Relations between Cuba and Venezuela were established in 1902. The relationship deteriorated in the 1960s and Venezuela broke relations in late 1961 following the Betancourt Doctrine policy of not having ties with governments that had come to power by non-electoral means. A destabilizing factor was the Cuban support for the antigovernment guerrilla force that operates in remote rural areas. Relations were reestablished in 1974.
In 1999 the bilateral relation significantly improved during the Presidency of Hugo Chávez. Chávez formed a major alliance with First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Fidel Castro and significant trade relationship with Cuba since his election in 1999. The warm relationship between the two countries continued to intensify. After decades of close ties in the Caribbean, several governments in the region started to distance from the United States. Hugo Chávez described Castro as his mentor and called Cuba "a revolutionary democracy".
The bilateral relation includes development aid, joint business ventures, large financial transactions, exchange of energy resources and information technology, and cooperation in the fields of intelligence service and military. A characteristic of Cuba-Venezuela ties is that both nations exchange assets with each other which are inexpensive for the sending country but of high significance for the receiving country.
Early history
Venezuela and Cuba's ties go back to when Cuba was still under Spanish rule, when among the signers of the Act of Independence of Venezuela in 1811 was Francisco Javier Yánez native of Puerto Principe (currently Camagüey).
In June, 1817, Gregor MacGregor, a Scottish adventurer styling himself the "Brigadier General of the United Provinces of New Granada and Venezuela, and General-in-Chief of the Armies of the Two Floridas", came to Amelia Island under Spanish rule of Captaincy General of Cuba. MacGregor, purportedly commissioned by general Simón Bolívar, had raised funds and troops for a full-scale invasion of Florida. As word of his conduct in the Spanish American Wars of Independence reached the United States, many of the recruits in his invasion force deserted. Nonetheless, he overran the Fort San Carlos with a small force. The commander, Francisco Morales, struck the Spanish flag and fled to Havana. MacGregor raised his flag, the "Green Cross of Florida", a green cross on a white ground, over the fort and proclaimed the "Republic of the Floridas". After squandered much of the money on luxuries in September MacGregor left for the Bahamas and remained asilated in Nassau. James Irwin at command of the remanent troops defeated two Spanish assaults and were then joined by 300 men under Louis-Michel Aury. He directed his secretaries Pedro Gual Escandón and Vicente Pazos Kanki to draw up a constitution, and invited all of Florida to unite in throwing off the Spanish yoke. Aury controlled the Island for three months before surrendering to American forces, who held the island "in trust for Spain" until the Florida Purchase in 1819
In the celebrated Battle of Carabobo (1821) José Rafael de las Heras from Havana fought fiercely at side of the patriot army. Promoted to colonel by general Simón Bolívar himself, and before whom the Liberator would make the promise not to sheathe his sword until Cuba was free.
In 1823 the Conspiracy of Rayos y Soles de Bolivar was instigated by several Spanish Americans residing to support the struggle against the Spanish on the mainland and achieve Cuba's independence—though it has been asserted that the actual objective was annexation to Gran Colombia. Prominent among them were the Venezuelan merchant Juan Jorge Peoli, José Fernández Madrid, the last president of the First Republic of New Granada in 1816; Vicente Rocafuerte, a native of Guayaquil; the Peruvian writer Manuel Lorenzo de Vidaurre, who was settled in Camagüey; the Haitian Sévère Curtois; and José Antonio de Miralla, from the Río de la Plata region.
When the Spanish army withdrew in defeat to Cuba after the decisive Battle of Lake Maracaibo (1823), many Venezuelan royalists were exiled, as colonel Narciso Lopez, Marcos Maceo, who would be father of revolutionary Antonio Maceo, Calixto Garcia, who would be grandfather of Cuban Independence major general Calixto Garcia. They continued to serve the Spanish government in several military and administrative posts in Cuba and Spain. After they turned against Spanish rule, they became a partisan of the independist faction in Cuba. In 1848, during an arrest of Cuban revolutionaries, López fled to the United States where attempted to liberate the island and make an independent Cuba that would eventually join the United States as a slave state. The modern Flag of Cuba originates from his first expedition landed in Cárdenas, was designed by Lopez, as well as a local Cuban named Miguel Teurbe Tolon. In 1851 Lopez and many Americans of the second failed expedition were executed in Castle Salvador de La Punta of Havana.
On October 10, 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes proclaimed the freedom of his slaves at his sugar estate, La Demajagua, and issued the call for the uprising known as *El Grito de Yara thereby initiating the War for Cuban independence from Spanish rule encouraged by revolts occurred barely three weeks after staged by the Revolutionary Committee of Puerto Rico called *El Grito de Lares*, led by the Rojas brothers Venezuelan exiles.
During the Ten Years War (1868- 1878), from Venezuela came, among others, José Miguel Barreto Pérez, Manuel María Garrido Páez, Cristobal Mendoza,: González Barrios, René. Los nietos del Presidente.Cubadebate. Junio, 2024 Salomé Hernández Hernández, Cristóbal Acosta, José María Aurrecoechea Irigoyen and Amadeo Manuit. They all fought for the Independence of Cuba in several battles standing out for their bravery. Salomé Hernández died in Cuba because of illness, while Acosta, Aurrecoechea Irigoyen and Manuit, drowned the insular soil with their blood, helping to lay the foundations of the growing friendship and solidarity between Cuba and Venezuela. In Guaimaro, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, president of the Republic in Arms on April 12, 1869, designates the Venezuelan Cristóbal Mendoza, Minister encharged of Foreign Relations, a young man among the Camagüeyans was the first to take up arms. Son of Cristóbal Mendoza, first President of Venezuela and friend of Bolivar who in 1813, after the defeat of the First Republic wrote to him in the following words: "Come without delay: come. The country needs it. I will go ahead conquering and you will continue organizing me; Because you are the man of the organization, as I am of the conquest." Cristóbal Mendoza reached the rank of colonel and died in front of the Spanish firing squad on December 30, 1870, two days after falling prisoner in Najasa, Camagüey.
In 1871 the president Antonio Guzman Blanco, supported the so-called "Venezuelan Expedition of the Vanguard", which landed in the eastern department of Cuba on June 17 commanded by the Cuban Brigadier de Quesada. In this attempt to liberate Cuba were 200 men, mostly Venezuelans, with 600 weapons, ammunition and 40 mules. In Camagüey, they fought the successful combat of Sabanas del Ciego, in which the Spanish forces were very decimated. But it was not an obstacle that the Cuban patriot Jose Marti, implying in Venezuelan politics, was expelled by Guzman Blanco in 1881. Marti must hurriedly leave Caracas, where he planned to live his exile, without being able to say farewell to his friends and return to New York.
Descendants of Bolivar and relatives of marechal Antonio Jose de Sucre, they fought in the War of the 95.
20th century
In 1902, during the presidency of Cipriano Castro, diplomatic relations were established between Venezuela and Cuba shortly after the latter's independence following the Spanish–American War. On July 14, 1903, Cuba and Venezuela signed their first treaty—an Extradition Treaty; however, the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation was never signed, even though it had been the primary aspiration of both countries. From 1902 to 1906, Cuban interests were handled by the consular staff of the United States of America accredited in Venezuela. On June 21, 1906, Cuba appointed its first diplomatic representative, Juan Rius Rivera, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on a Special Diplomatic Mission to initiate relations with the countries of Central and South America. Venezuela followed suit three years later, on July 5, 1909, with the appointment of Ignacio Andrade as Envoy Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Havana.
By 1913, an extradition treaty was signed between the two nations.Bulletin of the Pan American Union, vol. XXXVI (1913), p. 760University of Firenze. Cuba in the World, the World in Cuba. 2009https://web.archive.org/web/20160103091006/http://anterior.cubaminrex.cu/Patrimonio/Articulos/2008/Realaciones.html Relaciones Cuba Venezuela 1902 2007
Throughout the years of Fidel Castro's guerilla which fight in the Sierra Maestra aimed at overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista, there were numerous gestures and actions of Venezuelan solidarity with the 26th of July Movement. Following the ousting of dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez on January 23, 1958 a street campaign called "The March of Bolivar to the Sierra Maestra" raised $220,000 in funds, in addition to securing a substantial amount of arms and ammunition that were delivered to Cuban guerilla after being transported by Captain Hector Abdelnour Musa on board a C-46 airplane purchased for that purpose. These weapons, imported from the United States, came from the arsenals of the Venezuelan Army. This operation was managed by René Estévez, with the knowledge and approval of then-President Wolfgang Larrazabal, and the support of his brother, Carlos, and other officers, such as Hugo Trejo. In addition, Venezuelan broadcasters took the initiative to retransmit Radio Rebelde's war updates through Radio Rumbos and Radio Continent, disseminating information about the advances of Castro's guerillas and the setbacks of the dictator Batista.
The triumph of the Cuban Revolution, on January 1, 1959, ushered in a new era in bilateral relations between Havana and Caracas. On January 3, 1959, the Minister of State of Cuba requested from the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs the recognition of the new Cuban Government, which emerged after the fall of Batista. On January 5, 1959, the Venezuelan Government recognizes the newly established Cuban government in Havana.
On January 23, 1959, Fidel Castro paid a historic visit to Venezuela. It was his first trip abroad since his triumphant entry into Havana on January 6, 1959. Over the course of his five-day stay in Caracas, Castro was hailed as a continental hero by Venezuelan people. The primary purpose of this visit was to express appreciation to the Venezuelan people for their valuable moral and material contribution to the cause of Cuba Libre.
Castro was honored with a welcoming ceremony offered by the Congress, and also at the Venezuela Central University, the Municipal Council of Caracas and the multitudinary meeting in the Plaza El Silencio. At the Venezuela Central University, he met a great poet, the Chilean Pablo Neruda, who spoke in a massive act of students and read his Canto a Bolivar. Luis Báez summarized what Neruda said: "In this painful and victorious hour that the peoples of America live, my poem with changes of place, can be understood directed to Fidel Castro, because in the struggles for freedom the fate of a Man to give confidence to the spirit of greatness in the history of our peoples.". Castro also met with President-elect Rómulo Betancourt, unsuccessfully requesting a loan and a new deal for Venezuelan oil.
1960s–1999