Juanita Castro
| Juanita Castro | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Juana de la Caridad Castro Ruz 6 May 1933 Birán, Holguín Province, Cuba |
| Relations |
Ángel Castro y Argiz (father) Ramón Castro Ruz (brother) Fidel Castro (brother) Raúl Castro (brother) Alina Fernández (niece) Mariela Castro (niece) Alejandro Castro Espín (nephew) |
Juana de la Caridad "Juanita" Castro Ruz (born 6 May 1933) is a Cuban activist as well as the sister of Fidel and Raúl Castro, the former and current President of Cuba. After collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency in Cuba, she has lived in the United States since 1964.
Juanita was born in Birán, near Mayarí, in what is now known as Holguín Province. She is the fourth child of Ángel Castro y Argiz and Lina Ruz González, and has three brothers — Ramón, Fidel, and Raúl — and three sisters — Angelita, Enma, and Agustina. Lina Ruz Gonzalez was Angel Castro's cook; he was married to another woman during the birth of Juanita and her older brothers and he and Lina were never married. She also has five half siblings: Lidia, Pedro Emilio, Manuel, Antonia, and Georgina, who were raised by Ángel Castro's first wife Maria Luisa Argota.
Juanita Castro was active in the Cuban revolution, buying weapons for the 26th of July movement during their campaign against Fulgencio Batista. In 1958 she traveled to the U.S. to raise funds to support the insurgent movement. After the revolution Juanita felt betrayed by the growing influence of Cuban communists in the Cuban government.
Fidel and Raúl's government policies clashed with family interests. When the two revolutionaries insisted on including the family plantation in their agrarian reform program to limit private land ownership, their older brother Ramón, who had been maintaining the property, angrily exploded, "Raúl is a dirty little Communist. Some day I am going to kill him."
In this climate, Juanita Castro started collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency after being recruited by someone close to her brother Fidel. She later reported that the CIA "wanted to talk to me because they had interesting things to tell me, and interesting things to ask me, such as if I was willing to take the risk, if I was ready to listen to them... I was rather shocked, but anyway I said yes". As part of her work with the CIA, she was credited with helping at least 200 people leave Cuba in the immediate post-revolutionary period.Time magazine reported that "after the mother Lina Ruz died in 1963, there was a violent episode when Fidel decided to expropriate the family land once and for all. Juanita started selling the cattle; Fidel flew into a rage, denounced her as a 'counterrevolutionary worm,' and rushed to the Oriente farm."
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