Achievements of Cuban Revolution

1
Achievements of Cuban Revolution

• high employment, social support for unemployed
• free universal public education health care
• national child care, mass literacy campaign
• expanded higher education, esp. for women
• improved rural housing high home ownership
• health technical aid to poor countries
• end to overt racial discimination
• Failures authoritarianism
• repeal of civil liberties
• personalistic cult of Castro

2
Somozas in Nicaragua, 1932-81

• Assassinated nationalist A. Sandino in 1932
• Ensured benefits for U.S. interests and own
  family 25 ag production by 1970
  
• opposed reformist labor policies
• drove peasants off land to expand production of
  export commodities
  
• Result society of tremendous inequality,
  w/wealthy minority

3
Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN)

• The people of Nicaragua suffer under
  subjugation to a reactionary and fascist clique
  imposed by Yankee imperialism in 1932. The
  Somozist clique reduced Nic. to the status of a
  neocolony exploited by the Yankee monopolies and
  the countrys oligarchic groups. The present
  regime is politically unpopular juridically
  illegal. The recognition and aid it gets from N.
  Americans is irrefutable proof of foreign
  interference in the affairs of Nicaragua. The
  FSLN hasanalyzed the national reality has
  resolved to confront the dictatorship with arms
  in handThe triumph of the Sandinista peoples
  revolution overthrow of the regime that is an
  enemy of the people will take place through the
  development of a hard-fought prolonged peoples
  war. (1969)

4
Priorities of sandinista govt, 1980s

• repairing destruction of war
• planting sufficient food crops for popn
• paying off natl debt
• much incurred by Somoza corruption
• Expropriated Somoza properties for state
• 40 GNP
• Established health clinics, schools, housing,
  cooperative farms w/credit for farmers

5
Salvadoran guerrillasFMLN Martí Front for
National Liberation

• united after Archbishop Romeros assassination,
  1980
  
• target of U.S.-funded natl guard in El Mozote,
  1981
  
• 3 billion U.S. aid to Salvadoran govt,
  1982-88
  
• Washington backed moderate reform candidates to
  deflect political victories by FMLN
  
• FMLN responseeconomic sabotage
• destroyed coffee economy electrical grid
• 1993 Truth Commission report
• 95 killings by govt death squads military,
  vs. FMLN