Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied U.S. efforts to topple him, He was 90. <br /> <br />Hailed by his admirers as a hero, reviled by his critics as a dictator, former Cuban president Fidel Castro made headlines for almost five decades as the fiery, charismatic leader of the Caribbean's biggest island. <br /> <br />Instantly recognizable with his luxuriant beard and olive-green uniform, Castro first won international fame by leading a guerrilla campaign that with popular support ousted right-wing Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959. <br /> <br />Turning his back on his origins as the son of a wealthy sugar planter, he launched a political, social and economic revolution that transformed Cuba from a backward playground for U.S. tourists into a Third World power. He was aided in creating the first communist administration in the western hemisphere by his close friend revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara. <br /> <br />Castro's belligerently anti-United States stance made him the target of a series of attempts by Washington to remove him. These included an abortive invasion attempt at Cuba's southern Bay of Pigs in 1961 by more than 1,000 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). <br /> <br />Shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco Havana and Moscow signed a pact agreeing to secretly install Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. When Washington discovered their existence, U.S. President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade and many feared the dispute would culminate in nuclear war. The tension did not subside until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites. <br /> <br />Castro continued to foster close relations with Moscow that were to last for three decades and built up the biggest army in the Western Hemisphere outside the U.S. He boosted Cuba's role as a world player by sending Soviet-armed Cuban "internationalist" troops to defend left-wing governments in Ethiopia, Namibia and Angola, and backed left-wing revolutionaries all over Latin America. <br /> <br />During the 1980's, after years of economic struggle Cuba began to enjoy reasonable prosperity, largely due to trade agreements with the Soviet Bloc. By the end of the decade however, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was moving Soviet republics towards a market economy and in 1989 he visited Havana in an attempt to persuade Castro to accept change. Castro insisted Cuba should follow old style communist doctrine and isolated himself from the bloodless revolution which resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union. <br /> <br />With the loss of his old trading partners and the continued U.S. trade embargo Cuba's economy almost immediately went into a steep decline. Food and consumer goods shortages became acute and rationing was introduced. <br /> <br />In the summer of 1994, when Cuba was suffering its worst post-Soviet economic crisis, more than 30,000 Cubans took to the sea in boats and rickety rafts heading for the southern tip of Florida. Most were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard and ended up in the United States but many lost their lives in the shark-infested waters. <br /> <br />In 1992 Castro made his first official visit to Spain where he joined leaders from Spain, Portugal and Latin America at the second Iberoamerican Summit. The climax of his visit was an emotional tour of the village of Lancara in northwest Spain where his father was born and raised before emigrating to Cuba in the early 1900's. <br /> <br />In July 1997, almost 30 years after "Che" Guevara was captured and shot whilst leading an abortive rebel uprising in Bolivia, his remains were returned to Cuba. Months of homage culminated in a funeral ceremony led by Castro in the south-eastern city of Santa Clara. Guevara captured the city on January 1, 1959 in a battle that was decisive in the rebel victory over Batista. <br /> <br />In January 1998 Pope John Paul II made an historic five-day visit to Cuba during which he condemned the 35-year-old U.S. trade embargo and called for the release of political prisoners and greater justice and freedom for Cubans. The pontiff received his biggest welcome in Havana where more than 300,000 people, Castro among them, packed the massive Revolution Square, symbolic home of the 1959 revolution. <br /> <br />Castro received an enthusiastic welcome when he made a state visit to South Africa in September 1998. Nelson Mandela, who established diplomatic ties with Cuba the day after his 1994 inauguration as South Africa's first democratically elected president, maintained a strong relationship with Castro in appreciation of his support during the liberation struggle against apartheid.
