 |
Cuba
| Republic of Cuba National
name: República de Cuba President:
Raúl Castro (2008)
Current government officials
Total area: 42,803 sq mi (110,860 sq
km) Population (2007 est.): 11,416,987
(growth rate: 0.3%); birth rate: 11.7/1000; infant mortality rate:
6.1/1000; life expectancy: 77.6; density per sq mi: 267
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Havana, 2,686,000 (metro. area), 2,343,700 (city
proper) Other large cities:
Santiago de Cuba, 554,400; Camagüey, 354,400; Holguin, 319,300;
Guantánamo, 274,300; Santa Clara, 251,800 Monetary unit: Cuban Peso
Language:
Spanish
Ethnicity/race:
mulatto 51%, white 37%, black 11%, Chinese
1%
Religions:
predominantly Roman Catholic and Santería
(Afro-Cuban syncretic religion) Literacy rate: 97% (2003 est.) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2006 est.):
$45.51 billion; per capita $4,000 . Real growth rate: 9.5%.
Inflation: 5%. Unemployment: 1.9%. Arable land:
33%. Agriculture: sugar, tobacco, citrus, coffee, rice,
potatoes, beans; livestock. Labor force: 4.82 million; note:
state sector 78%, non-state sector 22% (2006 est.); agriculture 20%,
industry 19.4%, services 60.6% (2006). Industries: sugar,
petroleum, tobacco, construction, nickel, steel, cement, agricultural
machinery, pharmaceuticals. Natural resources: cobalt, nickel,
iron ore, copper, manganese, salt, timber, silica, petroleum, arable
land. Exports: $2.956 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): sugar,
nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus, coffee.
Imports: $9.51 billion f.o.b. (2006 est.): petroleum, food,
machinery and equipment, chemicals. Major trading partners:
Netherlands, Canada, China, Russia, Spain, Venezuela, U.S., Italy,
Mexico (2004). Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: 849,900 (2005); mobile cellular:
134,500 (2005). Radio broadcast stations: AM 169, FM 55,
shortwave 1 (1998). Television broadcast stations: 58 (1997). .
Internet hosts: 2,234 (2006). Internet users: 190,000
note: private citizens are prohibited from buying computers or
accessing the Internet without special authorization; foreigners may
access the Internet in large hotels but are subject to firewalls; some
Cubans buy illegal passwords on the black market or take advantage of
public outlets to access limited email and the government-controlled
"intranet" (2005). Transportation:
Railways: total: 4,226 km; in addition, 7,742 km of track is in
private use by sugar plantations (2004). Highways: total:
60,858 km; paved: 29,820 km (including 638 km of expressway); unpaved:
31,038 km (1999 est.). Waterways: 240 km (2004). Ports and
harbors: Cienfuegos, Cienfuegos, Havana, Matanza. Airports:
170 (2006 est.). International
disputes: US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay is leased to US and only
mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the
lease.
Major sources and definitions
|
|
Geography
The largest island of the West Indies group (equal in area to
Pennsylvania), Cuba is also the westernmost—just west of Hispaniola (Haiti
and the Dominican Republic), and 90 mi (145 km) south of Key West, Fla.,
at the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. The island is mountainous in the
southeast and south-central area (Sierra Maestra). It is flat or rolling
elsewhere. Cuba also includes numerous smaller islands, islets, and
cays.
Government
Communist state.
History
Arawak (or Taino) Indians inhabiting Cuba when Columbus landed on the
island in 1492 died from diseases brought by sailors and settlers. By
1511, Spaniards under Diego Velásquez had established settlements.
Havana's superb harbor made it a common transit point to and from
Spain.
In the early 1800s, Cuba's sugarcane industry boomed, requiring massive
numbers of black slaves. A simmering independence movement turned into
open warfare from 1867 to 1878. Slavery was abolished in 1886. In 1895,
the poet José Marti led the struggle that finally ended Spanish rule,
thanks largely to U.S. intervention in 1898 after the sinking of the
battleship Maine in Havana harbor.
An 1899 treaty made Cuba an independent republic under U.S. protection.
The U.S. occupation, which ended in 1902, suppressed yellow fever and
brought large American investments. The 1901 Platt Amendment allowed the
U.S. to intervene in Cuba's affairs, which it did four times from 1906 to
1920. Cuba terminated the amendment in 1934.
In 1933 a group of army officers, including army sergeant Fulgencio
Batista, overthrew President Gerardo Machado. Batista became president in
1940, running a corrupt police state.
In 1956, Fidel Castro Ruz launched a revolution from his camp in the
Sierra Maestra mountains. Castro's brother Raul and Ernesto (Ché) Guevara,
an Argentine physician, were his top lieutenants. Many anti-Batista
landowners supported the rebels. The U.S. ended military aid to Cuba in
1958, and on New Year's Day 1959, Batista fled into exile and Castro took
over the government.
The U.S. initially welcomed what looked like a democratic Cuba, but a
rude awakening came within a few months when Castro established military
tribunals for political opponents and jailed hundreds. Castro disavowed
Cuba's 1952 military pact with the U.S., confiscated U.S. assets, and
established Soviet-style collective farms. The U.S. broke relations with
Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, and Castro formalized his alliance with the Soviet
Union. Thousands of Cubans fled the country.
In 1961 a U.S.-backed group of Cuban exiles invaded Cuba. Planned
during the Eisenhower administration, the invasion was given the go-ahead
by President John Kennedy, although he refused to give U.S. air support.
The landing at the Bay of Pigs on April 17, 1961, was a fiasco. The
invaders did not receive popular Cuban support and were easily repulsed by
the Cuban military.
A Soviet attempt to install medium-range missiles in Cuba—capable of
striking targets in the United States with nuclear warheads—provoked a
crisis in 1962. Denouncing the Soviets for “deliberate deception,” on Oct.
22 Kennedy said that the U.S. would blockade Cuba so the missiles could
not be delivered. Six days later Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered
the missile sites dismantled and returned to the USSR, in return for a
U.S. pledge not to attack Cuba.
The U.S. established limited diplomatic ties with Cuba on Sept. 1,
1977, making it easier for Cuban Americans to visit the island. Contact
with the more affluent Cuban Americans prompted a wave of discontent in
Cuba, producing a flood of asylum seekers. In response, Castro opened the
port of Mariel to a “freedom flotilla” of boats from the U.S., allowing
125,000 to flee to Miami. After the refugees arrived, it was discovered
their ranks were swelled with prisoners, mental patients, homosexuals, and
others unwanted by the Cuban government.
Cuba fomented Communist revolutions around the world, especially in
Angola, where thousands of Cuban troops were sent in the 1980s.
Russian aid, which had long supported Cuba's failing economy, ended
when Communism collapsed in eastern Europe in 1990. Cuba's foreign trade
also plummeted, producing a severe economic crisis. In 1993, Castro
permitted limited private enterprise, allowed Cubans to possess
convertible currencies, and encouraged foreign investment in its tourist
industry. In March 1996, the U.S. tightened its embargo with the
Helms-Burton Act.
Christmas became an official holiday in 1997 for the first time since
the revolution, in response to Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit to Cuba,
which raised hopes for greater religious freedom.
In June 2000, Castro won a publicity bonanza when the Clinton
administration sent Elian Gonzalez, a young Cuban boy found clinging to an
inner tube near Miami, back to Cuba. The U.S. Cuban community had demanded
that the boy remain in Miami rather than be returned to his father in
Cuba. By many accounts, the influential Cuban Americans lost public
sympathy by pitting political ideology against familial bonds.
In March and April 2003, Castro sent nearly 80 dissidents to prison
with long sentences, prompting an international condemnation of Cuba's
harsh crackdown on human rights.
The Bush administration tightened its embargo in June 2004, allowing
Cuban Americans to return to the island only once every three years
(instead of every year) and restricting the amount of U.S. cash that can
be spent there to $50 per day. In response, Cuba banned the use of
dollars, which had been legal currency in the country for more than a
decade.
In July 2006, Castro—hospitalized because of an illness—turned over
power temporarily to his brother Raúl. In October it was revealed that
Castro has cancer and will not return to power.
In January 2008, 17 months after his emergency intestinal surgery, 81
year old Castro wrote a public statement that he was not healthy enough to
campaign in the upcoming parliamentary elections, though he has not
withdrawn from the election. Castro's announcement was followed by a
national television broadcast showing a recent meeting between himself and
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil where he told the Brazilian
president that he was feeling very good.
In the January 2008 parliamentary elections, both Fidel and Raúl Castro
were re-elected to the National Assembly as well as the other 614
unopposed candidates presented to voters.
In February 2008, Fidel Castro ended 49 years of power when he
announced his retirement. The 81 year old, who ruled Cuba since leading a
revolution in 1959, said he would not accept another term as President.
Raúl Castro succeeded his brother, becoming the 21st president of Cuba on
February 24, 2008.
At the United Nations in February 2008, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez
Roque signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ensures citizens political and
civil freedom, and the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
gaurantee the right to work, fair wages, social security, education, and
high standards of physical and mental health. Roque also announced that in
2009 the United Nations Human Rights Council will be allowed to examine
Cuba at will.
In March 2008, the Cuban government lifted the ban on purchasing
computers and other consumer electronics including DVDs and microwaves,
which may signal greater tolerance of internet use in the future.
See also Encyclopedia: Cuba
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Cuba
National Statistical Office (In Spanish Only)
http://www.cubagob.cu/otras_info/estadisticas.htm .
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education,
Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Cuba from Infoplease:
- Cuba - Cuba Cuba , officially Republic of Cuba, republic (2005 est. pop. 11,347,000), 42,804 sq mi ...
- Cuba - Cuba Profile: People and Religion, History, Government, National Security, Economy, Foreign Relations, U.S.-Cuban Relations
- Manzanillo, city, Cuba - Manzanillo Manzanillo , city (1994 est. pop. 98,000), Granma prov., SE Cuba, a port on the ...
- Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, 1871–1939, president of Cuba - Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Carlos Manuel de, 1871–1939, president of ...
- Cuba - Map of Cuba & articles on flags, geography, history, statistics, disasters current events, and international relations.
|
|
