Cuba

Cuba, largest island of the West Indies, south of Florida of the United States and east of the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. It forms, with various adjacent islands, the republic of Cuba. Cuba commands the two entrances to the Gulf of Mexico—the Straits of Florida and the Yucatán Channel. On the east, Cuba is separated from the island of Hispaniola by the Windward Passage, a shipping route between the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The United States maintains a naval base at Guantánamo Bay in the southeast. Havana is Cuba’s capital and largest city.

The island extends about 1225 km (about 760 mi) from Cabo de San Antonio to Cabo Maisí, the western and eastern extremities, respectively. The average width is about 80 km (about 50 mi), with extremes ranging from 35 to 251 km (22 to 160 mi). The total area is 114,524 sq km (44,218 mi) including the area of the Isla de la Juventud, or Isle of Youth (formerly called Isle of Pines) and of other islands of the republic.

Land and Resources

About one-fourth of the surface of Cuba is mountainous or hilly, the remainder consisting of flat or rolling terrain. The mountainous areas are scattered throughout the island and do not stem from a central mass. The principal ranges are the Sierra de los Órganos, in the west; the Sierra de Trinidad, in the central part of the island; and the Sierra Maestra, in the southeast. The first two ranges are under 914 m (3000 ft) in height; the Sierra Maestra, which includes the Sierra del Cobre and Macaca ranges, is the greatest in altitude, mass, and extent, and contains Pico Turquino (2000 m/ 6561 ft), the highest point in Cuba. Most of the soil of Cuba is relatively fertile.

One of the extraordinary natural features of the island is the large number of subsurface limestone caverns, notably the caves of Cotilla, situated near Havana. Most of the numerous rivers of Cuba are short and unnavigable. The chief stream is the Cauto, located in the southeast. The coast of Cuba is extremely irregular and is indented by numerous gulfs and bays; the total length is about 4025 km (about 2500 mi). The island has a large number of excellent harbors, the majority of which are almost entirely landlocked. Notable harbors are those of Havana, Cárdenas, Bahía Honda, Matanzas, and Nuevitas, on the northern coast, and Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, and Trinidad, on the southern coast.

Climate

The climate of Cuba is semitropical, the mean annual temperature being 25° C (77° F). Extremes of heat and relative humidity, which average 27.2° C (81° F) and 80 percent, respectively, during the summer season, are tempered by the prevailing northeastern trade winds. The annual rainfall averages about 1320 mm (about 52 in). More than 60 percent of the rain falls during the wet season, which extends from May to October. The island lies in a region occasionally traversed by violent tropical hurricanes during August, September, and October.

Natural Resources

The land and climate of Cuba favor agriculture, and the country also has significant mineral reserves. Nickel, chrome, copper, iron, and manganese deposits are the most important. Sulfur, cobalt, pyrites, gypsum, asbestos, petroleum, salt, sand, clay, and limestone reserves are also exploited. All subsurface deposits are the property of the government.

Plants and Animals

Cuba has a wide variety of tropical vegetation. Extensive tracts in the eastern portion of the island are heavily forested. The most predominant species of trees are palms, of which Cuba has more than 30 types, including royal palms. Other indigenous flora are mahogany, ebony, lignum vitae, cottonwood, logwood, rosewood, cedar pine, majagua, granadilla, jaguery, tobacco, and citrus trees.

Only two land mammals, the hutia, or cane rat, and the solenodon, a rare insectivore, are known to be indigenous. The island has numerous bats and nearly 300 species of birds, including the vulture, wild turkey, quail, finch, gull, macaw, parakeet, and hummingbird. Among the few reptiles are tortoises, the caiman, and a species of boa that can attain a length of 3.7 m (12 ft). More than 700 species of fish and crustaceans are found in Cuban waters. Notable among these are land crabs, sharks, garfish, robalo, ronco, eel, mangua, and tuna. Numerous species of insects exist, the most harmful of which are the chigoe, a type of flea, and the anopheles mosquito, bearer of the malaria parasite.

Population

The Cuban population is made up mainly of three groups. Approximately 66 percent of the population is white and mainly of Spanish descent; 22 percent is of mixed racial heritage, and 12 percent is black. Almost all of the people are native born. More than 75 percent of the population is classified as urban. The revolutionary government, installed in 1959, has generally destroyed the rigid social stratification inherited from Spanish colonial rule.

Population Characteristics, Religion, and Language

The 1996 estimated population of Cuba was about 10,951,334, giving the country an average population density of 99 persons per sq km (254 per sq mi). Professed Roman Catholics have declined from more than 70 percent to about 33 percent of the population since 1957. Among Protestants, about 1 percent of Cubans, Pentecostalism is the predominant tradition. About 50 percent of Cubans consider themselves nonreligious. Spanish is the official language of Cuba.

Political Divisions and Principal Cities

Cuba consists of 14 provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth). The capital, largest city, and chief port of Cuba is Havana (population, 1993 estimate, 2,175,995). Marianao (1981 greater city population, 127,563) is a suburb of Havana and a beach resort. Other important cities and towns and their populations include Santiago de Cuba (1993 estimate, 440,084), a major seaport and industrial center; Camagüey (293,961), an inland transportation junction and commercial center; Holguín (242,085), located in a rich agricultural region; Guantánamo (207,796), a center for the processing of agricultural products; Santa Clara (205,400); Cienfuegos (132,038); and Matanzas (123,843).

Education

School attendance is compulsory and free for children in Cuba between the ages of 6 and 12. During the late 1960s about 10,000 new classrooms were provided in rural areas, traveling libraries were introduced, and all parochial schools were nationalized. In the early 1990s some 917,889 pupils attended primary schools, about 597,997 students were enrolled in secondary schools, and about 314,168 students attended technical schools, teachers colleges, and other schools. The country’s higher educational institutions enrolled about 242,434 students; the largest university was the University of Havana (1728). The nation’s adult literacy rate exceeds 95 percent.

Culture

Cuban culture is a combination of Spanish and African traditions. The blending of the Spanish guitar and the African drum gives Cuban music its most distinctive forms, the rumba and the son. Some of its folk music, however, such as the punto, the zapateo, and the guajira, has been greatly influenced by European music. See Latin American Music.

Noted Cuban writers include the 19th-century poets Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga and Julián del Casal and the contemporary novelists Alejo Carpentier and José Lezama Lima. See also Blacks in Latin America; Latin American Literature.

The National Library in Havana is the largest in Cuba and contains some 2.2 million volumes. Municipal libraries operate in Havana and the provincial capitals. The National Museum in Havana houses collections of both classical and modern art and relics of native cultures. Other important museums are the Colonial and Anthropological museums in Havana, the Emilio Bacardi Moreau Museum of natural history and art in Santiago, and the Oscar M. de Rojas Museum in Cárdenas. All libraries and museums are under the supervision of the national government. In addition, Cuban cities support a variety of cultural activities, such as theater and ballet.

Economy

The revolutionary government that gained power in 1959 nationalized about 90 percent of the production industries and some 70 percent of the farmland of Cuba. Formerly about 16 percent of the land was individually owned, while the remainder was held in large estates or by large sugar companies.

Credits and subsidies from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) to Cuba totaled some $38 billion between 1961 and 1984 and up to $5 billion annually in the late 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet bloc, depriving Cuba of its leading aid donors and trade partners, dealt a crippling blow to the nation’s economy as the 1990s began. In 1993 President Fidel Castro signed a decree allowing some free enterprise in more than 100 trades and services.

Agriculture

Cuba normally ranks among the world leaders in sugar production, and sugarcane is its largest crop by volume and value. In the early 1990s the annual sugarcane harvest was about 58 million metric tons, and raw sugar output was about 8 million metric tons. A reemphasis on sugar production in the late 1960s represented a shift from an earlier policy of rapid industrialization designed to diversify the economy.

A second crop of commercial importance is tobacco, grown especially in Pinar del Río Province. Production amounted to about 40,000 metric tons annually in the early 1990s; a substantial portion of the crop is manufactured into Havana cigars, an internationally popular product. Among other important agricultural products are coffee, citrus fruit, pineapples, rice, cacao beans, bananas, corn, plantains, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes, and pimientos. Cattle, which numbered about 5 million head in the early 1990s, are valuable livestock, and hogs, horses, poultry, sheep, and goats are also raised in significant numbers.

Forestry and Fishing

Indiscriminate cutting reduced forest areas from more than 40 percent to less than 10 percent of the total land area of Cuba from 1945 to 1960. The government undertook a reforestation program in the mid-1960s, and by the early 1990s forests covered about 17 percent of the island. The annual roundwood cut is about 3.14 million cu m (about 112.1 million cu ft); almost all of the timber harvest is made up of hardwoods.

The fishing industry traditionally comprised small independent operators banded into cooperatives. The government, however, has developed a large deep-sea fleet. In the early 1990s the total catch was approximately 165,200 metric tons per year.

Mining and Manufacturing

Minerals were among the most valuable exports of Cuba before the revolution of 1959. Mineral production, however, has since declined somewhat. The principal minerals recovered include nickel and copper ores, chromium, salt, cobalt, stone, crude petroleum, natural gas, and manganese.

In the early 1970s, Cuba undertook a program of automation in its important sugar industry. The dairy and cattle industries were also streamlined. Other major manufactures include cement, steel, refined petroleum, rubber and tobacco products, processed food, textiles, clothing, footwear, chemicals, and fertilizer.

Energy

Except for the small output of its hydroelectric facilities, the electricity of Cuba is generated by thermal plants using petroleum products, coal, or sugarcane wastes. In the late 1980s the country had an electricity-generating capacity of 3.9 million kilowatts, and annual production totaled 16.3 billion kilowatt-hours. A nuclear installation is being built near Cienfuegos.

Currency and Foreign Trade

The monetary unit of Cuba is the peso (1000 pesos equal U.S.$1; official rate linked to U.S. dollar), issued by the National Bank and composed of 100 centavos. All Cuban banks were nationalized in 1960.

Sugar and sugar products make up about 75 percent of annual Cuban exports. Tobacco, nickel and copper ores, foodstuffs, and petroleum products are other important export commodities. Major imports include foodstuffs, fuel, raw industrial materials, motor vehicles, machinery, and consumer goods. Before 1959 most Cuban trade was with the United States. In 1960 the United States declared a complete embargo on trade between the two countries. In the early 1990s Cuba’s chief trade partners were Argentina, Bulgaria, China, and the countries of the former USSR. Cuba’s total imports each year cost approximately $1.7 billion, and its exports earned approximately $1.5 billion. In 1995 Cuba joined in forming the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), a free-trade organization. The ACS comprises the members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) as well as 12 other Central American, South American, and Caribbean nations.

Transportation and Communications

In the 1990s Cuba had about 26,477 km (about 16,453 mi) of roads, and about 241,300 passenger cars and 208,400 commercial vehicles were in use. The nationalized railroad system operates on about 12,795 km (7951 mi) of track, about 62 percent of which is narrow gauge and serves sugar plantations and factories. In the late 1960s and 1970s Cuba increased the size of its merchant fleet. The USSR and Spain supplied oceangoing vessels and some small fishing craft. Empresa Cubana de Aviación, the national airline, flies both international and domestic routes.

In the 1990s about 229,000 telephones were in use in Cuba. The country also had extensive broadcasting facilities and about 2.1 million radios and 1.5 million television sets.

Labor

Almost all Cuban workers are organized under the administration of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), which had more than 3 million members in 1989. The ministry of labor hears labor grievances.

Government

Cuba is governed under a constitution adopted in 1976, as subsequently amended. It defines the country as a socialist state in which all power belongs to the working people. The Communist Party is Cuba’s only legal political party.

Central Government

The central legislature of Cuba is the National Assembly of People’s Power, whose 510 members are elected to five-year terms by direct universal voting. The National Assembly, which regularly meets twice during the year, elects a Council of State of about 30 members to carry out its functions when it is not in session. The Council of State includes a president, who is the country’s head of state; a first vice president; and five other vice presidents. The National Assembly also chooses a Council of Ministers, which is Cuba’s chief administrative body. The council is headed by the president.

Local Government

Cuba is divided into 169 municipalities and 14 provinces; the Isla de la Juventud municipality is not part of any province, and its affairs are overseen directly by the central government. Each municipality has an assembly composed of delegates elected to terms of two and one-half years. The municipal assemblies choose executive committees, the members of which make up five regional assemblies for each province. These regional bodies also have executive committees, which together form the membership of the provincial assembly (in turn, headed by an executive committee). At each level the executive committee oversees the day-to-day administrative functions of its assembly.

Judiciary

Judicial power is exercised by the People’s Supreme Court on the national level, by courts of justice in cases that are provincial or regional in nature, and by the municipal courts. Revolutionary tribunals are convened to deal with crimes against the state.

Health and Welfare

In 1959 the revolutionary government combined the more than 50 retirement and disability plans operative in various industries and professions under previous regimes into a single program that extended coverage to additional segments of the population. The entire plan, administered by the Bank for Social Security Funds, is financed by equal payments from employers and employees.

In the late 1980s Cuba had some 58,700 hospital beds and about 28,100 physicians, many of whom were graduates of Eastern European medical schools. Recently graduated doctors have been required to serve in rural areas where medical attention had previously been unavailable.

Defense

The Cuban army is made up of about 145,000 soldiers, and has been largely equipped by the former USSR. The navy, which has a membership of about 13,500 sailors, operates missile boats and various smaller craft. The 15,000-member air force is equipped with Soviet-built aircraft, comprising interceptor, ground-attack, and other first-line craft. Cuba also possesses Soviet-made surface-to-air and antishipping missiles. Cuba maintains an armed civilian militia that includes some 1.3 million men and women. Cuban forces served in several African countries during the 1970s and 1980s.

History

Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Cuba on October 28, 1492, during his initial westward voyage. In honor of the daughter of Ferdinand V and Isabella I of Spain, his benefactors, Columbus named it Juana, the first of several names he successively applied to the island. It eventually became known as Cuba, from its aboriginal name, Cubanascnan.

Colonization by Spain

When Columbus first landed on Cuba it was inhabited by the Ciboney, a native people related to the Arawak. Colonization of the island began in 1511, when the Spanish soldier Diego Velázquez established the town of Baracoa. Velázquez subsequently founded several other settlements, including Santiago de Cuba in 1514 and Havana in 1515. The Spanish transformed Cuba into a supply base for their expeditions to Mexico and Florida. As a result of savage treatment and exploitation, the aborigines became, by the middle of the 16th century, nearly extinct, forcing the colonists to depend on imported black slaves for the operation of the mines and plantations.

Despite frequent raids by buccaneers and naval units of rival and enemy powers, the island prospered throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Restrictions imposed by the Spanish authorities on commercial activities were generally disregarded by the colonists, who resorted to illicit trade with privateers and neighboring colonies. Following the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, during which the English captured Havana, the Spanish government liberalized its Cuban policy, encouraging colonization, expansion of commerce, and development of agriculture. Between 1774 and 1817 the population increased from about 161,000 to more than 550,000. The remaining restrictions on trade were officially eliminated in 1818, further promoting material and cultural advancement.

During the 1830s, however, Spanish rule became increasingly repressive, provoking a widespread movement among the colonists for independence. This movement attained particular momentum between 1834 and 1838, during the despotic governorship of the captain general Miguel de Tacón. Revolts and conspiracies against the Spanish regime dominated Cuban political life throughout the remainder of the century. In 1844 an uprising of black slaves was brutally suppressed. A movement during the years 1848 to 1851 for annexation of the island to the United States ended with the capture and execution of its leader, the Spanish-American general Narciso López. Offers by the U.S. government to purchase the island were repeatedly rejected by Spain. In 1868 revolutionaries under the leadership of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes proclaimed Cuban independence. The ensuing Ten Years’ War, a costly struggle to both Spain and Cuba, was terminated in 1878 by a truce granting many important concessions to the Cubans.

In 1886 slavery was abolished. Importation of cheap labor from China was ended by 1871. In 1893 the equal civil status of blacks and whites was proclaimed.

Independence

Although certain reforms were inaugurated after the successful revolt, the Spanish government continued to oppress the populace. On February 23, 1895, mounting discontent culminated in a resumption of the Cuban revolution, under the leadership of the writer and patriot José Martí and General Máximo Gómez y Báez. The U.S. government intervened on behalf of the revolutionists in April 1898, precipitating the Spanish-American War. Intervention was spurred by the sinking of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana of February 15, 1898, for which Spain was blamed. (A U.S. Navy study published in 1976 suggested that spontaneous combustion in the ship’s coal bunker caused the explosion of the Maine.) By the terms of the treaty signed December 10, 1898, terminating the conflict, Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba. An American military government ruled the island until May 20, 1902, when the Cuban republic was formally instituted, under the presidency of the former postmaster general Tomás Estrada Palma. The Cuban constitution, adopted in 1901, incorporated the provisions of the Platt Amendment, U.S. legislation that established conditions for American intervention in Cuba.

Certain improvements, notably the eradication of yellow fever, had been accomplished in Cuba during the U.S. occupation. Simultaneously, U.S. corporate interests invested heavily in the Cuban economy, acquiring control of many of its resources, especially the sugar-growing industry. Popular dissatisfaction with this state of affairs was aggravated by recurring instances of fraud and corruption in Cuban politics. The first of several serious insurrections against conservative control of the republic occurred in August 1906. In the next month the U.S. government dispatched troops to the island, which remained under U.S. control until 1909. Another uprising took place in 1912 in Oriente Province, resulting again in U.S. intervention. With the election of Mario García Menocal to the presidency later in the same year, the Conservative Party returned to power. On April 7, 1917, Cuba entered World War I on the side of the Allies.

Growing Instability

Mounting economic difficulties, caused by complete U.S. domination of Cuban finance, agriculture, and industry, marked the period following World War I. In an atmosphere of crisis, the Liberal Party leader, Gerardo Machado y Morales, campaigned on a reform platform and was elected president in November 1924. Economic conditions deteriorated rapidly during his administration, the chief accomplishment of which, an ambitious public-works program, was achieved by floating huge loans abroad. Before the end of his second term, he succeeded in acquiring dictatorial control of the government. All opposition was brutally suppressed during his administration, which lasted until a general uprising in August 1933, supported by the Cuban army, forced him into exile. A protracted period of violence and unrest followed Machado’s overthrow, with frequent changes of government. During this period the United States instituted various measures, including abrogation of the Platt Amendment, in an effort to quiet popular unrest on the island. A degree of stability was accomplished following the impeachment in 1936 of President Miguel Mariano Gómez by the senate, which was controlled by Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar. With the support of Batista, the head of the Cuban army and unofficial dictator of Cuba, the new president, the former political leader and soldier Federico Laredo Brú, put into operation a program of social and economic reform. Batista won the presidential contest of 1940, defeating Ramón Grau San Martín, the opposition candidate. The promulgation in 1940 of a new constitution contributed further to the lessening of political tension.

In December 1941 the Cuban government declared war on Germany, Japan, and Italy; consequently it became a charter member of the United Nations (UN) in 1945. The presidential election of 1944 resulted in victory for Grau San Martín, the candidate of a broad coalition of parties. The first year of his administration was one of recurring crises caused by various factors, including widespread food shortages, but he regained popularity the following year by obtaining an agreement with the U.S. government for an increase in the price of sugar. In 1948 Cuba joined the Organization of American States (OAS).

Fluctuations in world sugar prices and a continuing inflationary spiral kept the political situation unstable in the postwar era. Carlos Prio Socarrás, a member of the Auténtico Party and a cabinet minister under Grau San Martín, was elected president in June 1948. Shortly after his inauguration a 10 percent reduction in retail prices was decreed in an attempt to offset inflation. Living costs continued to rise, however, leading to unrest and political violence.

The Batista Regime

In March 1952 former president Batista, supported by the army, seized power. Batista suspended the constitution, dissolved the congress, and instituted a provisional government, promising elections the following year. After crushing an uprising in Oriente Province led by a young lawyer named Fidel Castro on July 26, 1953, the regime seemed secure, and when the political situation had been calmed, the Batista government announced that elections would be held in the fall of 1954. Batista’s opponent, Grau San Martín, withdrew from the campaign just before the election, charging that his supporters had been terrorized. Batista was thus reelected without opposition, and on his inauguration February 24, 1955, he restored constitutional rule and granted amnesty to political prisoners, including Castro. The latter chose exile in the United States and later in Mexico.

In the mid-1950s the Batista government instituted an economic development program that, together with a stabilization of the world sugar price, improved the economic and political outlook in Cuba. On December 2, 1956, however, Castro, with some 80 insurgents, invaded. The force was crushed by the army, but Castro escaped into the mountains, where he organized the 26th of July Movement, so called to commemorate the 1953 uprising. For the next year Castro’s forces, using guerrilla tactics, opposed the Batista government and won considerable popular support. On March 17, 1958, Castro called for a general revolt. His forces made steady gains through the remainder of the year, and on January 1, 1959, Batista resigned and fled the country. A provisional government was established. Castro, although he initially renounced office, became premier in mid-February. In the early weeks of the regime military tribunals tried many former Batista associates, and some 550 were executed.

Cuba Under Castro

The Castro regime soon exhibited a leftist tendency that caused concern among U.S. companies on the island. The agrarian reform laws promulgated in its first years mainly affected U.S. sugar interests; the operation of plantations by companies controlled by non-Cuban stockholders was prohibited, and the Castro regime initially de-emphasized sugar production in favor of food crops.

Break with the United States

When the Castro government expropriated an estimated $1 billion in U.S.-owned properties in 1960, Washington responded by imposing a trade embargo. A complete break in diplomatic relations occurred in January 1961, and on April 17 of that year U.S.-supported and -trained anti-Castro exiles landed an invasion force in the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) in southern Cuba. Ninety of the invaders were killed, and some 1200 were captured (see Bay of Pigs Invasion). The captives were ransomed, with the tacit aid of the U.S. government, in 1962, at a cost of about $53 million in food and medicines.

American-Cuban relations grew still more perilous in the fall of 1962, when the United States discovered Soviet-supplied missile installations in Cuba. U.S. President John F. Kennedy then announced a naval blockade of the island to prevent further Soviet shipments of arms from reaching it. After several days of negotiations during which nuclear war was feared by many to be a possibility, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed, on October 28, to dismantle and remove the weapons, and this was subsequently accomplished. For the rest of the 1960s U.S.-Cuban relations remained hostile, although, through the cooperation of the Swiss embassy in Cuba, the U.S. and Cuban governments in 1965 agreed to permit Cuban nationals who desired to leave the island to emigrate to the United States. More than 260,000 people left before the airlift was officially terminated in April 1973.

Despite several efforts by Cuba in the United Nations to oust the United States from its naval base at Guantánamo Bay, leased in 1903, the base continues to be garrisoned by U.S. Marines.

Period of Isolation

Many of Castro’s policies alienated Cuba from the rest of Latin America. The country was expelled from the OAS in 1962, and through most of the 1960s it was persistently accused of attempting to foment rebellions in Venezuela, Guatemala, and Bolivia. In fact, Che Guevara, a key Castro aide, was captured and summarily executed while leading a guerrilla group in Bolivia in 1967. Meanwhile, Cuba continued to depend heavily on economic aid from the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries. In 1972 it signed several pacts with the USSR covering financial aid, trade, and deferment of Cuban debt payments, and also became a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).

The first congress of the Cuban Communist Party was held in late 1975. The following year a new national constitution was adopted. Among other provisions, it increased the number of provinces from 6 to 14 and created an indirectly elected National Assembly. The assembly held its first session in December 1976 and chose Castro as head of state and of government.

International Role

In the mid-1970s Cuba emerged from diplomatic isolation. At a meeting in San José, Costa Rica, in July 1975, the OAS passed a "freedom of action" resolution that in effect lifted the trade embargo and other sanctions imposed by the organization against Cuba in 1964. Relations with the United States also began to improve; U.S. travel restrictions were lifted, and in September 1977 the two nations opened offices in each other’s capitals. The United States, however, warned Cuba that relations could not be normalized until U.S. claims for nationalized property had been settled and Cuba reduced or terminated its activities in Africa.

Cuban presence in Africa had begun inconspicuously in the mid-1960s, when Castro provided personal guards to such figures as President Alphonse Massamba-Débat of the Republic of the Congo. It was not until 1975, however, that Cuban combat forces were actively engaged on the continent, fighting for the Marxist faction in Angola’s civil war. Cuban troops later shored up the Marxist regime in Ethiopia, providing the winning edge in its war with Somalia over the Ogaden region. By 1980 Cuban activities had expanded into the Middle East (Southern Yemen). In both regions the Cuban presence was generally seen by the West as the spearhead of a growing Soviet thrust. In return, the Cuban economy continued to be supplemented by some $3 million in daily Soviet aid. Despite its relationship with the USSR, Cuba in 1979 played host to a meeting of the so-called nonaligned nations, at which Castro was chosen the group’s leader for the following three years.

In 1980, when Castro temporarily lifted exit restrictions, some 125,000 refugees fled to the United States before the outflow was again halted. The U.S. government accused Cuba of aiding leftist rebels in El Salvador; another sore point in U.S.-Cuban relations was the aid given by Cuban advisers to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Several hundred Cuban construction workers and military personnel were forced to leave Grenada as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of that island in October 1983. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Havana in April 1989, when the USSR and Cuba signed a 25-year friendship treaty, but Castro explicitly rejected the applicability of Soviet-style political and economic reforms to his country. In July four army officers were executed and ten others sentenced to prison for smuggling and drug trafficking, in the worst scandal since Castro came to power.

With the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, Soviet-bloc aid and trade subsidies to Cuba were ended, and Soviet military forces were gradually withdrawn. After the United States tightened its sanctions against trade with Cuba, the UN General Assembly in November 1992 approved a resolution calling for an end to the U.S. embargo. By 1993 all of the Soviet troops sent to Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis had been withdrawn. Cuba’s sugarcane production dropped to a 30-year low in 1993 and worsened in 1994, precipitating an economic emergency. As the effects of this poor yield filtered down through the population, greater numbers of Cubans attempted to flee the country for economic reasons. One such group hijacked a ferry and attempted to escape, only to be challenged and sunk by the Cuban Coast Guard. The sinking sparked violent antigovernment demonstrations, to which Castro responded by removing exit restrictions from those who wished to leave for the United States. Already facing an influx of refugees from Haiti, the United States countered by ending automatic asylum to fleeing Cubans because the United States considered that they were fleeing economic rather than political conditions. More than 30,000 people were picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard and taken to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base or to refugee camps in Panama. The crisis came to an end when the United States agreed to issue 20,000 entry visas each year to Cubans wishing to enter the country.

In February 1996 Cuban authorities arrested or detained at least 150 dissidents, marking the most widespread crackdown on opposition groups in the country since the early 1960s. Many were members of the Concilio Cubano, a fledgling coalition of more than 100 organizations dedicated to political reform.

Later that month, Cuban jet fighters shot down two civilian planes that Cuba claimed had violated Cuban airspace. The planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, a U.S.-based group headed by Cuban exiles dedicated to helping Cuban refugees. The group used small planes to spot refugees fleeing the island nation and then reported their positions to the U.S. Coast Guard. The United States condemned the shootings as a flagrant violation of international law; the United Nations also criticized the downing of the planes. Cuba said that planes from the same group had previously flown into Cuban airspace and dropped antigovernment leaflets, but Cuba’s repeated diplomatic complaints to the United States about the incidents had gone unheeded. Castro said he did not directly order the shootings, but acknowledged that in the weeks prior to the incident he had given the Cuban Air Force the authorization to shoot down civilian planes violating Cuba’s airspace.

As a result of this incident, U.S. President Bill Clinton abandoned his previous resistance to stricter sanctions against Cuba and in March 1996 signed into law the Helms-Burton Act. The legislation aimed to tighten the U.S. embargo by making it more difficult for foreign investors and businesses to operate in Cuba. It made permanent the economic embargo, which previously had to be renewed each year, and threatened foreign companies with lawsuits if they were deemed to be "deriving benefit" from property worth more than $50,000 that had been confiscated from U.S. citizens during the Cuban revolution. Canada, Mexico, and the European Union complained about the U.S. law, claiming that the United States was trying to export its laws and principles to other countries.

Later that month, the Central Committee of Cuba’s Communist Party held a rare full session and endorsed a harder stance against dissidents, as well as against Cuban businesses that had been allowed to engage in free-market joint ventures with foreign companies. The committee had met only five times since Communists took over the Cuban government in 1959. Cuban officials said that dissidents, self-employed workers, and Cuban intellectuals were being manipulated by Cuba’s foreign enemies to undermine the authority of the Communist Party. Castro vowed to step up the government’s efforts to silence opposition groups and enforce compliance with the party’s economic and ideological beliefs.

In March 1997 the Cuban government allowed CNN, or Cable News Network, to open an office in Havana, making it the first American news bureau to operate in Cuba since 1969. Since that year, both Cuban and U.S. laws have barred American news organizations from maintaining offices in Cuba. However, in 1997 U.S. officials granted ten organizations licenses to set up operations there. Of the ten, CNN received Cuban permission as well.

See: Batista,Fulgencio, Castro,Fidel, Spanish-American War

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