My print references the early protests that led to the revolutionary war when peasant protests were regularly put down by Batista's police and army. The shadow of oppression hangs over the people.
The story of events leading up to and after the Cuban Revolution is the usual mix of corruption, repression, racial tensions and murderous reprisals. In 1950s, Cuba was being led under the corrupt and oppressive military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Extremely unpopular with the Cuban people, he supported US interests on the island. Its main export, sugar, was controlled by the USA, hence Washington supported his regime. After failing to challenge corruption through the courts, Fidel Castro with Che Guevara gathered a force of guerrilla fighters and fought, at first ineffectively, to depose Batista and his government. After a protracted series of engagements with many casualties on all sides, Havana fell in early 1959. Batista fled the country and Castro formed the first liberal nationalist government. The blood letting and reprisals of course didn't end there. Castro needed to remove the stranglehold US business had on the economy. Nationalisation of those industries and land reform limited the size of farms and communism grew.. This meant that the Cuban economy could begin to work for poorer Cubans instead of Americans and corrupt upper-classes.
Cuba is still subject to severe USA sanctions and embargoes today. A forfeited part of the island remains host to the infamous US facility at Guantanamo Bay.
