se salvó en aquel memento fue ... Arnaldo Ochoa!” - ^ Ramazani, Rouhollah K. 1975 The Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Vol. 3. Sijthoff & Noordhoof, Holland ISBN 9028600698 mentions Cuban intervention in several different sections e.g. p. 75 “Just as the Soviet Union has sought the destruction of the Omani regime by proxy of South Yemini and Cuban support for the insurgents, the United States…” p. 115 “The Soviet Union indirectly intervened in the civil war in Oman by aiding the Dhofari rebels through Cuban and South Yemen.”
- ^ (British Foreign Office. Chancery American Department, Foreign Office, London September 2, 1959 (2181/59) to British Embassy Havana classified as restricted Released 2000 by among British Foreign Office papers FOREIGN OFFICES FILES FOR CUBA Part 1: Revolution in Cuba “in our letter 1011/59 May 6 we mentioned that a Russian workers' delegation had been invited to participate in the May Day celebrations here, but had been delayed. The interpreter with the party, which arrived later and stayed in Cuba a few days, was called Vadim Kotchergin although he was at the time using what he subsequently claimed was his mother's name of Liston (?). He remained in the background, and did not attract any attention..”
- ^ El campo de entrenamiento "Punto Cero" donde el Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) adiestra a terroristas nacionales e internacionales, Cuban American Foundation, retrieved 2008-01-08
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|cdate=ignored (help) (English title: The training camp "Point Zero" where the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) trained national and international terrorists)
“... Los coroneles soviéticos de la KGB Vadim Kochergin y Victor Simonov (ascendido a general en 1970) fueron entrenadores en "Punto Cero" desde finales de los años 60 del siglo pasado. Uno de los" graduados" por Simonov en este campo de entrenamiento es Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, más conocido como "Carlos El Chacal". Otro "alumno" de esta instalación del terror es el mexicano Rafael Sebastián Guillén, alias "subcomandante Marcos", quien se "graduó" en "Punto Cero" a principio de los años 80.” - ^ Levitin, Michael (November 4, 2007), La Stasi entrenó a la Seguridad cubana ([dead link] – Scholar search), Nuevo Herald
{{citation}}: External link in|format= - ^ "TITLE 22 > CHAPTER 69A > § 6021 U.S. Code Collection Cornell Law School, Ithaca N.Y,". Retrieved 2007-03-07.
- ^ "Information about human rights in Cuba" (in español). Comision Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. 1967. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help)CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ^ "Castro sued over alleged torture". News from Russia. 2005. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "CUBA". Amnesty International Online Documentation Library. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ "Cuba". Reporters Without Borders (receives Funds of the Center for a Free Cuba). Retrieved 2007-01-27.
- ^ a b "V. GENERAL PRISON CONDITIONS", CUBA'S REPRESSIVE MACHINERY: Human Rights Forty Years After the Revolution, Human Rights Watch, retrieved 2007-12-18
- ^ Cuba urged to end crackdown, BBC News, March 22, 2003, retrieved 2007-12-18
- ^ Theresa Bond (2003), "The Crackdown in Cuba", Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Affairs, retrieved 2007-12-18
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ Daniel Flynn (March 18, 2005), Cuban Prisons Cruel and Inhumane, Amnesty Says ([dead link] – Scholar search), netforcuba.org, retrieved 2007-12-18
{{citation}}: External link in|format= - ^ Cuban dissidents denounce break-up of protest, Cubanet, October 5, 2007, retrieved 2007-12-19
- ^ Blue, Sarah A. 2007 The Erosion of Racial Equality in the Context of Cuba's Dual Economy. Latin American Politics and Society 49(3)35-68 ISSN: 1531426X
- ^ Stuart Hamilton writes in the Progressive Librarian issue 19-10 2002Librarians or dissidents? Critics and supporters of The Independent Libraries in Cuba (Progressive Librarian #93) "The members of the underground opposition parties face constant scrutiny from the authorities for their anti-government views. However, at the same time as enforcing a crackdown on dissidents the government is also accused of preventing ordinary Cubans accessing information. Independent news agencies are banned, and journalists who report stories contrary to the official line reported in the state newspaper, Granma, are likely to be victimised. As a result of this anti-government stories are normally found in newspapers and journals published abroad, as journalists go underground to send stories out to foreign sympathisers via telephone. Miami in Florida is the centre of anti-Castro publishing activity, with papers such as Nueva Prensa containing articles critical of the regime."
- ^ Expelled BBC correspondent Stephen Gibbs comments
"Cuban officials are surprisingly unapologetic on the issue. Their justification is that Cuba is in the midst of an undeclared war with a shameless US administration which is determined to undermine the Cuban revolution. They sometimes allude to what they seem to regard as the British government's distinguished censorship of the press during World War II".BBC NEWS | Programmes | From Our Own Correspondent | Packing up home 'easy' in needy Cuba
- ^ a b "Is Cuba Democratic?". Cuba-solidarity.org. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
- ^ Cubaverdad.net. "Workers Paradise". "Trade Unions". "Violations of Social and Labor". Retrieved 2007-01-29.
- ^ Fontaine, Roger (June 4, 1988), Cuba's Terrorist Connection, the Heritaga Foundation, retrieved 2008-01-08
“... Third, the U.S. should consider ending its low-level diplomatic ties with Cuba. Cuban history is replete with examples of terrorism, most notably in the early 1930s when groups of young Cubans struggled against General Gerardo Machado, who ran Cuba with an iron hand for nearly a decade beginning in 1925. Calling themselves the *ABC it is unclear what the initials stood for (This stood for the level of its cell structure A being the highest level B, the next etc El Jigue)), these young Cubans invented many of the techniques of modern urban terrorism (coordinated bombing, for example which Cuban advisers have passed on in scores of training camps around the world to thousands of Argentines, Brazilians, Chileans, Colombians, Ecuadoreans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorans, and Uruguayans, to name a few in Latin America, and to Basques, Namibians, Palestinians West Germans, and Yemenis. ” - ^ a b Zenith and Eclipse: A Comparative Look at Socio-Economic Conditions in Pre-Castro and Present Day Cuba
- ^ Cuba Facts | Directorio Democrático Cubano
- ^ "Renaissance and decay: A comparison of socioeconomic indicators" (PDF). University of Texas. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ The Cuban Education System: Lessons and Dilemmas. Human Development Network Education. World Bank.
- ^ Students graduate from Cuban school - Americas - MSNBC.com
- ^ BBC NEWS | Americas | Cuba-trained US doctors graduate
- ^ Resolución 120 del 2007 del Ministro del MIC la cual está vigente desde el ·0 de Septiembre de 2007
- ^ Vigilancia y Orden Público, cubaverdad.net, retrieved 2008-01-08
- ^ Chaffee, Wilber A. Cuba: A Different America. Rowland and Littlefield: 1992, p. 116.
- ^ Lundy, Karen Saucier. Community Health Nursing: Caring for the Public's Health. Jones and Bartlett: 2005, p. 377.
- ^ Luis, William. Culture and Customs of Cuba. Greenwood Publishing Group: 2001, p. 42.
- ^ MacDonald, Theodore H. Rethinking Health Promotion: A Global Approach. Routledge: 1998, p. 44.
- ^ Carter, Jimmy. Beyond the White House: Waging Peace. Simon and Schuster: 2007, p. 83.
- ^ Scarface, Joseph L., Mario Coyula, and Roberto Segre. Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis. University of North Carolina Press: 2002, p. 261.
- ^ "The State of the World's Children 2008."United Nations Children's Fund: December 2007.
- ^ 134th session of the executive committee, Provisional Agenda Item 4.3 CE134/11 (Eng.) (pdf), Washington, D.C. U.S.A: Pan American Health Organization, Observatory of Human resources in Health, May 18, 2004, retrieved 2008-01-08
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
page 5, item 10: “Gaps in data collection and limitations of data sources undermine efforts to address these issues. Data are generally collected from existing sources, such as personnel registries of ministries of health and social security institutions…” - ^ John Dorschner 2007 Nation's fabled healthcare may not be so healthy Miami Herald, January 28, 2007 p.1E.
- ^ CIA World Factbook (Cuba), last updated 19/7/2007 and (USA) last updated 19/7/2007
- ^ "Health in Cuba", by Richard S. Cooper, Joan F. Kennelly, and Pedro Ordunez-Garcia, International Journal of Epidemiology, Oxford University Press, 2006;35:817-824
- ^ Cuban Communism, 1959-1995, by Louis Horowitz, Transaction Publishers, 1995, p. 484.
- ^ Cuba, by Brendan Sainsbury, Lonely Planet, 2006, p. 482
- ^ Moon Cuba, by Christopher P. Baker, Avalon Travel Publishing (2006) p. 636
- ^ Moving Mountains: The Race to Treat Global AIDS, by Anne-Christine D'Adesky, Verso (2006) p. 70
- ^ Cuba, by Sarah Cameron, Footprint Publishers (2002) p. 399
- ^ Managing Labor Migration in the Twenty-First Century, by Philip L. Martin, Manolo I. Abella, Christiane Kuptsch, Yale University Press (2005) p. 71
- ^ Back from the Future: Cuba under Castro, by Susan Eckstein, Routledge (2003) p.176
- ^ The Cuban Intervention in Angola, 1965-1991, by Edward George, Routledge (2005) p.159
- ^ World Development Report: Making Services Work for Poor People, by Shantayanan Devarajan, Ritva Reinikka, World Bank. World Bank Publications (2003) p. 157-58
- ^ Cuban doctors defect from Venezuela posts / Castro's program to aid Chavez opens way for 'desertions'
- ^ Cuban Doctors Awaiting U.S. Response - washingtonpost.com
- ^ Cuban Doctors Seek Path to U.S. : NPR
- ^ Cuban doctors defect from Venezuela posts / Castro's program to aid Chavez opens way for 'desertions'
- ^ Id.
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Wikimedia Atlas of Cuba- Template:Wikitravel
- Country Profile and Key Facts about Cuba from BBC News
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