Yearbook 1999
Cuba. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Cuba. The development in Cuba is ambiguous. On the one hand, the legislation on “upliftment” was tightened, and the new laws were already applied at a trial in March. Despite international protests, four prominent dissidents were convicted who published a manifesto for democratic reform in 1997. On the other hand, economic relations with the outside world developed in the form of so-called joint ventures (now about 350), primarily with Canadian and European companies. Relations with the United States are characterized by both aggressive rhetoric and concrete cooperation. On 13 September, for example, The United States officially for the “genocide” of Cubans that resulted in the nearly 40-year-old embargo, and NGOs have symbolically demanded $ 181 billion in compensation for 40 years of “aggression.” But President Clinton eased the embargo at the beginning of the year, mainly for capital transfers, civil aviation and postal service. The two countries also cooperate in a number of police areas, including in the fight against smugglers.
- Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of CUBA which stands for Cuba and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.
The number of boat refugees (so-called balseros) increased during the year for the first time since the large wave of refugees in 1994 when 30,000 Cubans left Cuba. In the field of sports, too, the two countries socialize; for the first time in 40 years, a Cuban and an American baseball team met in March and May, and won, perhaps symbolically, each their away victory. A doping scandal at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg in August, including high jump world champion Javier Sotomayor involved, however, Castro blamed on a plot carried out by the United States.
The new openness has also led to increased crime in Cuba, mainly through increased tourism, although crime is still significantly lower than in the rest of Latin America.
2014- North American Spring?
Unexpectedly, Castro and US President Barack Obama gave each other a hand when they met at Nelson Mandela’s funeral in Johannesburg. The Western media was convinced that Obama did not know who he was handing. He probably was. Since its inception, it has been Obama’s policy to normalize relations with Cuba, which, however, encountered sulfuric resistance on the radical North American right wing. In November 2014, however, Democrats lost the election to Congress, so January Republicans would get a majority in both chambers. It gave him two months to put his fingerprints on the story before Republicans locked him in politically. In December, therefore, Obama announced an opening in the forefront of Cuba. He could not lift the blockade, which would require a 2/3 majority, but he could resume diplomatic relations and conduct a prisoner exchange. The 5 Cubans who had been politically imprisoned in the United States for 14 years for revealing exile Cuban terror cells in the United States were allowed to return home, and Cubans who were designated by the United States as political prisoners in Cuba were allowed to travel to the United States. The exchange of prisoners was irreversible, but the bloating of the relationship could quickly be frozen again by right-wing North American politicians. There is, however, out of step with the US own population that is massively advocating the lifting of the blockade. Even among the exile Cubans in Florida, there is a majority for the lifting of the blockade.
In April 2015, Raúl Castro and Barrack Obama met with Cumbre de las Americas. The first meeting of the two countries’ heads of state for 60 years. Vatican Pope Frans had played a key role in the secret talks between the two countries that preceded the meeting. Negotiations had taken place in the Vatican. In May, the United States removed Cuba from its list of “countries sponsoring terrorism”. By nature, the United States could not be removed from the list of countries sponsoring terror. In July, diplomatic relations were re-established as both countries’ interest offices in the respective capitals were upgraded to embassy status. Yet, in September, Obama renewed to Cuba’s great regret the US financial sanctions on the country. The following month, the United States was condemned at the UN General Assembly for its sanctions.
In March 2016, Obama was on a state visit to Cuba. Despite many disagreements, after the two-hour meeting, the two heads of state agreed on one thing: the need to lift US sanctions against Cuba. The disagreement was unchanged in terms of human rights and democracy. Still, the thawing continued. The United States again allowed direct flights between the United States and Cuba from August.
In August, Cuba marked Fidel Castro’s 90th anniversary. The old Revolutionary leader took the opportunity to long for the United States and Barrack Obama, whom he, among other things, criticized for not apologizing to Japan for the US nuclear bombs in 1945 during Obama’s visit to Japan in May, and also for “guiding Cuba in democracy and human rights”. A guide Cuba could well be besides.
Fidel Castro died in November 2016. The country was declared in 9 days of country care. He was cremated the following day and then driven through the country to his birthplace, Santiago de Cuba, where he was stalked on December 4. The funeral was attended by the presidents of Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia as well as the two former Brazilian presidents Dilma Roussef and Lula da Silva. The world received the news in two different ways. The old colonial states of the West had only words to spare, while the rest of the world (across Asia, Africa and Latin America) expressed grief over Fidel’s death. To avoid personal worship, President Raul Castro announced that no seats or roads had to be named after Fidel and that no monuments had to be erected.
Due. Fidel had not interfered with his ill health in the country’s politics since 2006, when he resigned as president. Raúl Castro used the pledge to announce his resignation in 2018.
