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Before the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, Cuba was inhabited by native American people known as the Taíno, also called Arawak by the Spanish, and Guanajatabey and Ciboney people, hunters and gatheres of roots and wild fruits. These were the people Columbus encountered when he set foot on Cuba, the country he claimed was "the most beautiful land human eyes have ever seen."
Columbus thought he had discovered the Asian East Indies, rich in gold and treasures. However, he found no gold. Instead, the Spanish found tobacco. In return the Spanish brought sugar cane, African slaves and disease. The disease almost wiped out the native inhabitants, the sugar cane made Cuba rich.
By the 1820s Cuba was the world's largest sugar producer. With Mexico and all of mainland South America gaining independence from Spain, Cuba remained a colony until the Spanish-American War of 1898. This because the US prevented Cuba´s liberation, preferring a weak Spanish ruler to a strong Latin American liberation front.
In 1846 the US wanted to buy Cuba, offering 100 million USD. Eight year later they increased their offer to 120 million USD. But again the Spain refused. The October 10, 1868 Carlos Manuel de Céspedes (Father of the Homeland) decides to give freedom to his slaves and to start an armed uprising, which intermittently and in very different contexts, lasted for nearly a century. It is when the Cuban got rebellious. It was also when the US saw the time right to enter into the Spanish-American war. With their economic and military power and its interventionist experience the US won the war, occupied La Habana, built a base at Guantánamo Bay (which is still there), created a kind of neo-colony and did not leave until the constitution had been re-written under their supervision to allow US military intervention. Notwithstanding their military withdrawal in 1902, the US maintained effective political and economic control over Cuba; two-thirds of Cuban farmland was American owned and whenever the US considered it opportune, they sent in the marines.
During the subsequent years Cuba´s fragile democracy became increasingly threatened by radical politics, and while the Cuban Constitution of 1940 sought to strengthen the democratic system - with Batista as elected president - , in 1952 that same man brought Cuba under a harsh dictatorship as president de facto.
In 1959 Fidel Castro and his revolutionary army, with Che Guevara, overturned the Batista Government, establishing a socialist state. Fidel Castro first steps were the introduction of new political rules aimed at the benefit of the people, agricultural reform and literacy. This worried the US which seeing they were losing their earlier control, tried to smother the economy of the island refusing to refine oil in Cuban soil, using their authority over private American companies, owners of all existing refineries in Cuba. The response was immediate, Fidel Castro nationalized all US companies and this triggered a conflict that began with the rupture of all diplomatic relations and an economic and financial blockade, extending until today. Cuba, in need of another economic partner, turned to the Soviet Union for help.
In 1961, the CIA, as part of its large-scale operation "Mongoose" organized an invasion. This "Bay of Pigs", named after the landing site located in the Playa Girón, Matanzas was a complete fiasco; after 72 hours all invaders had been killed or captured and the US involvement had been revealed. Within a month the US proclaimed a full trade embargo and Cuba responded by allowing the Soviet Union to install missiles capable of hitting targets in the USA. The confrontation escalated to a nearly nuclear war, before Kennedy and Khrushchev reached a settlement.
According to the party-line opinion it was the US position that pushed Cuba towards communism. By 1965, Cuba had developed into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.
However, in 1989 the Soviet era came to an end and Cuba lost its main trading partner and foreign aid, as a result of which Cuba entered into a severe economic recession. A 'Special Period in Time of Peace' was declared. The Communist Party attributes its difficulties to the US embargo in place since 1961 (rather than the withdrawal of Soviet financial support).
One of the solutions to this crisis was Castro's decision to allow a limited number of of non-state or private small business - including those in private homes with rooms authorization for foreign income. (and thus staying in a casa particular is 100% legal and what is more, you will be supporting the owners economic activitiy at the same time - and allow farmers to sell surpluses in private markets. On the other hand, the governement opened, with some restrictions, the doors to foreign funding, allowing them to invest in tourism and even in part of the state-owned telephony and communications.
But it is Cuba’s bilateral relationship with Venezuela that has helped to keep the Cuban economy afloat. What started as an exchange of Venezuelan oil for Cuban goods and services has since become Cuban export compensated in hard currency. Since then Cuba´s economic position has also been strengthened by trade agreements with China, foreign investment from Mexico, Canada en Europe and recent credit agreements with Russia.
These economic developments have allowed the Cuban government to eliminate many of the earlier open market and thus to reassert government control but at the same time legalizing self-employment for a wider range of occupations.
With Raúl Castro, Fidel´s younger brother, being elected as Cuba´s new president, the Cuban people had high hopes that Cuba was on the brink of real reforms. One of the first measures Raúl took following his election was the lifting of restrictions on Cubans owning TVs, DVD players, computers, and other electrical appliances, followed by the abolition of the egalitarian wage system - allowing hard-working employees to earn a better salary - , the grant of land for private farming and the right for Cubans to enter and stay in so-called tourist restaurants and hotels with foreigners. However, during a speech he made in 2008, he dashed hopes for further reforms by saying Cuba would have to tighten its belt adding that economic reforms are to strengthen socialism, not to replace it.
Nowadays in theory there is freedom to travel abroad, but only from a symbolic point of view, as the Cubans do not have the financial means to do so. Internet access remains limited, especially because of the infrastructure and investment issues. Living standards for the average Cuban, without access to foreign curency, remain at a depressed level compared with 1990. Growth, apart from being small, does not reach all Cuban equally as the need for economic loosening has - again - yielded to firm political control. |
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