Interest Information

History

On October 27, 1492, upon reaching the shores of Cuba, Christopher Columbus exclaimed: «This is the most beautiful land that human eyes have seen.» Eighteen years later, Diego Velázquez began the conquest of Cuban territory. From that date the first towns were founded, and at the end of the 16th century the first sugar mills appeared. Two centuries later they were the economic support of Cuba, and the first African slaves began to be introduced to exploit this new industry and introduce one of the elements that, when mixed with the Spanish, gave rise to the Cuban or Creole. With the advent of the 17th century, the Cuban waters and coasts were filled with corsairs and pirates who made the contraband trade flourish. In the mid-eighteenth century, an unexpected event shook the economic, political and social panorama of Cuba: the occupation of Havana by the British. For eleven months, more than a thousand ships entered the Havana port, establishing extensive trade with the Thirteen North American Colonies and introducing more than ten thousand slaves to promote the development of the sugar industry.

Once Havana was recovered in 1763, in exchange for the Florida Peninsula (discovered and conquered by Spain in the 16th century), Spain introduced numerous transformations in Cuba on all levels; the process of formation of the Cuban nationality was accelerated and the idea of ​​liberation became stronger and stronger.

On October 10, 1868, the struggle for national independence began and the first independence war broke out, which lasted ten years. The culminating figure of the Cuban struggles for independence emerged: José Martí (1853-1895), who founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party and led the 1895 War of Independence.

In 1898 the intervention of the United States in the Cuban-Spanish war took place, the government of Washington put an end to the battered Spanish army and did not recognize the government of the Republic of Cuba in Arms. In 1902, the United States Congress passed the Platt Amendment, which authorized the US government to intervene at any time in the country. On May 20, 1902, Cuba was granted formal independence, controlled by an oligarchy dependent on Washington, with the Platt Amendment as an appendix to the Constitution.

In 1923, a small group of patriots in opposition created the student movement of the University Reform, after the creation of the University Student Federation (FEU). The martian and Marxist, Julio Antonio Mella, stood out as a leader. It was followed by the foundation of the Anti-Imperialist League, the “José Martí” Popular University for workers and other organizations.

On July 26, 1953, a group of young people led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, the second Cuban military fortress, with the aim of arming the people and starting a general insurrection. The attempt failed, for their action they were tried and sentenced to prison, in the Model Prison of Isla de Pinos (today, Isla de la Juventud), but a strong popular campaign achieved amnesty for the prisoners, who in 1955 traveled to Mexico as exiles.

From exile, Fidel Castro along with his companions, among them the Argentine Ernesto «Che» Guevara, organized the expedition of the yacht «Granma» to Cuba and landed on December 2, 1956 on Las Coloradas beach, restarting the armed struggle, this time as guerrillas in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra. At the same time the underground struggle was organized throughout the country.

On January 1, 1959, the dictator Fulgencio Batista, definitively defeated by the revolutionary forces, left Cuba. The Cuban Revolution had triumphed. On February 7 of that year, the 1940 Constitution was restored by approving the Fundamental Law of the Republic, to which the changes corresponding to the new situation of the country were introduced, such as the granting of legislative power and constituent powers to the Council of Ministers. . President Manuel Urrutia Lleó, a former magistrate, took office and Fidel Castro assumed the position of Prime Minister on February 16. Subsequently, events occurred such as the intervention of the Cuban Telephone Company, the Cooperativa de Ómnibus Aliados and de Ómnibus Metropolitanos, and the Agrarian Reform Law was signed.

But the counterrevolutionary opposition, organized from the Dominican Republic and the United States, armed and financed plans against the Cuban Revolution. The invasion of Cuba took place through Playa Girón, where US Army planes and counterrevolutionary forces trained by specialists from that country participated, which constituted a defeat for imperialism. Years later, in 1990, when the socialist camp disappeared in Eastern Europe and the USSR found itself on the verge of disintegration, the US government began a new phase of economic blockade against Cuba.

Legislators from Florida presented bills in Congress, with the purpose of interrupting transactions between subsidiaries of North American transnationals and Cuba, an aspect that had been made more flexible since 1975. They also intended to sanction ships that transported merchandise or passengers to the greatest of the Antilles (180 days without touching US ports). On October 23, 1992, then Republican President George Bush signed the so-called Torricelli Act and in 1997, as a continuation of this policy, Chapter II of the Helms-Burton Act was implemented. Washington has spared no effort to internationalize the Law, trying to incorporate the European Union and other allies in its policy against the Island.