Raúl Castro turns 95 as Cuba celebrates enigmatic figure

Raúl Cas­tro turned 95 on Wednes­day, a land­mark birth­day for a man still help­ing lead one of the last com­mu­nist coun­tries in the world.

His name and face be­came syn­ony­mous with the 1959 rev­o­lu­tion led by his broth­er, Fi­del Cas­tro. Decades af­ter the tri­umphant rev­o­lu­tion, Fi­del Cas­tro stepped down, and Raúl Cas­tro served as Cu­ba’s pres­i­dent for 12 years.

He for­mal­ly re­tired from pol­i­tics in April 2021 but still serves as gen­er­al of Cu­ba’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces, has a seat in the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly and is con­sid­ered to play a cen­tral role in ris­ing ten­sions with the U.S., which re­cent­ly in­dict­ed him.

Here’s a look at the life of a man known as the “hero of the Re­pub­lic of Cu­ba.”

Raúl Cas­tro be­came in­volved in pol­i­tics ear­ly

Cas­tro was born on June 3, 1931, in the vil­lage of Birán in east­ern Cu­ba. He was the fourth of sev­en chil­dren; his moth­er was Cuban and his fa­ther Span­ish.

As a child, he at­tend­ed school in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba but lat­er moved to Ha­vana, where he be­gan study­ing law at the uni­ver­si­ty and be­came deeply in­volved in stu­dent pol­i­tics, op­pos­ing the dic­ta­tor­ship of Ful­gen­cio Batista.

By 1953, he was part of a group that at­tacked mil­i­tary bar­racks in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba as part of a failed ef­fort to over­throw Batista. He was charged, jailed and lat­er re­leased, flee­ing to Mex­i­co, where he joined the guer­ril­la group that would soon un­seat Batista.

Af­ter a vic­to­ri­ous rev­o­lu­tion in 1959, Cas­tro was ap­point­ed min­is­ter of Cu­ba’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Armed Forces and over­saw bat­tles in Africa and Latin Amer­i­ca that ran­kled some U.S. Re­pub­li­cans.

Many Cubans, in­clud­ing María Cristi­na Bar­rio Ramos, a 62-year-old teacher who lives in Ha­vana, praised him for his ac­tions.

“He gave us every­thing so that we could be free,” she said. “We owe our free­dom and dig­ni­ty to him.”

In Oc­to­ber 1965, Raúl Cas­tro be­came the sec­ond sec­re­tary of the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee of Cu­ba’s Com­mu­nist Par­ty. At the time, Fi­del Cas­tro laud­ed him in a speech.

“It is a priv­i­lege for me that, in ad­di­tion to be­ing an ex­tra­or­di­nary rev­o­lu­tion­ary fig­ure, he is a broth­er,” Cas­tro said as his sib­ling stood up and smiled as the crowd around him ap­plaud­ed.

Fi­del Cas­tro was known for prais­ing his broth­er: “Every­one who gets to know him and be­come close to him re­al­izes his hu­man­ism, his great char­ac­ter, and his feel­ings; they are sur­prised by the im­age of Raúl as bel­liger­ent, ag­gres­sive and harsh, when they see the feel­ings of friend­ship, af­fec­tion, and love he is ca­pa­ble of hav­ing for peo­ple. And he has been a great men­tor and a great ed­u­ca­tor.”

Cas­tro ris­es to pow­er af­ter broth­er’s health wors­ens

In 2006, Fi­del Cas­tro’s health be­gan to de­cline, and Raúl Cas­tro was tem­porar­i­ly hand­ed pow­er in late Ju­ly of that year un­til Cu­ba’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly elect­ed him as pres­i­dent in Feb­ru­ary 2008.

In the years that fol­lowed, Cas­tro proved him­self to be more lib­er­al than his broth­er, al­low­ing pri­vate en­ter­pris­es to op­er­ate in Cu­ba while for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma lift­ed re­stric­tions on re­mit­tances and fam­i­ly trav­el, and al­lowed U.S. cit­i­zens to trav­el to Cu­ba un­der cer­tain con­di­tions.

By 2015, the U.S. and Cu­ba re­stored diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and re­opened em­bassies. A year lat­er, Oba­ma trav­elled to Cu­ba to meet with Cas­tro. That same year, com­mer­cial flights be­tween the two coun­tries restart­ed.

Dur­ing a his­toric 2016 press con­fer­ence in Ha­vana, Cas­tro fa­mous­ly tried to raise Oba­ma’s left arm, whose hand went limp in an im­age that went vi­ral.

Un­der Cas­tro, Cu­ba al­so en­tered ne­go­ti­a­tions with Rus­sia’s gov­ern­ment in June 2014 that led to the can­cel­la­tion of 90% of a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar debt dat­ing from the time of the So­vi­et Union.

In 2018, Raúl Cas­tro left the pres­i­den­cy in the hands of Miguel Díaz-Canel, mark­ing the first time in decades that a per­son with­out “Cas­tro” as their last name took con­trol of the gov­ern­ment.

In April 2021, Cas­tro an­nounced he would not seek an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion. Since then, he has made on­ly spo­radic pub­lic ap­pear­ances.

Cas­tro re­tires but re­mains a high-pro­file fig­ure

Ever since of­fi­cial­ly re­tir­ing from pol­i­tics, Raúl Cas­tro has ap­peared in pub­lic on­ly spo­rad­i­cal­ly, but he is be­lieved to still wield pow­er be­hind the scenes even as he leads a dis­creet life.

His grand­son and body­guard, Raúl Guiller­mo Ro­dríguez Cas­tro, met with U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio on the side­lines of a Caribbean sum­mit ear­li­er this year. Since then, Cuban and U.S. of­fi­cials have con­firmed talks, but ten­sions be­tween the two coun­tries re­main high.

Raúl Cas­tro was last seen at a May 1 ral­ly that drew tens of thou­sands of Cubans. He was dressed, as usu­al, in olive green mil­i­tary garb and stood at the side of Díaz-Canel. Be­hind him was Cas­tro’s grand­son.

Al­most three weeks lat­er, the U.S. gov­ern­ment in­dict­ed Raúl Cas­tro in the 1996 down­ing of civil­ian planes flown by Mi­a­mi-based ex­iles over Cuban wa­ters. He faces charges in­clud­ing mur­der and de­struc­tion of an air­plane.

While the gov­ern­ment and its sup­port­ers have con­demned the in­dict­ment, Raúl Cas­tro has re­mained mum.

As his birth­day ap­proached, so­cial me­dia was flood­ed with the hash­tag #RaúlesRaúl, a po­lit­i­cal fig­ure who has long been ad­verse to birth­days, mon­u­ments and stat­ues, just like his broth­er.

The Cuban Em­bassy in the U.S. not­ed on X: “Not many peo­ple have the priv­i­lege, the health, the sto­icism — and if you like, you can al­so add: that quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Cuban stub­born­ness — to reach the age of 95.”

Mean­while, Cu­ba’s Com­mu­nist Par­ty post­ed sev­er­al videos Tues­day on X of Cubans prais­ing Cas­tro.

“To talk about Cu­ba, you have to talk about Raúl,” said Digna Guer­ra, di­rec­tor of the is­land’s na­tion­al choir. “He rep­re­sents Cuban iden­ti­ty, he rep­re­sents the Cuban peo­ple, he rep­re­sents the rev­o­lu­tion, which for us has im­mense sig­nif­i­cance. … Thank you for ex­ist­ing.” —(AP)

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Sto­ry by DÁNI­CA CO­TO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press video­g­ra­ph­er Ariel Fer­nán­dez con­tributed.