Brother of Fidel Castro, Raúl served a long tenure as head of the armed forces, during which he built up the interlocking system of the Communist Party, the armed forces and the security services that still runs Cuba. He took over from Fidel as president in 2006 and handed the presidency to Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018. Now in his nineties, Mr Castro holds no official position but wields a veto over the direction of the regime and is said to be adamantly against diluting the Marxism-Leninism enshrined in the constitution. Both Castro brothers despised private business.
His grandson Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro served as a trusted bodyguard for his grandfather and has a hot line to him; he was sent to negotiate with Marco Rubio in St Kitts in early 2026, and met John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, in Havana that May. His son, Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, was a key figure in secret Obama-era talks and is also involved in current negotiations with the Americans.
In May 2026 America's Department of Justice issued criminal charges against Mr Castro in Miami, accusing him of ordering the 1996 shooting-down of two aircraft flown by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based exile group, killing four people. He was Cuba's defence minister at the time. The date chosen, May 20th, was the anniversary of Cuban independence.
The difference between dogs and cats is that dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you.