SANA MAHMOOD
KARACHI: Today when the Iconic Leader Fidel Castro is no more, Pakistanis vividly recall how Cuban doctors came to their rescue during October 2006 earthquake and treated over half a million men, women and children at the tent hospitals erected in the mountainous region in the North of country.
90 years ago Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on 13th day of August 1926 to a wealthy sugar planter, who had emigrated to Cuba from Spain. 
Though his parents sent him to Catholic schools in Santiago, sports aficionado Castro never excelled in academics. In 1940’s while studying law at Havana University the young student transformed into a political activists delivering fiery speeches. 
Castro, in order to avoid arrest, crossed the border to Mexico in 1955 where he met Ernesto Che Guevara. Castro returned to Cuba next year with just 81 colleagues and commenced guerrilla movement against Batista regime in Havana. That lasted for two years.
In 1959 when Castro and his colleagues entered Havana a large number of Batista supporters were executed as he himself fled.
As a red flag carrier, Castro remained number one enemy of USA that had tried to topple his regime and assassinate him but Castro survived all such attempts.
Castro nationalized foreign companies, and signed trade agreements with the Soviet Union. The United States ended all relations with Cuba in 1961 and backed up a group of Cuban exiles on an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs.
Castro remained at single party state’s pinnacle of power for half a century implementing his communist views. He ceded power to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2008.
The ‘maximum leader’ who held absolute power since 1959 was defeated by heart attack. Nine days of National mourning has been announced in Cuba.
