Backgrounder: Century-long difficult Cuba-U.S. relations

Cuba and the United States restored their diplomatic relations and reopened their respective embassies on Monday even though they have undergone conflicting historical ties for over a century.

"It's about founding a new type of relations between the two states, different from all we have had in our common history," Cuban President Raul Castro told a parliament session last week.

Castro referred to the common history of clashes, started in 1898, when Washington sent Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders to the island and took part in the Cuban independence war against Spain.

Spain's defeat in the Hispano-Cuban-American War led to U.S. occupation of the island, with the Treaty of Paris drawn up. The treaty made Madrid recognize Cuba's independence.

The United States established a military junta in Havana between 1898 and 1902.

When the Republic was born on May 20, 1902, the U.S. troops withdrew from the island but, before doing so, imposed the Platt Amendment. This was an appendix to the Cuban Constitution giving Washington the right to military intervention on the island, which repeated in 1906, 1909 and 1913.

Written by Senator Orville Platt, the amendment also guaranteed a land transfer for naval and coaling stations. The document resulted in the 1903 settlement of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a topic currently considered as a sticking point between the two countries.

In the 1920s, following a million-U.S. dollar-loan from Morgan Bank to the Cuban government, U.S. companies began to penetrate the main sectors of the local economy.

In addition to economic control, Washington had tightened its political grip on the island country by supporting the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista until 1959, when he was ousted by the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

The revolution strained bilateral ties further though Castro visited the United States in April 1959. During his stay, Castro met with then Vice President Richard Nixon.

On March 17, 1960, when the two governments still maintained diplomatic relations, the Eisenhower administration approved a covert actions program against Cuba.

Washington suspended the Caribbean country's petroleum quota, and when Cuba bought oil from the Soviet Union, U.S. refineries on the island refused to process it.

The U.S. government officially broke diplomatic relations with Havana on Jan. 3, 1961.

At that time, Washington was sponsoring and training an invasion by Cuban exiles, which took place on April 17. The attack aimed to establish a "provisional government" after the Bay of Pigs invasion, but the Cuban exiles were defeated in less than three days.

On Feb. 3, 1962, the White House imposed an economic, commercial and financial blockade with the intention of smothering the incipient Cuban socialist government.

Washington continued to promote covert actions and got Cuba expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS).

In October that year, the Cuban Missile Crisis happened after the Soviet Union deployed ballistic missiles on the island. The 13-day confrontation between Moscow and Washington brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust.

In 1966, Lyndon Johnson's administration passed the Cuban Adjustment Act, whereby Cubans who set foot on the U.S. territory could receive all kinds of support, such as work permits, financial aid and the right to apply for U.S. residency. The U.S. did not give these benefits to people from any other countries.

After a year and a day on the U.S. territory, Cuban refugees can apply for residency which legalizes their immigration status.

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States took advantage of the opportunity to destroy the Cuban Revolution and tightened the blockade by adopting the Torricelli Act in 1993 and the Helms-Burton Act three years later.

The years of U.S. siege have cost the island accumulated losses of more than 116 billion U.S. dollars at today's currency value, as indicated in Cuba's latest report submitted to the United Nations General Assembly late last year. Endi