Enigma: The Cuban revolution

The fifth and final installment of the "Enigma" documentary series, aims to introduce Arab peoples to the Cuban Revolution, its origins, role, and the most important figures that led it.

The new episode discusses Cuba's positive results in the final stages of Covid vaccine development, how the Cuban revolution was the torch for the unification of Latin America, the return of US-Cuban relations, and the truth behind the blockade on Cuba. It also discusses the Cuban people's shock following the death of Fidel Castro, and the amount of popular support the revolution received.

The Cuban Revolution sparked the unification of Latin America

After Cuba's difficult 1990s, the revolutionary leadership revitalized national life again through a process called the "Battle of Ideas", which aimed to revitalize programs aimed at benefiting the people such as art teachers, trainers, and social activists. Teacher preparation programs were strengthened and additional branches of higher education colleges were established in all regions to facilitate the process of obtaining university degrees. The revolutionary process was in fact changing in order to achieve greater social justice in a nation that, until that decade, had accumulated more than 40 years of resistance against the United States empire.

The golden years for the leftists in Latin America were the first decade of the twenty-first century. In Havana, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez signed the document launching the "Bolivarian Choice for the Peoples of Our American Continent" (ALBA). Integration increasingly began to take shape from the Rio Bravo to Patagonia.

Complementary economic and solidarity programs, projects, and mechanisms, such as Petro-Caribe, were also launched. Missions were launched that restored sight to millions of poor people on the continent; others eradicated illiteracy in entire population sectors. All of these are projects supported by Cuba with thousands of its teachers and doctors.

In 2006, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro's sickness forced him to disappear from public eye a few months before he turned eighty. The Cuban leader gave up all his positions, and called himself a "soldier of ideas"; ideas that he never stopped sharing with his people through his constant reflections, which he used to publish in the national press, commenting on events and issues related to the public agenda and the challenges facing humanity.

In 2008, his brother, army chief Raul Castro, was elected president. Amendments were made to the immigration law, debts were negotiated with the Paris Forum, increased openness to foreign investment was approved, and new forms of managing the economy were approved through cooperatives and non-governmental workers, all of which improved life in Cuba in general.

US-Cuban relations... Was the blockade on Cuba lifted?

On December 17, 2014, Cuban President Raul Castro and his American counterpart Barack Obama, announced the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, after diplomatic ties had been severed for more than 60 years.

In parallel, with this process of restoring relations, an agreement was negotiated that allowed the return of three of the five Cuban prisoners who were still being held in US prisons, falsely accused of spying on the United States. Gerardo Hernández is one of those men unjustly sentenced to two life sentences, who, like his comrades, was imprisoned for 16 years for the "crime of combating [the] terrorism" that the US has been practicing against Cuba, unabated, for decades.

The five freedom fighters were arrested in 1998, while their real mission was to obtain information about the plans of the counter-revolutionary organizations based in Florida, which carried out documented terrorist acts against Cuba. Nevertheless, the five were subjected to an unfair kangaroo trial in the city of Miami, characterized by absolute hostility to Cuba.

Anti-Cuban sectors in Florida launched an intense disinformation campaign to pressure public opinion and the jury, which defense attorneys had repeatedly denounced. After the kangaroo trial, the judge rejected any mitigating excuse by the defense and adopted all the aggravating circumstances demanded by the Public Prosecution. As a result, harsh and unjust sentences were taken against them. Maximum sentences were applied in every case, even if the main charges were not proven. Thus, the five youth were sent to maximum security prisons in different states.

This news was widely covered in the media in Miami, but went largely unreported in the rest of the US.

As part of the process of restoring diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, embassies were opened in both countries in 2015. That year, President Obama traveled to Cuba, becoming the first American president to visit the island in nearly 90 years. In his speech at the "Grand Theater of Havana," Obama acknowledged that the policy of isolation practiced by the United States towards Cuba had not succeeded.

During the four years of Donald Trump's administration, there was a significant decline in relations between Cuba and the US. The hostile policy of this administration toward Cuba recorded unprecedented measures and actions, as it included banning cruise ship trips, suspending educational and academic trips between the two, and canceling all flights to all parts of the country, except flights to the capital, Havana, whose frequency was also reduced.

Also, Washington's embassy in Havana decreased its activity and the number of its employees to the minimum, and forced Cubans to travel to other countries to accomplish any consular paperwork. As for remittances, they were restricted to $1,000 every three months, and were banned from being sent through third countries by way of Western Union, which caused great hardship for Cubans.

The United States also took action against ships and shipping companies headed to Cuba. In 2019, 53 boats and 27 fuel-shipping companies were sanctioned. Designating Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism marked the climax of the Donald Trump administration's efforts to prevent any improvement in bilateral relations.

Experts have counted more than 240 measures against Cuba taken by the Republican Trump administration, most of which were measures to tighten the blockade with the aim of strangling the country economically, undermining internal order, and creating a state of non-governance to overthrow the revolution.

Although Trump was followed by Democratic President Joe Biden, this did not lead to any change to the legacy left to him by his predecessor with regard to Cuba. Although he promised during his presidential campaign to adopt a different path in relations with the socialist country, the Cuban popular proverb stands: "The room is still the same."

Goodbye Castro... after more than 630 failed assassination attempts

After extensive debate across the country, Cuba voted "yes" to its new amended constitution, which supports the continuation of the revolution and socialism in Cuba. After more than 150 years of struggle against the Spanish colonial empire in pursuit of freedom, independence, and sovereignty, they still struggle today against the neighboring empire: the United States. As Cuba's national history has proven time and time again, its mystery lies in the unity of its people.

In 2018, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermúdez was elected president of the country at the age of 57. Raul Castro remained Secretary General of the Communist Party of Cuba until 2021, when Diaz-Canel was elected as the new Secretary General of the party.

According to experts, during his lifetime, Fidel Castro saw more than 630 assassination attempts organized by the CIA, in collusion with the darkest forces among the counter-revolutionary forces, without any success.

Fidel lived 90 years, and in his last farewell in 2016, the vast majority of Cubans mourned him as the dearest and closest to their hearts.

Shocked by his death, Cubans all over the country gave their leader a last farewell look, and the caravan that transported his remains from Havana to Santiago de Cuba brought back memories of the caravan of freedom when Fidel, with his bearded men, crossed the same path, but in the opposite direction after they had conquered dictatorship. As the people bid him farewell, his words, which he said in January of 1959, came with force: "When I need strength, I will come to the East."

Revolution will not be absent from the new generation of Cubans

In more than six decades, the Cubans built a socialist revolution at the gates of the most powerful empire that ever existed. Faced with this enormous challenge, the people decided with the revolutionary leadership to work on the continuity of social justice represented by the revolution.

On July 11, 2021, riots took place in many Cuban cities, and in several provinces. Subsequent trials have established that the calls and support for these riots were found to emanate from United States soil.

30 years ago, the riots of August 5, 1994, took place. Ever since then, nothing like them has happened. It is evident that the revolution's opposition did not have any idea about the new generation of leaders' ability to confront them, nor the extent of the support of the vast majority of the people for the revolution.

Anti-imperialist sentiments in Cuba are so closely linked to the struggles for sovereignty and national independence that the theories of the soft coup and fourth-generation wars cannot find the success they have in other contexts.

Cuba produces Covid vaccine despite the blockade

Almost three years ago, in 2020, a deadly pandemic put all of humanity at stake. As a result, the world today is divided into superpowers that are able to produce their own vaccines and sell them at very high prices, and poorer countries, some of which could wait for a long time without ever receiving them.

During the pandemic, the Caribbean country maintained, through its health system, an effective and equal response. The decisive act that changed the disastrous course of the disease in terms of its rapid spread was the early decision to develop special Cuban vaccines to protect the lives of the Cuban people.

Cuba was the first country in Latin America to produce its own vaccines in record time. This happened in the midst of a really difficult economic situation resulting from more than 60 years of blockade. The blockade was brutally tightened, especially in the midst of the pandemic, which indicates its criminal nature, making us wonder how a besieged country with very few resources could be able to contain the spread of the virus and create a vaccine.

At a time when the United States broke another world record for the number of people infected with Covid 19, as it recorded more than a million cases, the Cuban health authorities announced that the island will produce in April one million doses of vaccine (Soberana 01) and (Soberana 02). The country also planned to produce 100 million doses to meet the needs of its citizens as well as citizens of other countries.

With regard to vaccines, there is a very important geopolitical element. The world today consists of two parts: those who produce the vaccine and those who do not. Fortunately, Cuba is among the countries that produced them. Hence there is a second division between those who can buy it, even if they do not produce it, and those who are waiting to buy it.

Herein lies the major problem, that is, demand is much greater than supply, and the world's need for anti-Covid vaccines far exceeds the production capacity of major international companies, which today devote themselves to producing vaccines.

As a result, Cuba had 5 vaccine candidates, 3 of which succeeded in reaching the production phase only months after the start of the epidemic. Until March 2022, two years after the detection of the first case of SARS-Cov-2 virus in Cuba, the islanders had been vaccinated with more than 35 million doses of the three Cuban vaccines (Soberana-2), (Soberana Plus) and (Abdala).

Through a complete vaccination schedule, more than 9 million people have been vaccinated, which equals 89.3% of the Cuban population. Cuba was then crowned as the first country to vaccinate most of its children, starting at the age of two, using its own domestically-produced Covid vaccines.