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Republic of CubaRepública de Cuba
Flag Coat of arms of Cuba Coat of arms
Motto: Spanish: Patria y Libertad (English: "Homeland and Freedom")
Anthem: La Bayamesa (The Bayamo Song)
Capitaland largest city	Havana
Official languages	Spanish
Government	Republic
Independence
• Water (%)	negligible
Population
• Estimate	11,345,670 (70th)
• 2002 census	11,177,743
GDP (PPP)	2004 estimate
• Total	$33.9 billion (89th)
• Per capita	$3,000 (126th)
HDI (2005)	0.817 very high (52nd)
Currency	Peso (CUP) Convertible peso (CUC)
Time zone	UTC-5 (EST)
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 ((Starts April 1, end date varies))
Calling code	53
ISO 3166 code	CU
Internet TLD	.cu
1993–2004, the U.S. dollar was used in addition to the peso until the dollar was replaced by the convertible peso.

Template:Totallydisputed

The Republic of Cuba (Spanish: República de Cuba, IPA: ) is a country consisting of the island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and adjacent small islands. 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, and east of Mexico. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica are south of eastern Cuba.

History

The recorded history of Cuba began on 28 October 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his first voyage of discovery and claimed it for Spain. The island had been inhabited for at least several thousand years by Amerindian peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were hunter-gatherers. The name Cuba is derived from the Taíno word cubanacán, meaning "a central place."

The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastian de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the first Spanish settlement at Baracoa. Other towns, including Havana (founded in 1515), soon followed. The Spanish, as they did everywhere in the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the indigenous population, who soon died out as a result of the combined effects of disease and mistreatment. The settlers then introduced African slaves, who soon made up a significant proportion of the population.

Colonial Cuba

Cuba was a Spanish possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe, and later to North America. It was seized by the British in 1762 but restored to Spain the following month. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, a small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, served by a mixed-race population of small farmers, labourers and 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. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew, and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial rule Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S. throughout the 19th century, and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848 a pro-annexationist rebellion was defeated, and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain, but Spain always refused to consider ceding its last possession in the Americas.

After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexationism, agitation for independence revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868. This led to a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish and their local allies. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, and some unofficial aid was sent, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily. In 1878 the Peace of Zanjon ended the conflict, with Spanish promises of greater autonomy.

The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. 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 led to a substantial Spanish emigration to Cuba – among those arriving were the parents of Fidel Castro.

During the 1890s pro-independence agitation revived, fuelled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. On 15 July 1895 rebellion broke out, and the independence party, led by Tomás Estrada Palma and the poet José Martí, proclaimed Cuba an independent republic – Martí was killed shortly after and has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero. The Spanish retaliated with a campaign of ruthless suppression, herding the rural population into concentration camps where hundreds died. In Europe and the U.S., there were fierce protests against Spain’s behaviour.

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. Shortly after, on 15 February 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbour, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favouring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship (although Spain had no motive for doing so, and there was no evidence of Spanish culpability). Swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention, and President William McKinley was quick to comply.

The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame Spanish resistance. In August a peace treaty was signed under which Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba. Some advocates in the U.S. supported Cuban independence, while others argued for outright annexation. As a compromise, the McKinley administration placed Cuba under a 20-year U.S. trusteeship. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike in the Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance.

Independent Cuba

Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War in Cuba and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President of the United States in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year trusteeship proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on 20 May 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.

Independent Cuba soon ran into difficulties, as a result of factional disputes and corruption among the small educated elite and the failure of the government to deal with the deep social problems left behind by the Spanish. In 1906, following disputed elections to choose Estrada Palma’s successor, an armed revolt broke out, and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention. The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor took charge for two years. In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, however, constitutional government was maintained until 1925, when Gerardo Machado y Morales, having been elected President, suspended the constitution and made himself Cuba’s first dictator.

Machado was a Cuban nationalist, and his regime had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. During his tenure Cubans gained greater control over their own economy and some important national development projects were undertaken. His hold on power was weakened by the Great Depression, which drove down the price of Cuba’s agricultural exports and caused widespread poverty. In August 1933 elements of the Cuban army staged a coup which deposed Machado and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes as President. In September, however, a second coup led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista overthrew Céspedes and replaced him with Carlos Mendieta y Montefur.

One of the objectives of the “sergeants’ revolt” was to restore Cuban sovereignty, and in 1934 the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to end the formal U.S. role in Cuban affairs as part of its Good Neighbor Policy towards Latin America. Batista and the army became the real centre of power in Cuba, behind a series of transient presidents. In 1940 Batista decided to run for President himself. The leader of the constitutional liberals, Ramón Grau San Martín, refused to support him, so he turned instead to the Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.

With the support of the Communist-controlled labour unions, Batista was elected President, and his administration carried out major social reforms and introduced a new progressive constitution. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stood down and Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau’s administration took Cuba into World War II as a U.S. ally, and he used his wartime powers to increase government spending on health, education and housing. But Grau’s liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists, and Batista opposed most of Grau’s programme.

In 1948 Grau was succeeded by another liberal, Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau’s minister of labour and was particularly hated by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau, and under his administration corruption increased. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a centre of mafia operations. Nevertheless Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilising the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fuelled a boom which did much to raise living standards, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.

From Batista to Castro

The 1952 election was contested between Roberto Agramonte of the liberals and Batista, who was seeking a return to office. When it became apparent that Batista had no chance of winning, he staged a coup on 10 March 1952, and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army, and of the Communists, as a “provisional president” for the next two years. In 1954, under pressure from the U.S., he agreed to elections. The liberals put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. Batista could now claim to be an elected President, and his regime tolerated a considerable amount of dissent. By Latin American standards, Batista was a very mild dictator.

This changed in 1956, when a party of rebels, mostly idealistic young nationalists, and including Fidel Castro, landed in a boat from Mexico and tried to start a resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. (Castro had gone to Mexico after being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for his part in a 1953 rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.) Batista’s forces killed most of the rebels, but enough survived to maintain a low-level insurgency in the mountains. In response, Batista made the mistake of launching a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency.

Through 1957 and 1958 opposition to Batista grew, among the middle class and the students, in the Catholic Church and in the rural areas. The United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on March 14, 1958. The urban trade unions, however, were under the control of either Communists or the mafia, both strong supporters (for different reasons) of Batista’s regime, and attempts to organise general strikes against Batista always failed. By late 1958 the rebels had succeeded in breaking 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 Spain. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on 1 January 1959.

Castro and Communism

Fidel Castro, el hijodeputa, became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and has held effective power in the country ever since. (By 2006 he was the world’s longest-ruling head of government.) So far as was known, he was a constitutional liberal and nationalist, even if a radical one, and his victory was generally welcomed both in Cuba and in the U.S., although the summary execution of about 500 police officers and other agents of the Batista regime aroused immediate disquiet. During 1959 Castro’s government carried out popular measures such as land reform, the nationalization of public utilities, and the ruthless suppression of corruption, including closing down the gambling industry and evicting the American mafiosi.

Unbeknown to most outsiders, however, was the powerful influence within Castro’s government of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentinian Communist and one of Castro’s closest advisers. Guevara formed an alliance with Castro’s ambitious brother, Raúl Castro, to persuade Fidel Castro to align himself with the Communists and thus with the Soviet Union. Guevara also played the key role in persuading the Cuban Communist leader, Blas Roca Calderío, to abandon his hostility to Castro and work instead to gain control of the revolutionary government from within. Roca was persuaded, and he informed the Soviet leadership of the possibility of winning Castro over. The Soviets at once seized the chance of gaining a political foothold in the Americas and promised unlimited aid and support if Castro declared himself for Communism.

Meanwhile, attitudes towards the Cuban revolution in the U.S. were changing rapidly. While the Eisenhower administration had initially welcomed Batista’s fall, the nationalization of U.S. owned companies (to an estimated value of US$1 billion) and the expulsion of many political conservatives with influential friends in the U.S. aroused immediate hostility, and the Cuban exiles soon became the powerful lobby group in the U.S. that they have been ever since. Although Castro himself was not believed to be a Communist, the U.S. was well informed about the role of Guevara and the rapid warming of relations between Castro and the Cuban Communists. Thus the U.S. became increasingly hostile to Castro during 1959. This in turn served to drive Castro away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and into the arms of the Communists.

In October 1959 Castro declared himself to be friendly towards communism, though not yet a Communist himself, and the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged, with many who had initially supported the revolution fleeing the country to join the growing exile community in Miami. In March 1960 the first aid agreements were signed with the Soviet Union. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. saw the establishment of a Soviet base of influence in the Americas as intolerable, and plans were approved to remove Castro from power (see The Cuban Project). In late 1960 a trade embargo was imposed, which naturally drove Castro further towards the Soviet alliance. At the same time the administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by Florida-based exiles, timed to coincide with an anti-Castro rising. The result was the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 – the rising did not take place and the invasion force was routed. This gave Castro all the excuse he needed to establish a full-blown Communist state, which he did in May 1961.

Communist Cuba

The immediate result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the Soviet decision to place intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, during which President John F. Kennedy threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear war unless the missiles were withdrawn. Eventually the Soviets backed down. In the aftermath of this there was a resumption of contacts between the U.S. and Castro, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs in exchange for a package of aid. But during 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a fully-fledged Communist system modelled on the Soviet Union. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba. At this time U.S. influence in Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective, and Cuba was forced to direct virtually all its trade to the Soviet Union and its allies.

In 1965 Castro merged his revolutionary organisations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with Blas Roca as Second Secretary – later to be succeeded by Raúl Castro, who as Defence Minister and Fidel’s closest confidante 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 an unsuccessful attempt at an insurrectionary movement in 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.

During the 1970s Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for Third World “anti-imperialist” governments and anti-Americanism generally. On a more concrete level, he provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen and other African and Middle East trouble spots. Cuban forces were decisive in helping the MPLA forces win the Angolan civil war in 1975. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets, they placed a considerable strain on Cuba’s economy and manpower resources. Cuba was also hampered by its continuing dependency on sugar exports. The Soviets were forced to buy the entire Cuban sugar crop to provide further economic assistance to Cuba, even though the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to meet its own needs. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its oil, since it could not import oil from any other source.

Cuba’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union was deepened by Castro’s determination to build his vision of a socialist society in Cuba. This entailed the provision of free health care and education for the entire population. Through the 1970s and ‘80s the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the rather dubious strategic asset of an ally under the noses of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro’s considerable prestige in the developing world.

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 co-operated 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 defied 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 insurrectionary movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.

In the five years after 1959 around one million (about 10% of the population) Cubans migrated to the U.S., and there was a further surge of emigration in 1980 when Castro temporarily lifted restrictions on emigration (see Mariel Boatlift). Altogether about 2 million Cubans have emigrated since 1959. The Cuban exile community in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power, and became a potent force preventing any liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba, particularly when the Republican Party is in office. But the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, were consistently unsuccessful. Although many Cubans depended on money sent home by exile relatives in the U.S., Cubans in Cuba appeared to have little liking for the anti-Castro exiles, even if they also opposed Castro. The powerful personality of the Cuban leader, his successful exploitation of anti-American sentiment, and the material benefits which the Cuban version of socialism brought to the Cuban people, particularly the poor, maintained his personal popularity.

Post-Cold War Cuba

After two decades of government without elections, repetitive failures of economic experiments, lack of freedom and respect for basic human rights made discontent among Cuban population to grow. In April 1980 over 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. In response to this, Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Under the Mariel boatlift, over 125,000 Cubans migrated to the United States. Eventually the United States stopped the flow of vessels and Cuba ended the uncontrolled exodus.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. This led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, which was slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. Now it is increasing again although at a far slower rate than before Castro’s popularity was severely tested by the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This led to a cutoff in aid, the loss of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar, and the loss of a source of cheap imported oil. It also caused, as in all Communist countries, a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully “building socialism” and provided a model that other countries should follow. In Cuba, however, this crisis was not sufficient to persuade Cuban Communists that they should voluntarily give up power, nor was the economic crisis grave enough to bring about the fall of the government.

This was a grave disappointment for the anti-Castro exiles, who in the early 1990s believed that their return to Cuba, and (as they hoped) to power, was imminent. By the later 1990s the situation in Cuba had stabilised. 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, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found a new ally in President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a major oil exporter. Nevertheless, the economic situation remained precarious, and Cuba’s ability to go on maintaining its elaborate system of state-provided health care and education from its own resources was doubted by many economists.

In other ways Castro was more isolated than ever. In the 1960s and ‘70s defenders of his government had been able to claim that although Cuba might not be a democracy, nor were most other countries in Latin America, and the Cuban model at least combined authoritarianism with social justice. On this argument, Castro compared well with such figures as Augusto Pinochet of Chile or the military rulers of Brazil and Argentina. By the turn of the century, however, critics say that this argument had lost its force, since every other country in Latin America had become a democracy (the only partial exception being Haiti), and many were electing moderate left-wingers such as Ricardo Lagos, Nestor Kirchner and Luis Inácio da Silva, who were promising social reform without the need for political repression. With the disappearance of the right-wing dictator as a feature of Latin American politics, Castro seemed to some as an increasingly anachronistic figure.

Government and politics

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Cuba is a socialist republic whose government is controlled by the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). The PCC leader, Fidel Castro, is both President of the Council of State (President of Cuba) and President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister of Cuba). The President of Cuba is chosen by the National Assembly, for a five-year term. There is no limit to the number of terms the President can serve, and Castro has been President since the adoption of the current Constitution in 1976.

The Cuban constitution states: "the Communist Party of Cuba... is the superior guiding force of society and the state." No other political parties are permitted. Although the Constitution offers guarantees of freedom of speech and assembly, these are effectively negated 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. Violations of this principle can be punished by law."

Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), has 609 members who serve five-year terms. All Cuban citizens aged over sixteen years and who have not been found guilty of a criminal offence can vote. Article 131 of the Constitution says that voting shall be "through free, equal and secret vote." Article 136 says: "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."

In practice, although the voting process itself is free, the process for nominating candidates for election to the National Assembly is controlled by the PCC and organisations affiliated to or controlled by it. As a result, at the National Assembly elections of January 2003, there was only one candidate in each of the 609 electoral districts. More than 70% of these were members of the PCC, and the remainder were non-party candidates approved by the PCC.

The Cuban government and its supporters maintain that Cuba is a democracy, because voters have the right to reject the single candidate on the ballot paper, and because if 50% of voters do so a new candidate must be nominated. The Cuba Solidarity Campaign, a group based in the United States, says: “Electoral candidates are not chosen by small committees of political parties… Instead the candidates are nominated individually by grass-roots organisations and by individual electors… The successful candidate is chosen by secret ballot. The Electoral Law of 1992 stipulates that delegates to the municipal and provincial assemblies and the 601 deputies to the National Assembly are all elected by popular suffrage using a secret ballot… Unlike the case in other states, which invariably criticize Cuba for being ‘undemocratic’, voter turn-out in Cuba is high. In April 2005, 97.7% of electors came out to vote for their deputies to the municipal assemblies.”

International human rights organisations and organisations which promote democracy and free elections reject this view. They argue that Cuba is not a democracy, because, they say

• • No party other than the PCC is allowed
  • No candidates other than those approved by the PCC can stand for election
  • The mass media are completely controlled by the PCC
  • It is not possible to publicly advocate the rejection of PCC-supported candidates

International human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch are regularly critical of the denial of political choice in Cuba. HRW noted in 2002: “The country's lack of democracy and intolerance of domestic dissent remained unique in the region.” Commenting on former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Cuba, HRW said: “Carter drew attention to some of the country’s most serious human rights problems. A one-party state, Cuba restricted nearly all avenues of political dissent… The government frequently silenced its critics by using short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, threats, surveillance, politically-motivated dismissals from employment, and other forms of harassment. Cuba’s legal and institutional structures were at the root of rights violations. The rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement, and the press were strictly limited under Cuban law.” .

Human rights

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Cuba is a one-party state dominated by the Communist Party of Cuba, in which the rights of the individual are subordinated to the interests of the state, which is in turn subordinate to the Communist Party . The government restricts freedom of speech, association, assembly, press, and movement. Cuba's constitution makes human rights subservient to the state's political aims. Article 62 states:

None of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to what is established in the Constitution and by law, or contrary to the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism. Violations of this principle can be punished by law.

From the age of 16 every citizen must carry an identity card. This includes a complete personal history, showing present and past addresses, work history, marital status, and number of children. Permission from the government is required to move to another home. Jobs are also subject to state control. Travel abroad is restricted, and almost impossible for workers in some fields (healthcare, schools, government) as well as for dissidents. Castro opposition leader Oswaldo Payá has been allowed to travel abroad to receive his Sakharov Prize, while independent journalist Yndamiro Restano, permitted to leave Cuba to receive an award, has not been allowed to return.

Organizations such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Women's Federation, the Young Pioneers, and various student organizations, coerce adults and youth into participating. Many of these organizations require their members to perform labor in the fields, to take up sentry duties, and to attend political meetings and rallies.

Cuba placed a moratorium on the use of capital punishment in 2001 but an exception was made after three years when, in 2003, three Cubans were executed for a ferry hijacking using automatic weapons in which Cuban families and two young French female tourists were held at gunpoint. The incident resulted in no injuries, but was broadcast on national television to wide condemnation; the decision to execute was allegedly taken in order to deter a supposed US plot to start a wave of hijackings.

In the years following the Communist takeover, the Roman Catholic Church suffered persecution. Not only did Castro severely limit its activities, but in 1961 he confiscated, without compensation, all property held by religious organizations. Hundreds of members of the clergy, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the country. Cuba was officially atheist until 1992 when the Communist Party agreed to allow religious followers to join the party. In 1998, Pope John Paul II visited the island and was allowed to conduct large outdoor masses. During his visit, the Pope asked Fidel Castro for more openness and religious tolerance. He also encouraged reconciliation and urged an end to the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba.

Main article Gay rights in Cuba. See also Socialism and sexual orientation

Article 303a of the Criminal Code punishes "Publicly Manifested Homosexuality" with up to three months and one year in prison, or a fine of 100 to 300 cuotas . In Havana private parties are raided by Cuban police, although the arrest will likely be justified for reasons other then homosexuality. The government does not tolerate gay and lesbian newspapers or organizations. The Cuban Association of Gays and Lesbians, formed in 1994, was suppressed in 1997 and its members were arrested.

External links on human rights and Cuba

• Amnesty International Report on Cuba (2005)
• The Facts Behind Cuba's Persecution of U.S. Agents
• "Gay Rights and Wrongs in Cuba" from the Gay and Lesbian Humanist
• Censorship in Cuba - International Freedom of Expression Exchange
• For constitutional rights: The Cuban Constitution

Culture

• Music of Cuba
• Present State of Cuban Literature
• Famous Cuban poetry and literature
• Cuban cinema
• Public holidays in Cuba

Cuban culture is much influenced by the fact that it is a melting pot of cultures, mostly from Spain and Africa. It has produced more than its fair share of literature, including the output of non-Cubans Stephen Crane, and Ernest Hemingway.

Present State of Cuban Literature

Cuban authors continue to produce large amounts of government-supported printed and electronic work inside the island . However, according to the US State Department's website, the present Cuban constitution states that all print and electronic media are inalienably state property" The Cuban government also funds a large number of booths at book fairs in Latin America. A good number of university presses in the United States continually present scholarly volumes on various Cuban topics. Authors both for and against the present Cuban government present their views in the U.S. Cuba/Printed sources.

Compendia of Cuban Literature

• García, Calixto 1973 El Negro en la Narrativa Cubana. PhD. Thesis. The City University of New York. UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Michigan This Calixto García Iñiguez, was grandson of Calixto Garcia and was very familiar with the political and ethnic scene of Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s especially in Oriente Province.
• Lazo, Rodrigo 2005 Writing to Cuba Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States. University of North Carolina Press, ISBN 0807855944

Cuban music

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 and mambo and a slower derivation of mambo, the cha-cha-cha. The Tres was also invented in Cuba, but other traditional Cuban instruments are of African and/or Neo-Taíno nations, multination indigenous origins such as the maracas, güiro, marímba and various wooden drums such as the mayohuacan (Zayas y Alfonso, 1914) Alfredo Zayas. 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 won international thanks to composers like Ernesto Lecuona.

Religion

Cuba has a multitude of faiths reflecting the island’s diverse cultural elements. Catholicism, which was brought to the island by Spanish colonialists at the beginning of the 16th century, is the most prevalent professed faith. The Roman Catholic Church is made up of the Cuban Catholic Bishops' Conference (COCC), led by Jaime Cardinal Ortega, Archbishop of Havana. It has eleven dioceses, 56 orders of nuns and 24 orders of priests. In January 1998, Pope John Paul II paid an 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. Catholicism is often practised in tandem with Santería, a mixture of Catholicism and other, mainly African, faiths that include a number of cult religions. Cuba’s patron saint, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Virgin of Cobre, Cuba's patron saint) is a syncretism with the Santería goddess Ochún. The important religious festival "Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre" (the Virgin of Cobre, Cuba's patron saint) is celebrated by Cubans annually on 8 September. 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 mid 18th century, has seen a steady increase in popularity. 300,000 Cubans belong to the nation’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. Cuba has small Jewish, Muslim and Bahá'í populations. Havana has three active synagogues and one mosque. Most Cuban Jews are descendants of Polish and Russian Jews who fled pogroms at the turn of the century. In the 1960s approximately 8,000 Jews left for Miami. During the 1990’s around 400 Cuban emigrated to Israel in a complex exodus with visas provided by countries sympathetic to their desire to move to Israel: France, Canada and Spain.

Society

Education

School attendance is compulsory from ages 6 to 16 and all students regardless of age and gender wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level. The curriculum in primary and secondary schools is based upon principles of hard work, self-discipline and love of country. Students are required to work in agriculture three times a week. At the end of basic secondary education, pupils can choose between pre-university education and technical and professional education.

All higher education and university education is public and available free of charge. The University of Havana, Cuba's oldest university, was founded in 1721; prior to 1959 there were other official universities including: Universidad de Oriente (founded in 1947) and Universidad Central de Las Villas (founded in 1857); private universities included: Universidad Católica de Santo Tomás de Villanueva (founded in 1946); Universidad Masónica, and the Universidad de la Salle in Nuevo Vedado. In 1961 private schools and universities were nationalized (without reimbursement).

Historically, Cuba has had some of the highest rates of education and literacy in Latin America, both before and after the revolution. Before the revolution its literary rate of 76% ranked fourth in the region (50 percent in rural areas). By 1995, and after a literacy campaign coordinated by the Cuban government, rates had risen to 96%. Alongside Argentina, this was the highest of the thirteen Latin American countries surveyed. A 1998 study by UNESCO reported that Cuban students showed a high level of educational achievement. Cuban third and fourth graders scored 350 points, 100 points above the regional average in tests of basic language and mathematics skills. The report indicated that the test achievement of the lower half of students in Cuba was significantly higher than the test achievement of the upper half of students in other Central and South American countries in the study group.

Public health

History

Cuban traditional medicine has existed since before the Spanish conquest; these high status practitioners were called Bohiques (e.g. Zayas, 1914). Chinese medicine was practiced in Cuba; the most famous was a 19th century doctor Cham Bom Biam “El Medico Chino” . Then it was said of those who were hopelessly terminal “no le salve ni el medico chino.” In Cuba, the Spanish tradition of medicine was inherited from the Moors, who had access to ancient Greek and Roman traditions rescued during the destruction of the ancient Egyptian Library of Alexandria. Dr Chanca of Seville was Columbus’s own doctor . This tradition continued in Cuba. Modern Western medicine has been practiced in Cuba by formally trained doctors since at least the beginning of the 19th Century Cuba has had world class doctors for centuries such as Carlos Finlay, who determined how yellow fever was spread. Under the direction of Walter Reed, James Carroll, and Aristides Agramonte during the 1898-1902 US presence in Cuba with much heroic sacrifice such as that of Clara Louise Maas and surgeon Jesse W. Lazear yellow fever was essentially eliminated. The massive Havana hospital, "Calixto Garcia" as well as 72 others were operating well before 1959. , However, like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care has suffered from severe material shortages following the end of Soviet subsidies. Support from the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez has alleviated some of those problems.

Present

Today, according to Cuban government statistics, Cuba has over 71,000 doctors , with 20,000 health workers in Venezuela, and 5,000 more spread around the world in over 60 additional countries, as it views such missions an important part of its foreign policy . They offer medical services to 85,154,748 people; 34,700,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean and 50,400,000 in Africa and Asia.

Cuba has sent doctors to underdeveloped nations and educated foreign doctors since the early 1960s. It dispatched physicians to help Nicaragua and Peru, then hostile to Cuba, recover from earthquakes.

Cuban doctors played a vital role in the health-care system of Sri Lanka in the 1980s, particularly in the war-torn North-east province, when a crisis in that country's education system limited the number of doctors coming out of universities.

Cuba has also given treatment on the island to more than 14,000 children and 4,000 adults damaged by radiation in Chernobyl, which is actually more than the rest of the world combined has done for the victims during that catastrophe.

During the UN's general assembly in 2000, Fidel Castro offered the United Nations 6,000 doctors for service in the third world.

"But one of Castro's most respected achievements is the establishment of a comprehensive health system producing one doctor for every 170 people, compared to 188 in the US and 250 in the UK. Teams of Cuban doctors assess applicants for eye surgery before sending patients to Havana on special flights from ten Caribbean countries and more than 15 Latin American nations. On August 20, Cuba achieved what is almost certainly a world record - performing 1,648 eye operations at 20 hospitals in a single day."

"Since July 25, more than 3,000 people from ten Caribbean countries have had eye operations in Cuba funded by oil-rich Venezuela. Other patients from Central and South America bring the total to 100,000 free eye operations this year."

Like a number of countries, Cuba has developed a hospital system for health tourists, taking advantage of a combination of low labor costs, an educated work force, and the ability of such tourists to pay in much desired hard currency for their care. It is not open to Cubans.

The country is now able to operate and provide services in all branches of ophthalmology to hundreds of thousands of patients. As part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA, an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas), Cuba promises that one hundred thousand Venezuelans will receive these services this year, and until July 2005, 25,024 patients from said country, and a similar number of Cubans will have been operated on . 15,000 citizens of the Caribbean community will receive this form of medical care between the second half of June 2005 and June 2006. Venezuela and Cuba have offered to provide another 100,000 Latin Americans with this service within the same period. Cuba has been able to reduce reported infant mortality to zero in certain remote rural areas..

The Cuban American National Foundation claims that Cuba masks the truth behind the Cuban health care system. They argue that real Cuban healthcare is abysmal and that what is shown to non-Cuban foreigners is a healthcare system unavailable to the average Cuban.

Demographics

According to the CIA's World Factbook, Cuba is 51% mulatto (mixed white and black), 37% white, 11% black, and 1% Chinese. Although this is not commonly accepted in the western areas of Cuba, DNA studies suggest that the contribution of indigenous neo-Taíno Nations to the general population is more significant than formally believed.

The Chinese population in Cuba derives mostly from laborers who arrived in the 19th century to build railroads and work in mines. Most stayed in Cuba, as they could not afford a return passage to China. Historical papers show that, while considered inferior to Cubans of European descent, they were considered superior to blacks due to their paler skin, and were considered more docile until their stubborn resistance in the Wars of Independence erased that notion e.g. (e.g. Jimenez Pastrana 1983 in Cuba/Printed sources).

In Cuba there is relatively little racial tension. Nevertheless, the sizeable Jamaican population in Santiago de Cuba is frequently stereotyped as lazy. Also, lighter skinned people often have more prestigious jobs (although in socialist Cuba this does not translate to a high difference in income). The melting pot is expressed not only in a racial sense, but also in religion (see below) and the music of Cuba. There is internal illegal immigration to Havana seeking greater opportunities; these internal illegals are known as "palestinos." Cuba also shelters a population of non-Cubans of unknown size. This population includes political refugees from the US e.g. Phillip Agee and foreign activists of various radical causes . In addition there are a several thousand number of North African teen and pre-teen refugees undergoing military training .

Cuba has a low birth rate. The fertility rate of 1.66 children per woman is the lowest of any country in the western hemisphere (tied with Canada and Barbados). A contributing cause is Cuba's policy of abortion on demand. Cuba has a high abortion rate of 77.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1996, 3rd highest in the world among 55 countries whose abortion rate was available to be compiled in a 1999 UN study. Selective termination of high-risk pregnancies is one factor contributing to the low official infant mortality rate in Cuba of 5.8 per thousand births. (State of the World's Children 2005) However, this high abortion rate and very low birth rate, reminiscent of former Communist Eastern Europe and Russia, threatens to cause the population to shrink significantly in the coming decades, although this has not happened yet due to relatively small numbers of elderly.

Immigration and emigration have had noticeable changes in the demographic profile of Cuba during the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1930 close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain. Cuba has historically been more heavily European than other Caribbean islands, and in 1950 was said to have a 75% white majority. Since 1959, over a million Cubans have left the island, primarily to Miami, Florida where a vocal, well educated and economically very successful anti-Castro community exists (Cuban-American lobby). The emigration that occurred immediately after the Cuban Revolution was primarily of the upper and middle classes that were predominantly white, thus contributing to a demographic shift along with changes in birth rates among the various ethnic groups. After the chaos that accompanied the Mariel boatlift, Cuba and the United States (commonly called the 1994 Clinton-Castro accords ) have agreed to limit emigration to the United States. Under this, the United States grants a specific number of visas to those wishing to emigrate (20,000 since 1994) while those Cubans picked up at sea trying to emigrate without a visa are returned to Cuba. However, U.S. law grants U.S. residency to any Cuban who arrives on U.S. soil without a visa, thus there is still an unofficial exodus ; these escapes are often daring and most ingenious e.g. . The number of Cubans who leave by sea is still about 2,000 a year but the trend is upward at present . In 2005 an additional 7,610 Cuban emigrants from Cuba entered through the "southern border in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30" “Unlike most countries, Cuba requires its citizens to obtain exit permits when leaving the country;” there are 533 Cubans with valid US visas not allowed to leave . Escapes from Cuba are once again enforced by lethal gunfire .

Provinces

Fourteen provinces and one special municipality (the Isla de la Juventud) now comprise 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

Geography

Geologically Cuba was once in the Pacific, and crossing between North and South America before they were joined, "crashed" into what is now Florida . Cuba, 65 million years ago, also received part of the impact of Chicxulub Crater with tsunami kilometers high reaching at least 500 kilometres (300 mi) away to the middle provinces , and beyond.

The Cayman Islands south of Cuba and not part of the country is built up by coral growing over a submerged western extension of the Sierra Maestra is north on the Cuban side of the Deep of Bartlett (Cayman Trough) and Jamaica an independent state is on the Caribbean plate is on the other side of this great "trench" south of seismically active eastern Cuba .

The elongated island (approx. 760 miles or 1,220 km long) of Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and is bounded to the north by the Straits of Florida and the greater North Atlantic Ocean, to the northwest by the Gulf of Mexico, to the west by the Yucatan Channel, to the south by the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Windward Passage. The Republic comprises the entire island, including many outlying islands such as the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), previously known as the Isla de los Pinos (Isle of Pines). The Cayman Islands mainly coral reefs covering submerged ice age peaks of the Sierra Maestra range ) and Jamaica which is geologically related to Central America are south of eastern Cuba. Guantánamo Bay, is a naval base that has been leased by the United States since 1903, a lease that has been contested since 1960 by Castro.

The main island is the world's 16th largest. The island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains, with more rugged hills and mountains primarily in the southeast and the highest point is the Pico Real del Turquino at 2,005 metres (6,578 ft). 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.

Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Some of the well-known smaller towns are Baracoa which was the first Spanish settlement on Cuba, as well as Trinidad and Bayamo.

• Rojas-Consuegra, R., M. A. Iturralde-Vinent, C. Díaz-Otero y D. García-Delgado (2005). "Significación paleogeográfica de la brecha basal del Límite K/T en Loma Dos Hermanas (Loma Capiro), en Santa Clara, provincia de Villa Clara. I Convención Cubana de Ciencias de la Tierra". GEOCIENCIAS. 8 (6): 1–9. ISBN 959-7117-03-7.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Economy

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Cuba remains one of the world's last Soviet-style command economies. The industrial and services sectors are almost entirely dominated by the state, and the vast majority of the labor force is under the regime's firm political control.

Cuba produces few exports to balance its trade accounts. Despite the Cuban Revolution's rhetoric of economic nationalism and self-reliance, Cuba is chronically dependent on foreign credit accounts, and imports of food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Once one of the world's leading exporters of sugar, Cuba has become a net importer, given the lack of investment. Exports include nickel and cigars.

In the early 1990s, the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe meant the end of massive Soviet subsidies for Cuba's inefficient state-run economy. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba depended on Moscow for sheltered markets for its exports and generous aid. The Soviets had been paying above-market prices for Cuban sugar, while providing Cuba with petroleum at below-market prices. With the end of Soviet support, Cuban living standards began deteriorating at a far faster pace.

Like other Communist and post-Communist states following the collpase of the Soviet Union, Cuba attempted limited market-oriented reforms to alleviate severe shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. The reforms occurred at a much slower pace than China's reforms under Deng Xiaoping, and did not go beyond experiments in allowing self-employment in some retail and light manufacturing sectors, the legalization of the use of the U.S. dollar in business, and the encouragement of tourism from Western countries.

In recent years, since the rise of Venezuela's pro-Castro President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan economic aid has enabled Cuba to retreat on market reforms for the time being. Since Venezuela has begun to support the Cuban economy-- mostly through its supply of up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day on generous credit terms-- Cuba has rolled back limited market reforms undertaken in the 1990s. In 2004-2005 Cuba strengthened its controls over dollars coming into the economy from tourism. The state has also been restricting donations from and Cuban-American families seeking to support their impoverished relatives and friends. In the late 1990s Cubans had been receiving hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars annually from Cubans in the U.S. sending cash to the island. Today, these donations are reportedly often confiscated by state security.

Despite Venezuelan assistance and external financing from trading partners such as China, the average Cuban's standard of living remains at a lower level than before the downturn of the post-Soviet period. State salaries continue to fail to meet personal needs under a state rationing system chronically plagued with shortages. As the variety and amount of rationed goods available declines, Cubans increasingly turn to the black market to obtain basic food, clothing, household, and heath amenities. In addition, pretty corruption in state industries, such as the pilferage of state assets to sell on the black market, is common.

Little independent data on the economy are available. Outside observers do not consider Cuba's official state estimates of GDP and other economic indicators reliable. Hence, the black market value of the Cuban peso tends to be considered a better indicator of the real value of the peso than the official conversion rate of the peso set by the government.

See also

Template:Topics related to Cuba

Scouting in Cuba

External links

Caribbean portal

Official

• Granma — Communist Party of Cuba Newspaper (in English)
• Republic of Cuba — (in English)
• List of members of the Council of State
• Prensa Latina — Cuban World News (in English)
• Cuban News Agency — Cuban News (in English)
• Trabajadores — Newspaper of the Cuban trade union movement (in English)

General

• Cuban Constitution in English
• Cuba Holiday Advice - Cuba holiday advice and reviews
• Cuban Constitution in Spanish
• Caribbean Net News - (Daily Caribbean news -- Cuba.)
• U.S.-Cuban Relations: An Analytic Compendium of U.S. Policies, Laws & Regulations - Occasional Paper (March 2005) by Dianne E. Rennack and Mark P. Sullivan from the Atlantic Council of the US.
• Information about Cuba — Culture, history, demography, geography, religion, etc.
• The Real Cuba website - a website with pictures from Cuba with commentary
• Center for Cuban Business Studies — The Cuba Center at Ohio Northern University
• Cuba Solidarity — British campaign "for the defence of Cuba and its peoples' right to self-determination and national sovereignty." - favors current government
• Trinidad & Tobago Cuba Solidarity — a campaigning group, based in Trinidad and Tobago, that supports Cuba and the Cuban Revolution.
• Cuba Maps — Maps of all the provinces of Cuba, and maps of the major cities.
• CUBANET — An anti-Castro site including news articles from Cuba's independent journalists and a digest of Cuban news by international newspapers
• Encuentro en la Red — Independent news and cultural site on Cuban matters
• Discover Cuba through a collection of old Photos & Vintage Postcards.
• Photos of people and Sights
• Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports regarding Cuba
• Cuba Pictures Photos from all 14 Cuban provinces, plus the city of Havana
• Paseos por La Habana Havana guide (in Spanish) and travel information. Details of culture, history, traditions, routes, hotels, restaurants and bars.
• Cuba Cultura A database (in Spanish) of Cuban History, Culture and Architecture from the Pre-Columbian to the Special Period.
• Travel Advisories for Cuba Updated section on travel dangers.
• Link guide to Cuba. Discover Cuba through a collection of sorted links.
• Cuba AIDS Project HIV and AIDS in Cuba
• Cuba Linda French site
• Spain and the Spaniard A contemporary opinion of the Cuban uprising
• UN HDI — Human Development Index for Cuba from UN
• IFEX — Freedom of expression in Cuba from IFEX
• The Electoral process in Cuba — Democracy in Cuba
• Cuba's Political and electoral system
• U.S. Department of State — Cuba, from the U.S. government's point of view
• U.S. Treasury - Office of Foreign Assets Control - Cuba Sanctions An overview of the Cuban Assets Control Regulations Title 31 Part 515 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations
• The Infoportal of Cuba Information in English, French and German
• The Cuban Constitution
• Allinson, Sidney. Military History Undercover: Ernest Hemingway
• Essay by director of film Bye Bye Havana A detailed look at life in Cuba from street interviews in 2004
• CubaSolidarity.com Website of the (U.S.) National Network on Cuba; news, speeches, travel info, events, and exhaustive list of Cuban websites
• Salsa in Cuba
• Cuba holiday advice and reviews
• Cuba Inside Out history, currents, commentary, resources
• Cuba Flags A historical insight into the flag and emblems of Cuba
• Rock Around the Blockade a group based in Britain offering material and political solidarity to the Cuban revolution. Website includes regularly updated news and analysis.
• The Cuba Page a Cuba metadirectory

Printed sources

• Cuba/Printed sources

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