ctics. The Spaniards began a campaign of suppression. General Valeriano Weyler, military governor of Cuba, herded the rural population into what he called reconcentrados, described by international observers as "fortified towns". These are often considered the prototype for 20th-century concentration camps.[23] Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease in the camps, numbers verified by the Red Cross and U.S. Senator (and former Secretary of War) Redfield Proctor. U.S. and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed.[24] The Spanish-American War The U.S. battleship Maine arrived in Havana on 25 January 1898 to offer protection to the 8,000 American residents on the island; but the Spanish saw this as intimidation. On the evening of 15 February 1898, the Maine blew up in the harbor, killing 252 crew that night; another 8 died of their wounds in hospital over the next few days.[25] A Naval Board of Inquiry, headed by Captain William Sampson, was appointed to investigate the cause of the explosion on the Maine. Having examined the wreck and taken testimony from eyewitnesses and experts, the board reported on 21 March 1898, that the Maine had been destroyed by "a double magazine set off from the exterior of the ship, which could only have been produced by a mine".[25] The facts remain disputed today, although an investigation by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover in 1976 established that the blast was most likely a large internal explosion, caused by spontaneous combustion in inadequately ventilated bituminous coal which ignited gunpowder in an adjacent magazine.[26][27] The board was unable to fix the responsibility for the disaster, but a furious American populace, fueled by an active press—notably the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst—concluded that the Spanish were to blame and demanded action.[25] The U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention, and President William McKinley complied.[28] Spain and the U.S. declared war on each other in late April. Modern history After the Spanish-American War, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (1898), by which Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the U.S. for the sum of $20 million.[29] Under the same treaty, Spain relinquished all claim of sovereignty over the title to Cuba. Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as U.S. President in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year treaty proposal. Instead, Cuba gained formal independence from the U.S. on May 20, 1902 as the Republic of Cuba. But under Cuba's new constitution, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, the U.S. leased the Guantánamo Bay naval base from Cuba. In 1906, following disputed elections, the first president, Tomás Estrada Palma, faced an armed revolt by independence war veterans who defeated the meager government forces.[30] The U.S. intervened by occupying Cuba and named Charles Edward Magoon as Governor for three years. For many years afterwards, Cuban historians attributed Magoon's governorship as having introduced political and social corruption.[31] In 1908, self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. continued intervening in Cuban affairs. In 1912, the Partido Independiente de Color attempted to establish a separate black republic in Oriente Province,[32] but was suppressed by General Monteagudo with considerable bloodshed. The Gran Teatro (left) and Hotel Inglaterra, on the Prado, facing Parque Central in Havana During World War I, Cuba shipped considerable quantities of sugar to Britain, avoiding U-boat attack, by the subterfuge of shipping sugar to Sweden. The Menocal government declared war on Germany very soon after the U.S. did. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, constitutional government was maintained until 1930, when Gerardo Machado y Morales suspended the constitution. During Machado's tenure, a nationalistic economic program was pursued with several major national development projects undertaken, including Carretera Central and El Capitolio. Machado's hold on power was weakened following a decline in demand for exported agricultural produce due to the Great Depression, and to attacks first by independence war veterans, and later by covert terrorist organizations, principally the ABC.[citation needed] During a general strike in which the Communist Party sided with Machado,[33] the senior elements of the Cuban army forced Machado into exile and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, son of Cuba's founding father (Carlos Manuel de Céspedes), as President. During September 4–5, 1933 a second coup overthrew Céspedes, leading to the formation of the first Ramón Grau government. Notable events in this violent period include the separate sieges of Hotel Nacional de Cuba and Atares Castle. This government lasted 100 days but engineered radical socialist changes in Cuban society and a rejection of the Platt amendment. In 1934, Fulgencio Batista and the army replaced Grau with Carlos Mendieta. Batista was finally elected as President democratically in the elections of 1940,[34][35][36] and his administration carried out major social reforms. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. Batista's administration formally took Cuba to the Allies of World War II camp in the World War II, declaring war on Japan on December 9, 1941, then on Germany and Italy on December 11, 1941. Cuba was not greatly involved in combat during World War II. Many so-called yank tanks remain in use from pre-revolutionary days Ramón Grau won the 1944 elections. Carlos Prío Socarrás won the 1948 elections. The influx of investment fueled a boom which did much to raise living standards across the board and create a prosperous middle class in most urban areas, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.[37] The 1952 election was a three-way race. Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and Batista as a distant third, seeking a return to office. Both Agramonte and Hevia had decided to name Col. Ramón Barquín to head the Cuban armed forces after the elections. Barquín, then a diplomat in Washington, DC, was a top officer, respected by the professional army, and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquín would oust him and his followers, and when it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on March 10, 1952 and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a "provisional president" for the next two years. Justo Carrillo told Barquín in Washington in March 1952 that the inner circles knew that Batista had aimed the coup at him; they immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restore democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed La Conspiracion de los Puros de 1956 (Agrupacion Montecristi). In 1954, Batista agreed to elections. The Partido Auténtico put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. In April 1956, Batista ordered Barquín to become General and chief of the army. But Barquín decided to move forward with his coup to secure total power. On April 4, 1956, a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Barquín was frustrated by Rios Morejon. The coup broke the backbone of the Cuban armed forces. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquín was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years. La Conspiración de los Puros resulted in the imprisonment of the commanders of the armed forces and the closing of the military academies. Cuba had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios.[38] In 1958, Cuba was a relatively well-advanced country, certainly by Latin American standards, and in some cases by world standards.[39] Cuban workers enjoyed some of the highest wages in the world. Cuba attracted more immigrants, primarily from Europe, as a percentage of population than the US. The United Nations noted Cuba for its large middle class. On the other hand, Cuba was affected by perhaps the largest labor union privileges in Latin America, including bans on dismissals and mechanization. They were obtained in large measure "at the cost of the unemployed and the peasants", leading to disparities.[40] Between 1933 and 1958, Cuba extended economic regulations enormously, causing economic problems.[36][41] Unemployment became relatively large; graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs.[36] The middle class, which compared Cuba to the United States, became increasingly dissatisfied with the unemployment, while labor unions supported Batista until the very end.[34][36] Cuban Revolution Main article: Cuban Revolution On December 2, 1956 a party of 82 people, led by Fidel Castro in a small boat, the Granma, landed on the shore of Cuba with the intention of establishing an armed resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra. While facing armed resistance from these rebels in the mountains, the Batista regime was weakened and crippled by a United States arms embargo imposed on March 14, 1958. By late 1958, the rebels broke out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general, popular insurrection. After the fighters captured Santa Clara, Batista dramatically fled from Havana on January 1, 1959 to exile in Portugal. Barquín negotiated the symbolic change of command between Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Raul Castro and his brother Fidel Castro after the Supreme Court decided that the Revolution was the source of law and its representative should assume command. Castro's forces entered the capital on January 8, 1959. Shortly afterwards, a liberal lawyer, Dr Manuel Urrutia Lleó became president. He was backed by Castro's 26th of July Movement because they believed his appointment would be welcomed by the United States.[citation needed] Disagreements within the government culminated in Urrutia's resignation in July 1959. He was replaced by Osvaldo Dorticós who served as president until 1976. Castro became prime minister in February 1959, succeeding José Miró in that post. Fidel Castro and members of the East German Politburo in 1972 In its first year, the new revolutionary government expropriated private property with little or no compensation, nationalised public utilities, tightened controls on the private sector and closed down the mafia-controlled gambling industry. The CIA conspired with the Chicago mafia in 1960 and 1961 to assassinate Fidel Castro, according to documents declassified in 2007.[42][43] Some of these measures were undertaken by Fidel Castro's government in the name of the program outlined in the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra,[44] while in the Sierra Maestra. The government nationalized private property totaling about $25 billion US dollars,[45] of which American property made up only over US $1.0 billions.[45][46] By the end of 1960, all opposition newspapers had been closed down, and all radio and television stations were in state control.[38] Moderates, teachers and professors were purged.[38] In any year, about 20,000 dissenters were held and tortured under inhumane prison conditions.[38] Homosexuals and other unfortunates were locked up in internment camps in the 1960s, where they were subject to medical-political "re-education".[47] One estimate is that 15,000 to 17,000 people were executed.[48] The Communist Party strengthened its one-party rule, with Castro as supreme leader.[38] Fidel's brother, Raul Castro, became the army chief.[38] Loyalty to Castro became the primary criterion for all appointments.[49] In September 1960, the regime created a system known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), which provided neighborhood spying.[38] In the 1961 New Year's Day parade, the administration exhibited Soviet tanks and other weapons.[49] Eventually, the tiny island nation built up the second largest armed forces in Latin America, second only to Brazil.[50] Cuba became a privileged client-state of the Soviet Union.[51] By 1961, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had left for the United States.[52] The 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion (La Batalla de Girón) was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Cuban government by a U.S.-trained force of Cuban exiles with U.S. military support. The plan was launched in April 1961, less than three months after John F. Kennedy became the U.S. President. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exiles in three days. The bad Cuban-American relations were exacerbated the following year by the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Kennedy administration demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet missiles placed in Cuba, which was a response to U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey and the Middle East. The Soviets and Americans soon agreed on the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba and American missiles secretly from Turkey and the Middle East within a few months. Kennedy also agreed not to invade Cuba in the future. Cuban exiles captured during the Bay of Pigs Invasion were exchanged for a shipment of supplies from America.[34] By 1963, Cuba was moving towards a full-fledged Communist system modeled on the USSR.[53] The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba and began Operation Mongoose. In 1965, Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, and Blas Roca became Second Secretary. Roca was succeeded by Raúl Castro, who, as Defense Minister and Fidel's closest confidant, became and has remained the second most powerful figure in Cuba. Raúl's position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful insurrections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. During the 1970s, Castro dispatched tens of thousands troops in support of Soviet-supported wars in Africa, particularly the MPLA in Angola and Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia.[54] The standard of living in 1970s was "extremely spartan" and discontent was rife.[55] Fidel Castro admitted the failures of economic policies in a 1970 speech.[55] By the mid-1970s, Castro started economic reforms. Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1962 in support of the U.S. embargo, but in 1975 the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba and both Mexico and Canada broke ranks with the US by developing closer relations with Cuba.[citation needed] On 3 June 2009, the OAS adopted a contentious resolution to end the 47-year exclusion of Cuba, but the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked out in protest as the resolution was being drafted. Cuban leaders have repeatedly announced they are not interested in rejoining the OAS.[56] As of 2002, some 1.2 million persons of Cuban background (about 10% of the current population of Cuba) reside in the U.S.,[57][58] Many of them left the island for the U.S., often by sea in small boats and fragile rafts. On 6 April 1980, 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. The following day, the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy.[citation needed] On 16 April, 500 Cubans left the Peruvian Embassy for Costa Rica. On 21 April, many of those Cubans started arriving in Miami via private boats and were halted by the U.S. State Department, but the emigration continued, because Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Over 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the U.S. before the flow of vessels ended on 15 June.[citation needed] Raúl Castro and President Medvedev of Russia Castro's rule was severely tested in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (known in Cuba as the Special Period). The food shortages were similar to North Korea; priority was given to the elite classes and the military, while ordinary people had little to eat.[59][60] The regime did not accept American donations of food, medicines and cash until 1993.[59] On 5 August 1994, state security dispersed protesters in a spontaneous popular uprising in Havana.[61] Cuba has found a new source of aid and support in the People's Republic of China, and new allies in Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela and Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, both major oil and gas exporters. In 2003, the regime arrested and imprisoned a large number of civil activists, a period known as the "Black Spring".[62][63] On July 31, 2006 Fidel Castro temporarily delegated his major duties to his brother, First Vice President, Raúl Castro, while Fidel recovered from surgery for an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding".[citation needed] On 2 December 2006, Fidel was too ill to attend the 50th anniversary commemoration of the Granma boat landing, fuelling speculation that he had stomach cancer,[64] although there was evidence his illness was a digestive problem and not terminal.[65] In January 2008, footage was released of Fidel meeting Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, in which Castro "appeared frail but stronger than three months ago".[citation needed] In February 2008, Fidel announced his resignation as President of Cuba,[66] and on 24 February Raúl was elected as the new President.[67] In his acceptance speech, Raúl promised that some of the restrictions that limit Cubans' daily lives would be removed.[68] In March 2009, Raúl Castro purged some of Fidel's officials.[69] Government and politics Main articles: Politics of Cuba, Provinces of Cuba, and Municipalities of Cuba Revolution Square: José Martí Monument designed by Enrique Luis Varela, sculpture by Juan José Sicre and finished in 1958.[70] The Constitution of 1976, which defined Cuba as a socialist republic, was replaced by the Constitution of 1992, which is guided by the ideas of José Martí, Marx, Engels and Lenin.[4] The constitution describes the Communist Party of Cuba as the "leading force of society and of the state".[4] The first secretary of the Communist Party, is concurrently President of the Council of State (President of Cuba) and President of the Council of Ministers (sometimes referred to as Prime Minister of Cuba).[71] Members of both councils are elected by the National Assembly of People's Power.[4] The President of Cuba, who is also elected by the Assembly, serves for five years and there is no limit to the number of terms of office.[4] The Supreme Court of Cuba serves as the nation's highest judicial branch of government. It is also the court of last resort for all appeals against the decisions of provincial courts. Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), is the supreme organ of power; 609 members serve five-year terms.[4] The assembly meets twice a year, between sessions legislative power is held by the 31 member Council of Ministers. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over 16 who have not been convicted of a criminal offense can vote. Article 131 of the Constitution states that voting shall be "through free, equal and secret vote".[4] Article 136 states: "In order for deputies or delegates to be considered elected they must get more than half the number of valid votes cast in the electoral districts".[4] Votes are cast by secret ballot and counted in public view. Nominees are chosen at local gatherings from multiple candidates before gaining approval from election committees. In the subsequent election, there is one candidate fo