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The world and Cuba mark passing of Fidel Castro

By Brian E. Muhammad -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Nov 30, 2016 - 2:59:03 PM

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Cuban President Fidel Castro attends a ceremony outside the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Feb 6, 2006. Scores of giant black fl ags bearing a single white star were solemnly raised outside the American mission, remembering the thousands of people Cuba says have been killed in violence against the island and blocking an electronic sign on the building’s facade. Photos: AP/Wide World photos
Former Cuban President Fidel Castro died in Havana Nov. 25. He was 90-years-old. The late leader was lauded by many as a rare and consequential person who impacted the world. He shares that distinction with others like the Haitian hero Toussaint L’Ouverture; visionary liberation leaders Simon Bolivar, Jose de San Martin and Antonio Jose de Sucre; the Black Nationalist leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Nation of Islam patriarch Elijah Muhammad, they said.

“He was one of the great iconic revolutionaries of all time,” said Dr. Ron Daniels, president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century.

Mr. Castro’s death was officially confirmed by his brother, President Raul Castro, in a somber announcement to the Cuban people and the world via a national television broadcast. 

“Dear people of Cuba, with sadness I inform our people, the friends of our Americas, and the world, that today, 25 November 2016 at 10:29 in the night, the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz has died,” President Raul Castro announced, reading from a prepared statement.

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In this undated file photo, Fidel Castro poses for a portrait.
Fidel Castro led Cuba for nearly a half of a century evolving the revolution he helped create since the 1950s. After a near fatal illness he handed the reins of power provisionally to his younger brother Raul in 2006 and then formally in 2008. However “El Comandante,” as he was widely known, remained an inspiration and guide for progressive thinkers, movers and freedom loving people worldwide.

“The reason why Fidel occupied such a huge part of the global stage is that he was a principled spokesperson for both the struggle of nationally oppressed countries and people to become free, and because he connected that struggle with a global struggle for Socialism,” said Brian Becker of the national ANSWER Coalition reflecting on Mr. Castro’s legacy.

Fidel Castro Ruz was born Aug. 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba’s sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father was a labor recruiter for U.S. sugar companies before establishing his own major business. Mr. Castro attended the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a revolutionary began in 1953 with an attempted attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. In the attempt most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul were jailed. Mr. Castro represented himself in the trial and turned his defense into a manifesto where he famously declared “History will absolve me.”

When Mr. Castro was pardoned, he went to Mexico, formed a rebel group and returned to Cuba in 1956. He continued to organize in the eastern Sierra Maestra Mountains. Mr. Castro was relentless in pursuit of a changed Cuba, which led to his eventual coming to power in 1959. Mr. Castro became the personification of the revolution he led, said analysts.

“He emerged in his own personality, the fight for national independence… egalitarianism and social justice for all classes. When other socialist governments fell, Fidel proclaimed that the Cuban people would prefer death over the abandonment of socialism,” Mr. Becker added.

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A woman cries outside Cuba’s embassy where an image of late Fidel Castro hangs in Santiago, Chile, Nov. 26. Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory, embraced Soviet-style communism and defi ed the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule of Cuba, died at age 90 in Cuba late, Nov. 25.
As news spread of Mr. Castro’s passing, there was a mixture of feelings and thoughts about him; everything from admiration and respect to disapproval and vitriol. For some, like exiled Cubans 90 miles north in Miami, he was a tyrant and dictator. Some celebrated his death in the streets of Miami’s “Little Havana.” But not all Cuban decedents agreed with the expressions of joy.

“I think the celebration of death of any human being … is utterly repulsive,” remarked community organizer Tony Muhammad whose parents left Cuba after the revolution. Both sides of his family left Cuba for different reasons.

 “One side came because they lost property,” he said. “The other side because they felt like their freedom of expression was taken away.”

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Palestinian medical student Adham Motawi, with an image of Fidel Castro, holds his head in disbelief during a gathering in Castro’s honor in Havana, Cuba, Nov. 26, the day after his death. Cuba will observe nine days of mourning for the former president who ruled Cuba for half a century.
Mr. Muhammad feels the “gap must be closed” between Cubans on understanding Mr. Castro and positives from the revolution like free education and medical care. “Because of narrow mindedness, because of emotion, which is a real thing, it precluded many of our people that migrated from Cuba since 1959 from understanding the mind of a Fidel Castro,” he said.

Others see Castro as an uncompromising stalwart against the machinations of imperialism, foreign domination and global exploitation of Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa by major world powers like the United States and Europe. 

“I will not try to offer anything approaching an analysis of the man and his times,” said Bill Fletcher Jr, talk show host, writer and activist in an e-mail. Mr. Fletcher remembered the Cuban leader as someone sensitive to the issues of racial disparity in Cuba and pointed out the courage of Mr. Castro in the face of powerful adversaries. 

Domestically Castro fought against a prevailing attitude of racism in the country where Black Cubans suffered discrimination and stigma, said Mr. Fletcher, a former leader of TransAfrica, a lobbying group for Africa and the Caribbean.  He lifted the plight and profile of the Afro-Cuban descendants in the country, said Mr. Fletcher. Fidel was forthright about Cuba being an Afro Hispanic nation giving a clear and emphatic statement about the lineage of Cuba as a nation—that it began with this African heritage, he said.

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Cubans wave fl ags during a military parade at the Revolution Square in Havana, Cuba, Dec. 2, 2006. Photos: AP/Wide World photos
“It has been a rare moment when a leader, particularly of a small country, has been willing to thumb his or her nose at the capitalist juggernaut and seek a different path,” Mr. Fletcher said. “The challenge of taking on racist oppression and approaching it as the cancer that it is—a disease to be removed.”

Every U.S. administration from Dwight Eisenhower to the present were in some way connected to or responded to Cuban reactionaries who had plotted against Mr. Castro after he took power leading the 26th of July Movement—the organization that led the revolutionary resistance culminating in the 1959 ouster of a U.S.-backed regime headed by Fulgencio Batista. 

Mr. Castro survived five decades of active efforts by Washington to undermine and kill him. According to a former Castro security official, there were upwards of 634 assassination attempts orchestrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Castro didn’t begin as a communist. In the aftermath of overthrowing Mr. Batista, the U.S. shifted its Cuban policy to one of hostility. Mr. Castro formed an alliance with the Soviet Union as a counter weight to the threat of the United States. The U.S. placed an economic embargo to cause domestic hardship aimed at destroying the popular support of Mr. Castro. In recent times relations have thawed, but the embargo is still in order.

Observers note despite the strain, under Mr. Castro, Cuba supported other struggles outside its borders.

In Haiti, Castro sent the largest number of doctors in response to the cholera outbreak in recent years. In West Africa Cuban medical personnel helped fight the deadly Ebola virus, which killed thousands of people. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S., Cuba offered to deploy 1,000 doctors to help but President George W. Bush arrogantly rejected the offer. Thousands of people lost their lives in the disaster. And these were a few of the recent contributions Castro’s Cuba made toward human dignity, preserving life and backing liberation movements.

“It’s a significant and profound loss,” Dr. Gerald Horne, University of Houston history professor told The Final Call. He expects a large number of heads of state and delegations from the Caribbean and Africa to pay their respects to Mr. Castro. 

“You cannot begin to talk about the liberation of Southern Africa—not least—Angola and the ultimate overthrow of apartheid without talking about the role of Cuban troops under the leadership of Comandante Castro,” he added.

 Dr. Horne was referring to Cuban military assistance and training of liberation struggles in Africa to end White minority rule. 

Mr. Castro sent thousands of troops to back the Popular Movement for the liberation of Angola (MPLA) and helped win the infamous battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a decisive victory and turning point in defeating the murderous apartheid regime in South Africa.

In a statement the MPLA sent condolences: “The MPLA considers that the evocation of his name and memory (is) always alive in the heart of the Angolan People.”

“That was the Pan Africanist spirit of Fidel all over the African world,” Dr. Daniels said.

On current U.S.-Cuban relations with President Barack Obama leaving office and President-elect Donald Trump coming into office the political impact of Mr. Castro’s death is “uncertain,” said Dr. Daniels.

“Much of what President Obama did was by executive order. Certainly the momentum to lift the embargo is more likely to be slowed, except, frankly there are serious economic interests, even within the Republican Party,” Dr. Daniels added.

He predicts in the short term U.S.-Cuban relations will be on “a rocky road” with the Trump administration. “But in the long term we may see the business economic interest within the Republican Party pushing for a more normalized relationship; not because they love Castro or love Cuba, but because it may be economically beneficial.”

Mr. Becker is optimistic about a successful Cuba moving forward because of a transition of power over time after Mr. Castro fell ill several years ago.

“That in fact is a great benefit; if Fidel had been the head of state and the leader of the revolutionary process and suddenly out of the blue dies, it would have had a politically convulsive impact.” Mr. Becker said.

Some next moves will be seen after President Raul Castro steps down in 2017, opening the way for a generation of young leaders who Cuba watchers say have been under preparation for leadership for decades.