{"id":10397,"date":"2025-09-03T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=10397"},"modified":"2026-08-23T20:40:06","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:40:06","slug":"remembering-fidel-castro-a-hero-of-the-worlds-oppressed-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/sdgs-2\/goal10\/remembering-fidel-castro-a-hero-of-the-worlds-oppressed-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Fidel Castro, a Hero of the World\u2019s Oppressed People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Anis Chowdhury<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

SYDNEY (IPS)\u00a0<\/strong>– The 13th of August marked the 100th birthday of Cuba\u2019s revolutionary leader Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz \u2013 in short Fidel Castro. Amidst an intensified US siege and the threat of invasion, Cubans commemorated their dear leader\u2019s centenary birth anniversary with events that included an International Book Fair, art exhibitions, concerts and gatherings of delegates from left-wing organisations across the continent.\uff5cJAPANESE<\/a>\uff5c<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anis ChowdhuryCuba has withstood more than 6 decades of an illegal US economic blockade \u2013 i.e., not authorised by the United Nations Security Council \u2013 since its revolution in 1959. It defeated the CIA-backed military invasion (the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion<\/a>) by the Cubans who fled to the US after the Revolution. Castro survived CIA\u2019s 638 assassination attempts<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wayne Smith, a US diplomat with a long experience in Cuba, believes Fidel Castro will be remembered because \u201che stood up to the United States and survived<\/a>\u201d. When Castro died in 2016, the leading US news media CBS carried an opinion piece, entitled, \u201cHow Fidel Castro stood up to the U.S., and won<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The illegal blockade of Cuba contributes to shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and essential supplies, increasing the cost of everyday life for the Cuban people. However, when Castro welcomed Pope John Paul II in 1998 and let the pictures do the talking, the world saw Cuba surviving in spite of the US trade embargo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro\u2019s legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro\u2019s legacy was best summarised by Ken Livingstone, former mayor of London. In 2006, during his visit to Cuba, Livingstone said<\/a>, \u201cWhat\u2019s amazing here is you\u2019ve got a country that\u2019s suffered an illegal economic blockade by the United States for almost half a century and yet it\u2019s been able to give its people the best standard of health care, brilliant education\u2026 to do this in the teeth of an almost economic war is a tribute to Fidel Castro\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, Cuba attained high human development measured by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)\u2019s Human Development Index (HDI). In comparison with the world average of 0.746 based on 185 countries, Cuba\u2019s HDI was 0.762 in 2023. In 1994, Cuba\u2019s HDI reached 0.887. Underlying the above global average HDI is a high adult literacy rate of nearly 100% and a high life expectancy of approximately 78.1 years at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the results of free health care and free education for all, considered a right. Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors to patients in the world, at 9.8 per 1,000 people<\/a> (2021), which was 0.9 in 1960. Its infant mortality of 3.86 per 1,000 live births<\/a> is one of the lowest in the world. At the William Soler Paediatric Hospital in Havana, more than 90% of the new-borns<\/a> who needed neonatal surgery survived their procedures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaria, polio, tetanus, and measles have been eradicated in Cuba due to years of investment in primary care and assiduous attention to the population\u2019s health. Cuba\u2019s long-standing commitment to health has led to a successful COVID-19 pandemic response<\/a>. Cuba spends a larger proportion of its gross domestic product on education than any other country in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the recent tightening of the unilateral illegal blockade by the Trump administration is inflicting heavy costs and reversing Cuba\u2019s unique development gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A true internationalist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro was a true internationalist leader of the proletariat and stood by freedom fighters, especially in Africa. At a rally of approximately 1 million Cubans in 1962, Fidel Castro presented the Second Declaration of Havana, a call to revolutionary action to anti-imperialist and working-class fighters internationally. Castro often reiterated, the Cuban people\u2019s internationalist aid to liberation struggles was \u201cpaying our debt to humanity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro sent his first batch of military support to Algerian President Ben Bellah in 1963. Castro\u2019s Cuba trained the revolutionaries in Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Cape Verde and fought with them against the colonial rule. Castro branded apartheid<\/a> \u201ca creation of Western capitalism and imperialism\u201d, and his Cuba helped bring down the system of apartheid in South Africa by providing resources and training to African National Congress (ANC) fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the hardship illegally imposed on it by the US, Cuba always stood by the world\u2019s oppressed and hapless people. In 1960, Cuba joined the relief effort after the Chilean earthquake. In 1963, it sent health-care workers to assist the newly independent state of Algeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro\u2019s Cuba has been despatching cadres of health-care professionals all over the world to combat disasters and epidemics<\/a>. Cuban doctors were on the scene in Haiti during the cholera outbreak that followed the 2010 earthquake; they arrived in west Africa during the 2013\u201316 Ebola crisis. And when COVID-19 spread to Europe, two Cuban health professional teams landed in Italy. By the end of April, 2020, more than 1000 Cuban health-care workers were helping foreign countries respond to COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro conceptualised and implemented an inclusive model of healthcare that brought doctors to the people. He extended Cuban medical aid to other countries, demonstrating the essentially internationalist and human nature of the Cuban Revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clare Wenham, assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science observed<\/a>, \u201cThe international health programme is about solidarity; Cuba believes that healthy populations are the bedrock of global society and they want to support that any way they can\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandela and Castro<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like many revolutionaries and freedom fighters in the Global South, Nelson Mandela was inspired by the Cuban Revolution\u2019s triumph in 1959. Charged with the task of starting a guerrilla army in 1961, Mandela looked to the writings<\/a> of Cuban Communists for guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandela visited Cuba in 1991 to express his gratitude to Castro, calling<\/a> Castro\u2019s Revolution \u201ca source of inspiration to all freedom-loving people\u201d. Mandela further added<\/a>, \u201cWe admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of a vicious, imperialist-orchestrated campaign. We, too, want to control our own destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a public event in Havana, Mandela asked Castro to visit South Africa. Referring to Castro, Mandela asked<\/a>, \u201cWho trained our people, who gave us resources, who helped so many of our soldiers, our doctors? \u2026 \u201cYou have not come to our country \u2013 when are you coming?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Castro attended Mandela\u2019s presidential inauguration in May 1994. Barbara Masekela, South Africa\u2019s former ambassador to the US and who accompanied Mandela to Cuba in 1991, said Mandela\u2019s friendship with Castro had been \u201cborn in the trenches of the freedom struggle\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A true friend of the oppressed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norberto Fuentes, a writer once close to Castro and now living in exile, believes<\/a> the Cuban leader\u2019s relevance is as \u201cthe spokesman for silence, for the man who has no army, no Congress, no face. The man who has nothing\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands of Cuban internationalists contributed to decisive battles for independence of African countries, while fostering cooperation in the fields of health, education, and training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite hardships due to the US\u2019s illegal blockade, Castro\u2019s Cuba has remained a shining example of internationalism and holds a special place in the history of people\u2019s struggles against imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anis Chowdhury<\/strong>, Emeritus Professor, Western Sydney University (Australia). He held senior UN positions in Bangkok and New York and served as Special Assistant to the Chief Advisor for Finance (with the status and rank of State Minister) in the Professor Yunus-led Interim Government. E-mail: anis.z.chowdhury@gmail.com<\/a>; a.chowdhury@westernsydney.edu.au<\/a><\/em><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
IPS UN Bureau<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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