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'Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz' (born June 3, 1931) is the Acting President of Cuba and Acting President/First Vice President of the Cuban Council of State. The younger brother of Cuban President Fidel Castro also occupies the positions of First Vice President/Acting President of the Council of Ministers, Acting First Secretary/Second Secretary of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), and Acting Commander in Chief Maximum General of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy, and Air Force), second only to the Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro.
On July 31, 2006, Raúl Castro assumed the duties of President of the Council of State in a temporary transfer of power due to Fidel Castro's illness. According to the Cuban Constitution Article 94, the First Vice President of the Council of State assumes presidential duties upon the illness or death of the president.

Contents

Pre-1959

Post-1959

Public persona and personal life

Assumption of Presidential duties

Visit to Italy

See also

Notes

External links

Pre-1959

Son of Galician immigrants, Raúl is the youngest of the three Castro brothers. They also have four sisters, Angela, Juanita, Enma, and Agustina. He also has two half siblings, Lidia and Pedro Emilio who were raised by Ángel Castro's first wife. (Juanita Castro, who lives in Miami and owns a small pharmacy in Little Havana (as of 2006), has been estranged from her native Cuba and her brothers since 1963.) As youngsters, the brothers were expelled from the first school they attended. Like Fidel, Raúl later attended the Jesuit School of Colegio Dolores in Santiago and Colegio de Belén in Havana. Raúl, as an undergraduate, studied social sciences. Whereas Fidel excelled as a student, Raúl's performance was mostly mediocre. .^[1] Raúl was a committed socialist and joined the Socialist Youth, an affiliate of the Soviet-oriented Cuban Communist Party, the Partido Socialista Popular (PSP).^[2] The brothers participated actively in sometimes violent student political actions.^[3]
In 1953, Raúl was a member of the 26th of July Movement which attacked the Moncada Barracks and spent 22 months in prison as a result of this action.[1] During his exile in Mexico, he participated in the preparations of the expedition of the ship ''Granma,'' embarking for Cuba on December 2, 1956.
It was during the period in Mexico that Raúl reportedly befriended Ernesto "Ché" Guevara in Mexico City and brought him into Fidel's circle of revolutionaries. Raúl also established contact with Soviet KGB agent Nikolai Leonov, whom he had met two years earlier during a trip to the Soviet-bloc nations. That relationship would persist until the Castro brothers successfully assumed power in Cuba.
As a combatant of the Rebel Army he took part in the campaign of the Sierra Maestra mountain range and, on February 27 1958, was made ''comandante'' and assigned the mission to cross the old province of Oriente leading a column of guerrillas to open, to the northeast of that territory, the "Eastern front Frank País." He was responsible for overseeing the summary execution of "scores" of soldiers loyal to deposed Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista.^[4]

Post-1959

Raúl Castro Ruz was a member of the National Leadership of the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations (established July 1961; dissolved March 1962) and of the United Party of the Socialist Revolution of Cuba (established March 1962; dissolved October 1965). He has been a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and the Second Secretary of its Politburo since the Party's formation in October 1965; also, the First Vice President of the Cuban Council of State, of the National Assembly of the Popular Power and of the Council of Ministers since these were created in 1976. He was appointed Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces when the Ministry was founded in October 1959 and has served in that capacity ever since; he is also the nation's highest ranking general, second in power only to his brother Fidel who is the Commander-in Chief.
Castro is credited with persuading his older brother to implement agricultural market reforms in the early 1990s which increased the food supply, after the Soviet Union fell and its generous subsidies to Cuba stopped.

Public persona and personal life

A few weeks after the 1959 victory, Castro married Vilma Espín Guillois, a former MIT chemical engineering student and veteran of the revolution who in 1960 became president of the Cuban Federation of Women.^[5] They have three daughters (Déborah, Mariela and Nilsa) and one son (Alejandro).^[6]
Castro's daughter Mariela currently heads the Cuban National Center for Sex Education. Espin died on June 18 2007.
In an interview in 2006, following his assumption of presidential duties, Raúl Castro commented on his public profile stating: "I am not used to making frequent appearances in public, except at times when it is required ... I have always been discreet, that is my way, and in passing I will clarify that I am thinking of continuing in that way." ^[7]

Assumption of Presidential duties

:
On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro's personal secretary Carlos Valenciaga announced on state-run television that Fidel Castro would provisionally hand over the duties of President of the Council of State of Cuba, First Secretary of the Communist Party and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to Raúl Castro while Fidel underwent and recovered from intestinal surgery to repair gastrointestinal bleeding.^[8][9]
Most commentators consider Raúl Castro to be a political hardliner who will maintain the Communist Party of Cuba's political power at all costs. There are some who believe that he is more pragmatic than his older brother and more willing to institute free market-oriented economic policies. It is speculated that he favours a variant of the current Chinese political and economic model for Cuba in the hopes of preserving some elements of the socialist system.
Several commentators, including some authors of ''The Wall Street Journal,'' call Castro "uncharismatic and widely feared," with a "cold efficien[t]" style. He is accused of the persecution of dissidents and homosexuals. Additionally, some have speculated about Raúl's ill health, specifically alcoholism, raising doubts about his future leadership.^[10]
Raúl, considered much less charismatic than his brother Fidel Castro, has remained largely out of public view during the transfer of duty period. Castro recovering and giving orders: Chavez His only public appearances have been to host a gathering of leaders of the Non-Aligned nations in September 2006, and to lead the national commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing, which also became Fidel's belated 80th birthday celebrations. ^{[11] [12] [13]}
In a speech to university students, Raúl stated that a communist system in Cuba would remain, and that "Fidel is irreplaceable, unless we all replace him together."^[14]
On May 1, 2007, Raúl presided over the May Day celebrations in Havana. The crowd reached over one million participants, with delegations from over 225 organizations and 52 countries.^[15] Exile sources which seem to know a great deal about internal Cuban politics suggest a power struggle between Raul and younger pretenders (delfines) is underway.
[2] It is notable that these critics of the regime use terminology proper for a monarchy.

Visit to Italy

A report was published by AP in which Raul Castro was said to have visited Italy. This visit has been both confirmed by original source and denied by a Cuban official [3].

See also

★ Mariela Castro, Raúl Castro's daughter

★ Delfin Fernandez, former confidant of Raúl Castro who defected to the United States

Notes

1. Castro's Illness Opens Window On Cuba Transition
2. Who is Raúl Castro? (Part I)
3. M-26-7 Revolutionary firing squads
4. Why Raul Castro Could End Up a Reformer
5. TIME magazine Milestones
6. Raúl Castro
7. The Fidel Castro mystery Scripps Howard News Service
8. From Castro to Castro

9. Fidel Castro Says Health Stable in Statement Read on State Television

10. Communism Has Failed Cuba

11. NPR "Weekend Edition, Saturday", report of Gary Marx, December 2, 2006 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6569909
12. http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=137334
13. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/16144298.htm?source=rss&channel=miamiherald_news
14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6199369.stm
15. http://granma.cu/ingles/2007/mayo/mar1/18desfile-i.html

External links

★ Speech by Raúl Castro on 26 July 2007 (English translation), ''Escambray Digital'', July 27 2007.

★ Cuban Armed Forces Review: Raúl Castro

★ "Cuba in transition" in ''Starbroek News'', 19 April 2007

★ "Regime readies path for Raúl Castro's rise" by Frances Robles, ''Miami Herald'', July 14 2006.

★ Entrevista con Raúl Castro en ''Verde Olivo''

★ Raul Castro Books