Cuba

E

Health and Welfare

Life expectancy is almost 75 years for males and 79.6 years for females, while the infant mortality rate is about 6 per 1,000 live births (2008). These rates are the best in Latin America, and not far below those of the United States and other western industrialized nations. They reflect the priority given by the Cuban administration to the provision of universal and free health care and education. In 1990 20.4 per cent of the national budget was spent on education and public health. Around 95 per cent of the population has been vaccinated against 11 diseases; some of these, including polio, diphtheria, measles, and mumps, have been eradicated.

F

Defence

The president of the republic is head of the national defence council, as well as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Cuba’s armed forces totalled about 49,000 in 2004, including ready reservists serving 45 days a year and conscripts; conscription is for 2 years. The country also has various paramilitary forces, including 15,000 state security troops and the 70,000-strong Youth Labour Army. An armed civilian militia was established in 1980; in the mid-1990s it numbered about 1.3 million men and women. The number of personnel in the armed forces has been cut drastically during the 1990s as a result of the ending of Soviet military aid, which had enabled the maintenance of a disproportionately large military establishment. Almost all of Cuba’s military equipment was made in the USSR.

Despite repeated complaints and strong hostility from Cuba, the United States continues to maintain a military base at Guantánamo Bay on the southern coast of the island, with some 2,500 naval and marine personnel. The base was established on land leased under a 1934 treaty that was reconfirmed in 1963, and which provides that only mutual agreement or US abandonment of the area can terminate the lease. The 3,000-strong military unit maintained by the Soviet Union in Cuba after 1964 was unilaterally withdrawn in 1991.

G

International Organizations

Cuba is a member of the United Nations, the Latin American Integration Association, and the Latin American Economic System. The country is a member of the ACP Group (the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group of States) but Cuba is the only member country not to be a signatory to the Cotonou Agreement (with the European Union).

VI

History

The earliest known inhabitants of Cuba were the Ciboney, who migrated from Florida and spread throughout the Bahamas and the Greater Antilles. Archaeological evidence has been found along the coast and rivers, where they lived in small groups. A settlement of about 100 people in Cuba is the largest Ciboney settlement ever found. They were hunter-gatherers. They caught fish, iguanas, small rodents, birds, and snakes, and gathered wild fruits and roots but did not cultivate plants. They had primitive tools but no knowledge of pottery. The Ciboney were eventually absorbed by peoples migrating from the Guianas in South America, now known as Arawak, although when Christopher Columbus arrived they called themselves Tainos. They had excellent boat-building and fishing techniques, and also introduced farming skills by cultivating and improving wild plants. Their staple food was cassava, but they also grew yams, maize, cotton, arrowroot, peanuts, beans, cacao, spices, and tobacco. They used cotton to make clothes and hammocks, and the calabash tree to make ropes and baskets, and for roofing. They had pottery and were skilled at woodwork, while their tools were made of wood, stone, shell, or coral. Their society was essentially communal and organized around families, but where larger settlements developed there would be a head man, or woman, called a cacique, who dealt with disputes and defence, and who represented the tribe.

A

Colonization by Spain

The arrival of the Spanish in 1492 signalled the beginning of the end for the Native Americans of Cuba. Livestock was allowed to roam and destroy their unfenced clearings, taxes were extracted from them, and they were forced into slavery in the mines and plantations. They had no immunity against European diseases and eventually died out.

Columbus did not realize that Cuba was an island. It was first circumnavigated by Sebastián de Ocampo in 1508 and conquered in 1511 by Diego de Velázquez de Cuéllar, who founded several towns, including Baracoa (1511), Santiago de Cuba (1514), and Havana (1515). Cuba became a supply base for expeditions to Mexico and Florida, and when indigenous labour died out, the Spanish imported African slaves to work in the mines and plantations. Sugar was introduced in the 16th century, while tobacco was so valuable that in 1717 it was made a monopoly of Spain. Coffee was introduced in 1748. There were frequent raids by buccaneers and naval units of rival and enemy powers, but the island prospered. The British captured and held Havana in 1762-1763, but it was returned to Spain in exchange for Florida at the end of the Seven Years’ War. Between 1774 and 1817 the population increased from about 161,000 to more than 550,000. Restrictions on the colony’s trade with anyone other than Spain were gradually eased in response to local pressure. The tobacco monopoly was abolished in 1816 and Cuba was given the right to trade with the world in 1818.