CUBA: As Fidel Castro prepares to celebrate birthday from sick-bed, a look back at his early life

On Sunday (August 13, 2006) Fidel Castro will be celebrating his 80th birthday from his sickbed. He's outlasted nine U.S. presidents, survived numerous assassination plots and seen his benefactor, the Soviet Union, collapse, becoming one of the world's longest-serving heads of state. Revolutionary, despot, hero or tyrant, a decades long leader who's ultimate legacy will be much debated when his rule comes to an ends. And while that end seemed closer than ever last week when he temporarily handed over command to his younger brother Raul after undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding, the left-wing leader is still hanging on almost 50 years after he led his men down from the mountains and changed the course of Cuban history forever. But as Fidel Castro reaches the 80th birthday that many thought he would never see, there are still a handful of people in the small town of Biran where he was born who remember the president before a beard and a revolution catapulted him onto the international stage. Castro was born here on August 13, 1936 to Angel Castro and Lina Ruz. The future leader enjoyed a relatively prosperous childhood with his two brothers - Ramon and Raul - and three sisters Angela, Juanita and Enma. According to his childhood neighbour Caridad Lopez, Castro was born into considerable wealth, especially when compared to the many impoverished Cubans who lived in harsh conditions at the time. But despite Castro's comfortable status, he was still driven to change what he considered an unjust distribution of wealth, and create greater opportunities and better conditions for the millions of others living on the island. "All of this was theirs (Castro's family's). They were rich, they were born in a golden cradle, they were people who didn't need any of this. Fidel had no need for this because Fidel always lived well in his house. But he liked the revolution," recalled Lopez. While remembered as an intellectually gifted student, many also recall a rebel kid who bucked against authority. "Fidel was terribly naughty in the sense that he was a rogue when he was a child," said Lopez, who also remembered his remarkable height. "He hit off the ceiling. He was thirteen or fourteen years old and he was tall and skinny.". When General Fulgencio Batista established his leadership after a coup d'etat in 1952, it was this gangly youth who joined with a group of dissidents that included his brother Raul to plot an insurrection. After a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, he was jailed for fifteen years, but released after two. In exile in Mexico, Castro met with Ernesto Che Guevara, and the two returned to Cuba where they recruited supporters for their revolution. They hid out in Cuba's Sierra Maestra hills, waging a guerrilla war that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the military government led by dictator Fulgencio Batista. Tourists still flock to the mountainous command posts where he orchestrated the moves that were to alter the course of events on this Caribbean island and place him firmly at the helm of the country for decades afterwards. Tour guides like Alexes Guerra Torres show eager visitors where the guerrillas camped and plotted their war. And decades after Castro and his troops defeated an entire military battalion at the Battle of La Plata, tourists are now including the site on their Cuban itineraries. Visitors like this French tourist are still awed at how a small group of men with rudimentary military training managed to take on an army and overthrow an entire government. "It's impressive, imagining that three hundred men, three hundred soldiers, spent a number of months here preparing for the revolution little by little, which in 1959 triumphed. So it's impressive to see the conditions they lived in, knowing that they lived here. For eight months they prepared, they fought in the region, they were clever enough to avoid being caught. It's impressive." Castro's success helped to mythologise the charismatic leader, and almost half a century later, a new breed of anti-globalization youths see him as a hero, along with revolutionary icon Che Guevara. But Castro's real political training came from his university days, when he was studying law at the University of Havana. As a young man receiving his introduction to politics, he became immediately caught up in the demonstrations sweeping the land, many of which turned violent, as Cubans began to kick against a system many saw as socially unjust. Castro - vilifed by many as a totalitarian dictator, lionized by others for standing up to the U.S. - is now facing potentially his biggest battle yet - the battle to regain his health and once again take the helm in Cuba. He may not be the firebrand youth stirred by social injustices and traveling to demonstrations, but up until his dramatic illness, Castro still retained the stamina for long speeches lasting 3-4 hours, delivered standing, to denounce his foes and micromanage Cuban affairs, often reeling off pages of statistics on every detail of the country's life. In Cuba, his illness brought apprehension over the future of the island nation of 11 million. But while celebrations of his 80th birthday may be muted, there is no denying the continued popularity of the Cuban leader. Regardless of what happens to the island over the coming months, the towering figure of Fidel Castro will remain synonymous with his home country for decades to come.

ITN Source | August 13, 2006

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