Diary of a Combatant Page 19
23
Criticisms of the situation in the area under Crescencio’s command continue. Fidel decides that I should go to take charge there.18
24
Nothing new.
25
Sorí calls for a meeting of peasants to exchange opinions about the possibility of carrying out the coffee harvest, which surprisingly involves 350 peasants. The executive committee, which includes Fidel, proposes the following measures: to create a type of Sierra currency to pay the workers; to bring the yarey [palm leaf fibers] and the sacks to pack them in; to create worker and consumer cooperatives; to create a commission to oversee the work and to provide troops to help pick the coffee. Everything was approved, but when Fidel was about to close the activity with a final speech, planes began to machine-gun the area around Las Mercedes and the people lost interest. We went to inspect the lines at dusk and found that Angelito had engaged in combat with the Rural Guards in La Herradura. Fidel decided that I should go there. I left at night, recommending that Angelito dig wells. According to him, there were about six to eight casualties. I don’t know if that’s true. We continued for a good part of the night and rested a bit in the early morning hours.
26
We continued the trip, hearing gunfire from early on. We reached Jíbaro, continuing afterwards to La Habanita where I arrived at night.
27
We left with Crescencio to carry out an inspection visit of his entire area in the northern zone. First I visited El Aguacate, changing the group en route to Cienaguilla. Afterwards we saw El Porvenir, where Mongo Marrero is, and last, Cujeyal [Copeyal], where el Gallego is. I went to sleep in Jíbaro, where I learned that Fonso had pulled back his lines without leaving a guard in front, which I made him do immediately. I ran into Lidia who told me that Havana was taken over by Faustino, who didn’t want to relinquish his role there. Things look worse all the time.
28
We continued with Lidia to Las Vegas, after inspecting Gabino’s lines, when I had the opportunity to see a tank shoot at peasant huts, which burned up on impact. A short time later we got news that two peasants had been wounded by grenade fragments.
29
The day passed with nothing new. Fidel announced his move to the Mompié house and he told me vaguely to leave, but I didn’t understand him very well and I stayed where I was. Given the situation, Las Vegas is being evacuated.
30
I received an urgent message from Fidel that insisted that I come up without inspecting the advance lines in Las Vegas as I had planned to do. When I got there, I learned that a plane had arrived that brought [Carlos] Franqui19 from Miami to take charge of propaganda, and 43 weapons, 11 Garands, 10 M-1s, a Johnson and 21 7.35 caliber Italian carbines that aren’t any good, one of which arrived without a bolt. I immediately moved to the school, asking for 34 volunteers, for whom those guns were destined. I chose those who the teaching staff thought were the best, excluding any who had been punished. Geonel was promoted to captain and the Del Río brothers,20 Joel Pardo and Emerio Reyes were promoted to lieutenants. Some undisciplined [rebel soldiers] were punished: one to spend 10 days without food, and another to go to Puerto Malanga.21 Chile was excluded from the officer candidates because of his indiscipline. I returned to Mompié.
31
The recruits arrived and the 20 who were to stay near the school were given uniforms and backpacks; the others were given inferior weapons and no uniforms; two remained unarmed and one was sent back to the school for losing a piece when he tried to dismantle his weapon. Huber Matos went there, saw the school, and then went on to San Lorenzo to build fortifications. I went to sleep in Las Vegas. The school was attacked by the air force.
1. The failure of the April 9 strike was discussed at this very tense meeting. In the account in Reminiscences… (“A Decisive Meeting”), Che explained in great detail what happened and what decisions were made, among which the most significant was the naming of Commander Fidel Castro as general secretary of the revolutionary forces of both the sierra and the llano wings of the July 26 Movement. There are letters preserved from Faustino Pérez that explain the impact that the measures taken had on him, such as one written to Aldo Santamaría on May 25, 1958, in which he stated: “I don’t know how to tell you how much I’ve suffered since this failure [….] I’m leaving, I don’t know what I can contribute up there [in the Sierra]. The impact of these recent tragic moments has broken my heart….” See in the appendices to this book a letter from Faustino Pérez to Armando Hart written in October 1958.
2. David Salvador (Mario), René Ramos Latour (Daniel) and Faustino Pérez.
3. Belarmino Castilla Más.
4. Antonio Torres Chedebeau.
5. From this date on consult Fidel Castro’s La Victoria Estratégica for a detailed description of events.
6. Lalo Roca was a councillor from Manzanillo.
7. Eduardo Suñol Ricardo (Eddy) was a distinguished combatant who attained the rank of commander.
8. Alfonso Zayas (Fonso) was a distinguished combatant from Che’s column. He later became an active member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and attained the rank of general.
9. Pablo Rivalta (Moisés, el Maestro) was a member of the Popular Socialist Party [PSP], in charge of political preparation of the recruits in training.
10. A reference to Oscar Fernández Mell and Sergio del Valle; the former was also part of Che’s Ciro Redondo Invasion Column Eight, and the latter, part of the Antonio Maceo Invasion Column Two led by Camilo Cienfuegos.
11. Lidia Doce Sánchez was a messenger for Columns One and Four. She was tortured and assassinated on September 12, 1958. Che portrays her and her compañera Clodomira, who was also assassinated, in his Reminiscences… in the chapter “Lidia and Clodomira.” A letter from Lidia to Che written in September 1958, just days before her death, is included in the appendices to this book.
12. Osvaldo Sánchez (Rafael) was a member of the national leadership of the PSP and occasionally sent to coordinate joint actions with the July 26 Movement.
13. Herman Marks was a North American incorporated into the Rebel Army and was the instructor at the recruits’ school because of his experience in handling bazookas and in the Korean War. He was also a member of Che’s Invasion Column Eight and was wounded in combat. He reached the rank of captain.
14. Jorge Ricardo Masetti was an Argentine journalist who after the revolution became the chief of Prensa Latina, an agency established on Che’s initiative. He died in the struggle for the liberation of his country in 1964. As a result of the interviews he carried out in the Sierra Maestra in April and May of 1958, he published a book, titled Los que luchan and los que lloran [Those Who Struggle and Those Who Weep].
15. A reference to the Organización Auténtica [Authentic Organization], the military wing of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (Authentics) which was led by former President Carlos Prío.
16. Arturo Frondizi was president of Argentina at that time. After the triumph of the revolution Che had an interview with him in Buenos Aires, in August 1961, while he was participating in the conference of CIES (Interamerican Economic and Social Council) of the OAS, held in Punta del Este, Uruguay. See Ernesto Che Guevara, Our America and Theirs (Melbourne and New York: Ocean Press), 2003.
17. Carlos Bastidas was assassinated by Batista’s repressive forces after interviewing Fidel Castro and others in the Sierra Maestra.
18. This was a critical period in Fidel’s preparations first to confront and then counterattack against Batista’s offensive against the rebels that began May 25.
19. Carlos Franqui Mesa was a journalist and ex-member of the PSP from the 1940s. He joined the July 26 Movement and moved to the Sierra Maestra to take charge of Radio Rebelde and propaganda in general when Fidel ordered those media to be moved in the command headquarters under his control. Franqui abandoned the revolution in the 1960s.
20. Hugo, Ciro and Edilberto del Río were all members of the columns led by Che in th
e Sierra Maestra, in the westward “invasion” and in Las Villas.
21. There was a government prison called Puerto Boniato [a type of sweet potato] so the rebels called theirs “Puerto Malanga” [another kind of tuber vegetable].
June 1958
1
I went up to the school a little late, proceeding to make a double selection, nine volunteers, charged with throwing grenades, and 40 selected among the bad ones to help build fortifications, telling that group that those who wanted to could return home. Seven agreed to leave. We left with 31, as nine were barefoot, arriving at Gabiro at night. On the way we met up with Ernestina Otero,1 a journalist who took some pictures of us.
2
In the morning a preliminary inspection was done to build fortifications. Afterwards I sent a couple of messages and waited for the answer in the house of Raúl [Castro Mercader], arriving at the school at night, where my house already had a roof.
3
Fidel arrived this morning to inspect the men and was generally satisfied with them. It was decided to take the machine gun away from Angelito Verdecia and organize a squadron led by R. [Rogelio] Acevedo, placing two new recruits as aides. One of the two recruits who had fled was taken prisoner. Fidel favored shooting him immediately but I was opposed to that, and finally it was agreed to hold him indefinitely in Puerto Malanga. There was another student whom I’d penalized with 10 days without food who appealed to Fidel for clemency; Fidel gave him the choice between lifting the fast and going to Puerto Malanga or to remain as he was. He couldn’t decide on either so it was decided to send him to Puerto Malanga for a month.
4
Fidel left early for his camp and within an hour we were paid a visit by two missile-firing fighter planes, shooting off six of them and machine-gunning occasionally. The reaction among the students was negative, 10 of them asked to leave. Nine bomb throwers were selected, one of whom chickened out and another who sought a pretext to be excused. We looked for two volunteers to fill those spaces and two more to assist with the machine gun, and all of these posts were filled immediately. We left heading toward La Esmajagua, reaching Gabiro by nighttime. Acevedo was put in charge of the machine gun.
5
I inspected Raúl’s very rudimentary trenches, trying to encourage the men to hurry and finish them. Angelito offered to carry out a mission to place a bomb on the road from Cerro to Estrada Palma, and I agreed to this. The trenches that Huber Matos2 is preparing are good, despite the slow pace at which they are working, and they are laid out with a strategic sense.2 Persistent rain delayed me, so it was night by the time I reached Jíbaro.
6
Fonso had prepared his trenches too far back. It was necessary to move them forward, trying to place the antitank trenches in strategic locations. He was given electric detonators. I had to send them to Fiallo because it was too late to go there. I made the men run from Cañizares to Jíbaro. When I arrived at the school I found that the planes passed overhead, provoking the flight of eight more [recruits]. Things are bad. I had to remove one of the new recruits I’d picked and put another in his place. It seems that Laferté isn’t very brave when it comes to the planes and he creates panic among the others. It has been decided to fire the 30 [machine gun] at them if they come tomorrow.
7
It dawned cloudy, there were no problems with planes all morning. In the afternoon I leave for Las Vegas. Celia isn’t there.
8
This afternoon I inspected Horacio’s zone, agreeing with him to ambush the helicopter that passes close to the slope. To carry this out I put Cuevas’s machine gun and his people to replace those of Horacio who were exhausted. Dr. Fajardo came from California, where he had gone to operate on one of our wounded, bringing back a very suspicious gringo3 with some messages from people in Miami and some extravagant plans.
9
I went up to see Fidel this morning after an intense bombardment of the Santo Domingo-Naranjo-Gamboa zone. Fidel had been advised that the gringo was either FBI or had been contracted to kill him. He read me the most recent communiqués. There were good possibilities in Venezuela and Costa Rica. Laferté reported that a suspicious recruit had fled after having been denied permission to leave. I reached Las Minas at night to learn that the AWOL recruit had been detained in his sister’s house. He defended himself saying that I had told him to go and he thought I meant to go home.
10
I asked Fidel about the AWOL soldier and he absolved him. I spoke to [the recruits] for a few minutes asking them to show more enthusiasm. For several hours intense machine-gun fire could be heard, apparently from the beach.
11
Fidel wrote me that there seemed to have been some kind of landing at the beach, asking me for seven guns and telling me that he was going to take charge of the defense of Las Vegas. He said that I should check out Crescencio’s zone and the problem of Manuel Acuña, who had threatened to kill several people. This morning there was a small battle in Las Mercedes. I’m not absolutely sure of the details, but it ended with the withdrawal of the Rural Guards. It was a rainy day.
12
With the day so cloudy the danger of an attack by the air force, which has been very active in these days, disappeared. I went to Las Vegas where several trials were held. In the first, over which I presided, Walter Santiesteban Guerra, ex-lieutenant from the Bayamo militias, was given the death penalty after being found guilty of killing two individuals when he had command of a troop.
13
We left for La Habanita to resolve the matter of Acuña with the two men [Hidalgo and Ramírez] who had taken their accusations to Fidel. The air force was extremely active all morning, bombing the zones of Las Vegas and other areas we could not determine exactly. I found Crescencio ready to carry out all the necessary inquiries, so we agreed to go to Manuel’s zone tomorrow. A problem came up with Remigio Fernández, a powerful cattleman from the zone, who had promised 20,000 pesos if we let him take out some of his cows but was now offering only 10,000. That was accepted, but he was only allowed to take out half the cattle.
14
It took all day to get to El Macho, where Acuña was, and we immediately began the investigation of the case, a task that took me until 12:00 at night. Crescencio had told me that he accepted my decision as fair and gave me full freedom to act on it.
15
Moving to El Macho, I completed the investigation, proving that Acuña had made a direct threat with a knife, although his attitude wasn’t manifestly aggressive, the personal animosity between him and Hidalgo, which is really intriguing to me, the unruly attitude of Manolo Ramírez (the insubordinate lieutenant), Manuel Acuña’s neglect of the troops, the lack of responsibility by the men (the three lieutenants), leaving their posts at a time of danger to go and attend to some bureaucratic affairs.4 I wrote this all down in the report and relieved Acuña of his command of the troop, putting M. Ramírez at the disposition of the C.J. [Council of Justice], leaving Padio as interim chief and Hidalgo as his aide in terms of the trenches, the ones that were there weren’t worth shit. We continued the trip as far as Magdalena, where Crescencio went to visit his family, and I continued up the river, reaching El Jigüe at night. I was unable to continue because the horses were exhausted and mine fell over some rocks and injured a leg.
16
We set out early, arriving at Fidel’s place in Mompié. I had to decipher a long paragraph in code, most of which was a denunciation against another group, but it also said that a big shipment of arms had arrived and they had a plane to bring them. Willi, the pilot, should have left before dawn this morning with a range of instructions. Fidel gave me the order to stay in Las Minas and said he approved of my handling of the Acuña case. I spent the whole day there. There were a couple of small battles in El Jigüe.
17
I left early but, nevertheless, on my way I was caught by a bombardment that hit the school fairly heavily. They also dropped bombs on Las Vegas. Fidel asked me for two of
the men here in the zone of Esmajagua to cover the other side of Santo Domingo, from where disturbing news is arriving about Sánchez Mosquera’s troops, who are coming in our direction.
Shortly before arriving I met up with Teté,5 who came quickly to advise us that Lara has been wounded. Dr. La O.6 heads off and I arrive shortly afterwards. Lara’s wound is pretty serious, the doctor has given him first aid and he is taken to the hospital. I sleep in La Auditoría.
18
This morning the air force handed out their daily ration of bullets near La Auditoría, in Las Vegas itself. I continue on to Las Minas where I find messages from Fidel asking for more people. I rapidly send what he requested: Geonel with four men and five automatic weapons plus what we can spare from our defense here. The reports about the advance toward Santo Domingo are true.
19
A note arrives from Fidel asking for the last seven men. I don’t send them to him right away, advising him that Horacio abandoned his post and is on El Desayuno Hill, leaving El Purgatorio open to the advance of the troops.7 I wait until nighttime for some message but nothing arrives. I speak with the officer-candidates and explain the situation to them and the need for their cooperation if we have to go back to the old system of columns.
20
A note arrives from Horacio, complaining and saying that he will have to die because he has a bad leg and can’t retreat. I try to cover Horacio’s left flank a little, because at the first attack on that side he threatens to retreat. However, the few poorly armed men that I could get there took the wrong road. I had to set them right and this took the whole morning. When I calmly headed toward Las Vegas to confer with Horacio, a message came from Sorí indicating that he had withdrawn to the other side of the village and not a living being remained in Las Vegas. A visual inspection from the slope above indicated to me that guardsmen were present in the homes of Ángel Vázquez and Fidel Mendoza. I write a bitter note to Fidel, awaiting his reply.8