Why Fidel Castro is still on charge?
104963
Because his people want Fidelity.\nOK, just kidding. I don't know but in many communist countries leaders will be in charge till they die e.g. Stalin or Mao.\nAnd he is not a dictator, he is leader of people revolution, there is difference between these 2.\nAnyways he must have the thickest case in CIA.
956053
The cubans have what is called the 'dry foot rule'.  If we catch them before they make it to land we send them back.  If they make one foot onto u.s. soil, they get amnesty because they come from a communist country and we don't send people back to communist cuba if they are seeking refuge.
932735
Sad old man.  I think once Fidel is gone, things between the USA and Cuba will get better.
284190
yep....I just saw the story on Fox News Channel (Hannity & Colmes?)   ....What an awful mess.\n\nCastro is denying them from leaving Cuba because they are dentists. ....Just another example of Castro being a self-serving jerkoff!
627479
Well....cuba used to be the richest nation in the caribbean before castro took over.  Also, they were making major progress toward becoming an enlightened democracy.  That is a very attractive situation for a hispanic who wants to maintain their identity as a hispanic.  Unfortunately, it all went to hell when rich elites in cuba and the united states, in love with the evil of marxism, brought castro to power.  The working class in cuba, of course, resisted him and nearly won against overwhelming military odds.  Unfortunately, they lost and many of them were killed in a genocide.  Today, cuba is a hell hole.  Castro loots the economy for his personal wealth.  He sells the men into slavery to foriegn corporations from china and russia and sells the women into slavery as prostitutes.\n\nThey should have stayed in the US.
999743
Most likely a family member, his son or grandson, will take over. Since Castro is about 80 years old, his administration is preparing for the takeover of a new president. They need to execute this transformation correctly, or else Cuba will be overthrown by revolution by those seeking power.
719375
If it is a foreign flag, it is because a diplomat/high ranking political leader is staying there.
54122
The whole thing is ridiculous and is only because of an almost ancient problem with Castro.  The Cubans themselves should be allowed to be involved.  It's sports, not government.
1127452
I hope the answers given by the Americans on here , aren't representative of the views of all Americans. There's got to be SOME Americans who are good guys. \nAs previously mentioned by others, only more eloquently, America invaded and 'stole' this bay about 100 hundred years ago, as it was strategically sited for access to the whole of the Caribbean. (It has carried out this strategy many times since, all over the world). To make it look legal, the US sends Cuba a 'rental cheque' every year, which Cuba has never cashed.\nEffectively, the US are squatters in Cuba, they have no linternationally recognised legal right to be there.
752327
Cuba still lets the USA use Guantanamo bay as a Navy base, and the States had to ask and recieve permission to house prisoners there. I suspect there might be closer ties than either side admits. ?But then again I am just a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
812807
It is possible to have a benign dictator - someone who has absolute control and uses it (to some extent) to benefit the people he governs.  But it is hard to argue that the government of Cuba is anything else when opposition groups are illegal and there are no observers or NGO oversight during elections.\n\nCastro has done a lot for his country, particularly in terms of education and medicine, but it is sad to see it come with a loss of civil and human rights.  I think it's misleading to look at his actions as entirely good or bad.
877873
Cuba is a dictatorship.  Fidel Castro is not a king, he is a dictator.
591556
More than anything else, I think it started out of embarassment. When Fidel Castro came out of nowhere to lead his people against a very corrupt regieme led by Bautista, it was like he was a Latino John Kennedy. We welcomed him here in the US. The problem was, of course, that much of the corruption was tied up with the American Mafia and gambling cartels. They did not take very well to being kicked out of Cuba. \n\nThen there was Fidel's Socialist leanings. He was a man of the people, right? He and Che Gueverra saw themselves as liberators. The revolution would not be confined to just Cuba but might well be exported to all the corrupt North American dominated regimes. The US could not stomach that. Trade started getting "difficult."\n\nFidel appealed to a nation very interested in establishing a Western Hemisphere base of influence, the Soviet Union. This was the era of a very hot "Cold War" with Nikita Khruchov taking off his shoe and banging it on the desk in the UN threatening the US with "We will bury you!" The Soviet Union even went so far as to send guided missiles to Cuba. John Kennedy was President at the time. It seemed as though the US and the Soviet Union were going to nuclear war over Cuba. The Soviets withdrew their missiles.\n\nFidel stayed on. The US took in Cubano refugees. Some of them launched attempts to topple Fidel's government. The CIA may have even tried to assassinate him.  There were rumors that Cuba was behind the JFK assassination plot.\n\nSo, Cuba has remained only 80 miles off the Florida shores. And the US still has a base there where the prisoners from the latest war are kept. Strange, huh? Yet, we still do not trade with them.
1007997
first , for complaints.... go to...\n\nhttp://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/01/13/cuba9848.htm\n\nthen\nhttp://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y06/jun06/20e5.htm\n\nfor more info on this here .....\n\nEXCERPT FROM THE NET>>>SOURCE HAS BEEN GIVEN\n\n\nThe term "terrorism," in practice, means the terrorism that THEY carry out against US. And the U.S. is not alone in this practice - it is probably close to universal. Cuba is certainly not alone in being treated this way. There is very rich literature documenting the practice generally.... Even the orders of the World Court calling on the U.S. to terminate its "unlawful use of force" (i.e., international terrorism, or maybe even aggression) against Nicaragua, and the supporting Security Council resolution (vetoed by the US), are unknown [in the U.S.], and if brought up, dismissed as proof that the Court is "anti-American" and irrelevant. The Cuban case is unusual because it is so clear, certainly since JFK ordered his staff to launch "the terrors of the earth" against Cuba....\n--Noam Chomsky, September, 2002\n\nTo understand the politics of Cuba, it is necessary to understand the role of the US in Latin America and elsewhere. By examining the history of the US aggression and intervention, we can see clearly the motives that have driven its foreign policy and what it is capable of given the motive and opportunity. It will then be easy to see why the Cuban people must take what seem to us to be extraordinary measures to counter this threat. For them, it is truly a matter of life and death. Recent developments -- shifts in popular opinion in the US, etc. -- are the basis for some optimism that Cuba/US relations may soon improve. Cubans must, however, exercise extreme caution if they are not to meet a fate similar to that of the former USSR, Yugoslavia and others. As William Blum states in the introduction to his recent essay, US Aggression and Intervention, in The Guardian (CPA), \n\nThe engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but by the necessity to serve other imperatives: \n\nto make the world safe for American corporations; \nto enhance the financial statements of defence contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of Congress; \nto prevent the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model; \nto extend political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a 'great power'. \n\nit will come as no surprise to readers that some international organizations, do not see Cuba as democracy. Following is a rebuttal of a typical criticism of the Cuban electoral based on an excerpt (in italics) from a report on human rights in Cuba by a commission of the Organization of American States (OAS). The section entitled "Elections for the National Assembly of People's Power and the Provincial Assemblies" begins:\n\nThe American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man establishes the right to vote and to participate in government at Article XX, in the following terms. \nArticle XX. Every person having legal capacity is entitled to participate in the government of his country, directly or through his representatives, and to take part in popular elections, which shall be by secret ballot, and shall be honest, periodic and free.\n\n38. Political rights, as considered by the Declaration, have two clearly distinguishable aspects: the right to directly exercise power, i.e., to participate in government; and the right to elect those who are to exercise it, i.e., the right to vote. This presupposes a broad conception of representative democracy, based on popular sovereignty, in which the functions by which power is exercised are performed by persons chosen in free and fair elections.\n\nThis is the case in Cuba. In addition to having the right to vote, every Cuban of voting age has an equal opportu
912495
Prime Minister of Cuba was a position in the government of Cuba. Fidel Castro assumed the position of Prime Minister in 1959 replacing José Miró Cardona.\n\nThe office was abolished on December 2, 1976 following a restructuring of the government and the implementation of a new Cuban constitution. Castro became President of the Council of state (President of Cuba) and president of the Council of ministers, positions he has filled ever since.
535437
Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926. He's 79 years old, pushing 80 by August.\nGaddafi was born in 1942. He is 64 years.\nCastro came to power through a revolution in 1959 (now 47 years in power) while Gaddafi came to power through a coup in 1969 (he's been ruling for 37 years).\nBoth are the longest serving dictators in the world today.
835927
Castro is probably the most (in)famous communist alive today, particularly in the US.  He's recognizable by a big bushy beard and a green shirt/army fatigues (and holding a Cuban flag doesn't hurt).  Here's a picture: