Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz (Birán, Holguín, Cuba, June 3, 1931) is a Cuban military officer and politician, the younger brother and collaborator of Fidel Castro. He has been the President of the Council of State of Cuba, and therefore the President of Cuba, since February 24, 2008, although he held the position temporarily since July 31, 2006. He also holds the military rank of Army General. Since April 2011, he has been the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, succeeding his brother Fidel in this role.
Son of the Lucense citizen Ángel Castro Argiz, he is the youngest of the three Castro brothers. Like Fidel, Raúl later attended the Jesuit School of Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, and the Belén School in Havana. The brothers were actively involved in student protests. Raúl was a committed communist and joined the Socialist Youth, affiliated with the Cuban Communist Party, which at the time was called the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), with a Soviet orientation.
Cuban Revolution (1953-59)
Raúl Castro, on the left, with Che Guevara in 1958.
Alongside his brother, he was one of the members of the 26th of July Movement, which carried out the assault on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, in the city of Santiago de Cuba. During the attack, he was tasked with supporting the actions from the rooftop of the Courthouse in that city, a mission he successfully completed. He was later arrested after the events and sentenced to 13 years in prison. After being amnestied, he went into exile in Mexico, where he participated in the preparations for the expedition of the Granma yacht, which would land in Cuba in December 1956 after a long journey.
He met Che Guevara in Mexico City and introduced him to Fidel's revolutionary circle. Raúl also contacted KGB agent Nikolai Leonov, whom he had met during his travels through Eastern Bloc nations. This relationship would persist until the Castro brothers took power in Cuba.
As a fighter of the Rebel Army, he participated in the Sierra Maestra campaign. On February 27, 1958, he was appointed commander and tasked with crossing the former province of Oriente, leading a column of guerrillas, to open the Eastern Second Front "Frank País" (in honor of a leader of the underground movement who was murdered by Batista's forces in the city of Santiago de Cuba) to the northeast. On that front, Raúl organized and structured a proper government in the liberated territories, even creating the Rebel Air Force and the first intelligence and police institutions of the revolutionaries, in addition to departments for health, education, and so on.
Post-Revolutionary Period (1959-2006)
In 1961, he became part of the National Directorate of Integrated Revolutionary Organizations. Following Che Guevara's departure, he became the second political figure in the government. He participated in the leadership of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution (PURS) in 1963. He was responsible for the investigation, denunciation, and prosecution of the members of the so-called "micro-faction" within the Communist Party. From 1980 onwards, he took on supervisory roles alongside his brother in the Ministries of Defense, Interior, Culture, and Public Health.
Interim government (2006-2008)
Raúl Castro alongside the former president of Brazil, Lula.
The constitutional successor to Fidel Castro, on July 31, 2006, his secretary, Carlos Valenciaga, announced that Raúl would temporarily assume the presidency of the Council of State, the secretariat of the PCC, and the position of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces while his brother recovered from intestinal surgery.
During the time Raúl temporarily guided Cuba's affairs, there were noticeable slight increases in the economy, along with the mass debate he himself incited about the nation's problems, which led to public expressions from the population starting on July 26, 2007.
In these debates, over 5 million proposals from citizens were made, serving as a foundation for solving the problems that hinder the development of Cuban society.
Government (since 2008)
On February 24, 2008, he was elected President of the Council of State of Cuba by the Deputies of the National Assembly of People's Power, thus succeeding his brother Fidel Castro in the presidency of Cuba, who had resigned a few days earlier via an open letter.
New measures and changes in Cuban policy
..."In December, I spoke about the excessive number of prohibitions and regulations, and in the coming weeks we will begin to eliminate the simplest ones. Many of them had the sole purpose of preventing the emergence of new inequalities during a time of widespread scarcity, even at the cost of forgoing certain revenues." Raúl Castro Ruz, February 24, 2008
In line with what was expressed in February 2008, Raúl Castro began to lift various legal barriers that limited the people, such as free access to hotels and car rentals or allowing the unrestricted sale of cell phones. In his inaugural session, he requested the National Assembly of People's Power to extend the deadline until the end of 2008 for the restructuring of the Government, which occurred in March 2009 with the merging of several ministries and the replacement of nearly half of the ministers, including the notable Carlos Lage Dávila and Felipe Pérez Roque.
Between September and November 2008, Cuba was hit by hurricanes Gustav, Ike, and Paloma, which caused over ten billion in economic losses. The hurricanes dealt a severe blow to the Cuban economy, being labeled as the worst natural disaster in its history. This resulted in food shortages nationwide and the implementation of strict controls against any attempts at hoarding or speculating on goods and food
Since September 2008, the Cuban government decided to grant farmers usufruct rights to idle land. By December 2009, 920,000 hectares of land had been granted, in a process not free from difficulties and delays
In January 2009, the Social Security Law was amended, raising the retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men. This year, the salary cap has also been eliminated, multiple employment has been authorized, and performance-based pay has been reinstated.
Since October 2009, the workers' canteens, another of the country's subsidies, have been closing down, and in exchange, workers were given an additional 15 pesos a day for their lunch or snack.
In the same year, 2009, the Castro government allowed Cubans to access the Internet in the country's post offices, although some technical issues have arisen due to the U.S. embargo, which hinders high-speed connections. This situation was expected to improve with the completion of a submarine cable between Venezuela and the island in 2011
On October 10, 2009, Lázaro Barredo, director of the Granma newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, announced that the ration book would be eliminated and food assistance would be granted only to pensioners and people with low incomes.
At the end of October 2010, the Cuban government allowed the operation of 178 private activities, aiming to transition 1 million workers from bureaucratic jobs to productive ones, both public and private, within a period of three to five years.
In April 2011, he was elected as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba at the VI Congress, where economic reforms were established to adapt the system to new economic developments and the global and national crisis.
On February 24, 2013, the National Assembly of People's Power re-elected Raúl Castro as president of the Council of State.
International relations
Raúl Castro and Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2009.
From the early moments of his provisional government, Raúl Castro began reviewing relations with nations such as Mexico and Russia, and there was also a noticeable strengthening of ties with China.
In his speech on December 2, 2006, Raúl Castro, then provisional president of Cuba, announced that the Cuban government was willing to begin negotiations with the United States in order to end the diplomatic limitations between the two nations, marking a definitive blow to the policy of rejecting everything American. The only condition set by the Cuban government is that the U.S. does not impose any conditions for initiating such dialogue.
In a recent interview with American actor Sean Penn, he expressed that he was open to a dialogue with the elected president Barack Obama, and that such an interview could take place even on the territory of the Guantanamo Naval Base.
In December 2008, Raúl Castro undertook an important international tour that included Venezuela and Brazil. The highlight of his trip was his participation in the First Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean, held in the city of Salvador de Bahia. The context of this summit facilitated Cuba's entry into the Rio Group.
On February 24, 2013, the National Assembly of the People's Power re-elected Raúl Castro as president of the Council of State
On December 17, 2014, he announced, alongside his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama, the restoration of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Republic of Cuba.
On April 19, 2018, Miguel Díaz-Canel was elected president by the IX Legislature of the National Assembly of Cuba for the 2018-2023 term. As a result, he ceased his role as President of the Council of State but retained his position as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Family
Raúl was married to Vilma Espín from the beginning of the Cuban Revolution until her passing (June 18, 2007). He has four children from this marriage: Deborah, Mariela, Nilsa, and Alejandro.
