Raúl Chibás

Raúl Chibás Ribas was born in Santiago de Cuba on April 25, 1916, grew up in Havana, and studied at the University of Havana. His older brother Eduardo founded the Orthodox Party in 1947 and led it until his suicide in 1951, after which Raúl became the party’s leader. A fierce opponent of Fulgencio Batista, Chibás backed Fidel Castro’s fight against the regime and signed the Sierra Manifesto in July 1957, which called for unity among anti-Batista groups.

After the revolution, he held posts as railroad commissioner, trial judge, and Minister of Finance for Castro’s government. In 1960, while a Major in the Cuban Army, he defected to the United States by motorboat, believing Castro had betrayed the revolution’s ideals. In exile, he became an anti-Castro activist, taught Spanish in New York, and later lived in Caracas before settling in Miami, where he died on August 25, 2002.