CanadaNews’ Reporter Notes

Fidel Castro’s long reign at the helm of Cuba’s government has come to an end.  Today it has been revealed that the 81-year-old Cuba leader has resigned as president.  For 49 years he has been in power.  He has survived several U.S. presidents, but many say his illness is retribution for his unapologetic reign. 

When the parliament meets on this upcoming Sunday, he said he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

No governmental leader has ruled longer than Fidel Castro.  Eighteen months ago, Castro had put his brother Raul temporarily in change.  The former U.S. supported leader had intestinal surgery.  During his recovery he’s had complications and he felt he was not well enough to serve, but expected to get better.  That moment never came.  Now that Fidel has resigned, Raul is free to implement reforms.  He has hinted over the past several months that he has ideas that differ from his older brother, by five years.  . President Bush said he hopes the resignation signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

Castro has not been seen in public since the surgery.  He had only been seen sporadically in official photographs and videotapes and publishing dense essays about mostly international themes as his younger brother has consolidated his rule.  Although Cuban officials wanted him to remain in power, he was quoted as saying, “It was an uncomfortable situation for me vis-a-vis an adversary that had done everything possible to get rid of me, and I felt reluctant to comply

His political position as the Cuban president may be over, but he remains a member of parliament and is likely to be elected to the 31-member Council of State on Sunday.  This isn’t pressadent because Raul Castro’s late wife, Vilma Espin, maintained her council seat until her death last year even though she was too sick to attend meetings for many months.

Raul Castro was the country’s first vice president of Cuba’s Council of State.  This position was viewed as a constitutionally designated position for leadership succession.  He also appears as a shoo-in for the presidential post when the council meets Sunday. Who will replace Raul in the Council of State is the big questions.  Speculations lean to  56-year-old council Vice President Carlos Lage, who is Cuba’s de facto prime minister.  .

Castro rose to power on New Year’s Day 1959 and reshaped Cuba into a communist state 90 miles from U.S. shores. Fidel, during this time, was a dear friend of revolutionary Argentine Che Guevara.  Castro has survived assassination attempts, a CIA-backed invasion and a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Ten U.S. administrations tried to topple him, most famously in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 with President John F. Kennedy.

Castro’s supporters admired his ability to provide a high level of health care and education for citizens while remaining fully independent of the United States. His detractors called him a dictator whose totalitarian government systematically denied individual freedoms and civil liberties such as speech, movement and assembly.

The United States was the first country to recognize Castro’s government, but the countries soon clashed as Castro seized American property and invited Soviet aid.

On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. A day later, he defeated the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion. The United States squeezed Cuba’s economy and the CIA plotted to kill Castro. Hostility reached its peak with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

The collapse of the Soviet Union sent Cuba into economic crisis, but the economy recovered in the late 1990s with a tourism boom.