Castro sister a fierce critic of Cuba communist rule

Castro sister a fierce critic of Cuba communist rule
Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:12am EDT

(Reuters) - Juanita Castro, the younger sister of Cuban President Raul
Castro and former leader Fidel Castro, has long been a fierce critic of
her brothers' communist rule over the Caribbean's largest island.

The Castro sibling, 76, who left Cuba in 1964 to live in exile in Miami,
is this week publishing a book in Spanish entitled "Fidel and Raul, My
Brothers, the Secret History," a memoir of her recollections of her two
famous brothers.

On the eve of the publication, she told a Spanish-language TV station on
Sunday that she had collaborated with the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency against her brothers' rule in Cuba before going into exile in
Miami in 1964.

Former leader Fidel Castro, 83, who brought communism to Cuba after
leading the 1959 revolution, and ruled the island for nearly half a
century, last year handed over the presidency to his younger brother
Raul Castro, 78.

Here are some facts about Juanita Castro:

* Juanita Castro was born at the Castro family home at Biran in eastern
Cuba on May 6, 1933, the fifth of seven children born to Angel Castro
and Lina Ruz Gonzalez. She is seven years younger than Fidel and two
years younger than Raul.

* She supported her brothers' guerrilla war to overthrow dictator
Fulgencio Batista, collecting funds to help finance the struggle, and in
the first year after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution she managed a
hospital.

* She became disillusioned with her brother Fidel Castro's shift to
communism, which she calls a "betrayal" of the democratic principles he
originally claimed to espouse. She says this caused a family rift, with
her speaking out against the direction of the Revolution and its
alignment with the Soviet Union.

* The last time she saw Fidel was in 1963 after their mother died from a
heart attack at her house. They argued and she says she never spoke to
him again after that.

* In 1964, she left Cuba for Mexico and then settled in Miami, the
center of the Cuban exile community. In June 1965, she testified before
a U.S. Congress Committee of Un-American Activities that her brother
Fidel "betrayed and deceived the Cuban people" by espousing communism.
She said he hated the United States obsessively, and had transformed
Cuba into a "colony of Communist imperialism".

* For more than three decades, she lived quietly running a community
pharmacy in Miami, before selling it in 2006 to retire.

In 1992, she sent a letter to Fidel from Madrid, asking him to surrender
his regime and listen to reason.

When Fidel fell seriously ill in 2006, she criticized the Miami exile
community after thousands celebrated the announcement of her brother's
failing health. "He's my brother, and that's that," she told one
interviewer.

* Juanita Castro filed, and won, a 1998 lawsuit in a Spanish court
against Castro's illegitimate exiled daughter Alina Fernandez, for her
autobiography "Alina: The Memoirs of Fidel Castro's Rebel Daughter."
Juanita said the book libeled her and Fidel's parents.

* "My life's not exceptional. It's true that I'm the sister of the
dictator, but many other families have also been split between
supporters and opponents of the regime," she said in 2006.

(Reporting by Pascal Fletcher, editing by Jackie Frank)

FACTBOX: Castro sister a fierce critic of Cuba communist rule | Reuters
(26 October 2009)
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59P0OH20091026