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The end of an era in Cuba - EDITORIAL

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23 April 2018 12:06 am - 0     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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n April 19, President Raul Castro stepped down from his position as President of Cuba. The National Assembly swore in Diaz-Canel, the 57-year-old vice president as President of Cuba. It marked a generational shift. For the first time since Marxist revolutionaries seized power in the island nation, the country will be led by a person who did not participate in the 1959 revolution and whose name is not Castro.  
On  January 1, 1959 Fidel Castro together with his brother Raul, Che Guevara (Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna) and fellow revolutionaries with mass support from the Cuban people overthrew the regime of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.  
It was a time when illiteracy was Rampant in Cuba. Before the 1959 revolution, the country had a  literacy rate as low as 60%. A time when most of the sugar industry (Cuba’s main export) was in US’ hands and foreigners owned 70% of the arable land on the island.  


A study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 titled “Poverty in Paradise: Implications of Poverty in Cuba” revealed over 50% of the population had no toilets. 85% had no running water. Over 25% of the labour force had no employment, 75% of rural housing consisted of huts made of palm fronds. 27% of the children in the urban areas did not attend school, 91% of Cubans did not have electricity. And in rural areas, there was one doctor per 2,000 population!  
It was during this desperate backdrop the revolutionaries led by Castro seized power.  
Today, after nearly 60 years since the revolution, it is almost impossible to visualise Cuba without a Castro at the helm.  
But time and age take their toll, in 2008 Fidel Castro the architect of the Cuban revolution stepped down from the presidency, and two years later he died.   


Raul Castro was formally named Fidel’s successor in 2008 when Fidel Castro stepped down from the presidency. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Raul was appointed as head of the armed forces. He also served as the first vice president of the Council of the State and the Council of Ministers.   
In the decades that followed, he also served as Cuba’s defence minister and deputy Prime Minister.   
Che Guevara who played a key role in Castro’s seizure of power from Cuban dictator Batista in 1959, later served as Castro’s right-hand figure and Minister of Industry.   
In 1965, Che Guevara resigned from his ministerial post and subsequently moved into Bolivia to continue his battle against US imperialism in Latin America. On October 8, 1967, Che Guevara was injured in a battle against the US-backed Bolivian Army. He was murdered the following day, October 9, 1967.   


On April 19, Raul Castro stepped down from his position as President of Cuba.   
The National Assembly swore in Diaz-Canel, the 57-year old vice president as president, marking a generational shift and the first time a person who did not participate in the 1959 revolution will be leading that country.   
A new era has dawned in Cuba; vastly different from that of January 1, 1959, a time described by Arthur Miller “as hopelessly corrupt, a Mafia playground, a bordello for Americans and other foreigners.”   


Today Cuba boasts of one of the best education systems in the world. The country which had only one doctor per 2000 population, today sends volunteer doctors to different parts of the world. During the recent Ebola crisis which hit the African countries, Cuban doctors were in the forefront of combating the disease, which had reached near pandemic proportions. Cuba’s literacy rate is on par with the most developed countries in the world. Also homelessness was a nightmare of the past.  
It is now up to the new generation of Cuban leaders to take forward the victories of the revolution.     


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