President Raul Castro: The architect of a new era for Cuba

(Baonghean) - On April 19, the 7th National Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba took place and as predicted and desired by the people of this Caribbean island nation, President Raul Castro was re-elected as First Secretary of the Party Central Committee.

Statement by President Raul Castro at the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba.

After the brilliant success in all aspects of his first term, observers believe that in his next term, when the Cuba-US relationship has "thawed", President Raul Castro will continue to lead Cuba into a period of brilliant development...

Fidel's brother and comrade number 1

Raul Castro was born on June 3, 1931, and grew up with his older brother Fidel on his father's sugarcane farm in eastern Cuba. His parents, Angel Castro and Lina Ruz, had three children. As a child, his closest friends were the children of the farmers who worked on the farm. Raul said that this gave him a love and sympathy for the poor.

Raul grew up and attended school in Santiago and then moved to Havana to attend university, where he joined a Communist youth group in that city. As a young man, he absorbed his brother's Cuban liberation ideology by participating in violent student protests against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

In 1953, he and Fidel attacked the Moncada barracks to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. After this, Raul was arrested and imprisoned for 22 months with his brother. In 1955, after being released, the two brothers went to Mexico to prepare the ship Granma for the revolutionary journey to Cuba in 1956.

Brothers Fidel and Raul were comrades from the early days of the Cuban revolution.

After returning to Cuba from Mexico, Fidel and Raul Castro and their fellow revolutionaries waged a guerrilla war that eventually led to the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship in early 1959.

After the Cuban Revolution succeeded, Raul Castro continued to serve in the military as Minister of Defense. In 1976, he was promoted to the rank of General. In 2006, he was appointed to lead the country in place of President Fidel Castro.

Although he rarely appears in the media or at major events and is not as eloquent as his brother, international observers believe that Fidel Castro's absolute support from the people and military on this beautiful Caribbean island is largely due to his ability to create strategic policies.

Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that when Fidel Castro announced his retirement, the only person trusted to run the country was Raul Castro. Because only he - an experienced and resourceful soldier who had gone through the revolutionary struggle for national liberation and the most difficult times of the country - had enough will and determination to continue leading Cuba along the socialist path that the Party and the people had chosen.

Creating a new path

To evaluate Raul Castro's achievements in his first term as First Secretary and President of Cuba, it can be said that besides deciding on many socio-economic development policies and open diplomacy, perhaps his greatest mark was that he brought Cuba to normalize relations with the United States.

Saying that does not mean we deny the diplomatic efforts of the international community over the past years, demonstrated by the 23 times when nearly 190 countries out of 193 UN member states expressed their support for the Report "The Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States against Cuba" submitted annually by the Cuban Government, or by the Vatican and the current US President himself.

But just the number of 23 times the international community supported the opposition to the US embargo showed how persistent and difficult the "war" was, and it was only when President Raul Castro led the country that things really changed.

Cuba is experiencing a strong revival under the leadership of President Raul Castro.

He decided to release American citizen Alan Gross on humanitarian grounds, after he had served five years of a 15-year prison sentence imposed by a Cuban court for violating independence, territorial sovereignty and espionage in Cuba.

It was this humane and courageous decision that was the catalyst, along with the persistent shuttle diplomacy of all parties, that brought Cuba and the United States closer together after more than half a century.

The normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba is entering a new period of development, with new directions and visions. “Developing the national economy in parallel with the struggle for peace, national unity and maintaining ideology is an important task of the Communist Party of Cuba,” President Raul Castro affirmed.

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