Juanita Castro has passed away at the age of 90, her co-workers announce. She was Fidel Castro’s younger sister, but fought against the Cuban revolutionary regime for much of her life.
“Today, Juanita Castro has moved on,” writes Maria Antonieta Collins, co-author of the 90-year-old’s memoirs, on Instagram.
Juanita Castro was 25 years old and active in the armed resistance against the military dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late 1950s. But when the rebels succeeded in taking power, she was disappointed that the brothers Fidel and Raúl moved so quickly in the communist direction. A younger sister, Emma, had married and moved to Mexico, and in connection with trips there, Juanita allowed herself to be recruited by the US intelligence service, the CIA.
– I was quite shocked, but said yes, she told me about the CIA’s props, reports The New York Times.
Got the hint
In the United States’ pay, she helped regime opponents to escape the island nation, among other things. But when the mother Lina Ruz died in 1963, four years after the revolution, the tensions in the younger generation became unbearable. In total, they were more than ten siblings, and opinions sharply diverged as Fidel and Raúl pulled the rich family’s estates into a communist agricultural policy that severely limited private ownership.
According to Juanita Castro’s memoirs, in 1964, older brother Raúl showed her a folder in which all her oppositional activities were mapped. She took the hint and went into exile.
Pharmacies in Florida
First, she followed younger sister Emma to Mexico. And soon Juanita continued to the United States, where she settled in Cuban-dense Miami. For many years, from 1973 to 2006, she owned a pharmacy, and during that time became a citizen of the country.
In recent years, Juanita Castro lived a reclusive life in Coral Gables in South Miami – interrupted by comments in front of the television cameras as famous big brother Fidel’s health gradually deteriorated until his death in 2016.
However, several of the siblings are still alive, among them 92-year-old Raúl, who succeeded Fidel as president of Cuba in the years 2008–18, and the now 88-year-old little sister Emma.