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The
men who left the 26th of July movement
One
more 26th of July -- count them. It has been 48 years since Fidel
Castro, his brother Raúl, 17 men and two women attacked Moncada, the
Cuban army barracks in Santiago de Cuba.
Twenty soldiers were killed. Fidel Castro and five others escaped to
the nearby hills, where they soon were captured, tried and sentenced to
15 years each. However,
in May 1955, they were freed in a general amnesty by the Cuban Congress.
Castro then went to Mexico to prepare for the Dec. 2, 1956, invasion of
Cuba with 81 men. Now
once more Castro will be in the center where he will recount in a three-
or four-hour speech (if he can endure that long) the glories of that
26th of July and the events that led up to the great victory on Jan. 1,
1959, when the revolution took over from the Batista regime. Sadly,
Castro will not be able to tell his audience that most of the leaders of
the 26th of July movement ``are at my side today.'' The
original 26th of July movement disappeared almost immediately after
Castro sold out to the Soviet Union and the Cuban Communist Party. The
democratic members of the movement who fought side by side with him in
the Sierra Maestra mountains and were in the underground in the cities
and towns are dead, in jail or in exile.
The following are some of the original members who were double-crossed
by Castro: ·
Maj. Sorí Marín, author of the original agrarian-reform
program, who fought alongside Castro in the mountains, was caught
conspiring with other rebel army officers who had fought to restore
democracy and freedom to Cuba. He was executed on specific orders of
Castro himself several days before the Bay of Pigs invasion, April 17,
1961. ·
Maj. Víctor Mora saved Fidel, Raúl, Che Guevara and other
survivors when they landed from Mexico on Dec. 2, 1956. A Sierra Maestra
native, Mora led them around the Cuban Army to a safe haven high up in
the mountains. After
the victory, it didn't take Mora long to realize that he and others had
been sold out by Castro. Caught conspiring, Mora was sentenced to 10
years. Once released, he escaped to the United States, where he lived
modestly in Little Havana. ·
Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz flew weapons from Venezuela and Costa
Rica to Castro's ``eagle's nest'' in the mountains. After victory, he
was named Castro's personal pilot. But soon he complained to Castro that
Raúl and Guevara were indoctrinating his air force men in Marxism. Tipped
that Castro had ordered his arrest, Díaz Lanz and his wife, Tania, and
brother barely escaped to Miami in a sailboat in June 1959. Weeks later,
Díaz Lanz became the first ``26-er'' to testify before a U.S. Senate
committee, accusing Castro of selling out the revolution to the Soviet
Union. ·
Maj. Húber Matos, a school teacher turned guerrilla
fighter, was one of the genuine heroes in the fight against the Cuban
army. In October 1959, 10 months after the revolution came to power,
Matos sent a letter of resignation to Castro, complaining that
communists, who had not lifted a finger to oust the Batista regime, were
taking over the revolution. Castro
ordered a court martial in which Matos was accused of being a
``counterrevolutionary.'' After serving a 20-year sentence, Matos came
to Miami, where he has been one of the leaders of the Cuban Forum. ·
Jesús Yánes Pelletier was a sergeant in the Cuban Army
assigned to Boniato Prison, where Castro was sent after being sentenced
for attacking the Moncada barracks. Yánes Pelletier was ordered to
poison Castro's food. He refused, was given a dishonorable discharge and
then joined the 26th of July movement. When
the revolution arrived, Castro made Yánes Pelletier a captain in charge
of his personal guard. Soon Yánes Pelletier became disenchanted with
the communists and began conspiring. He was caught and in 1977 was
sentenced to 15 years. He refused to leave Cuba and was the vice
president of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights before his death last
year. ·
Among the saddest cases -- and there are hundreds in every
city, town and village in Cuba -- is that of Mario Chanes de Armas. He
had impeccable credentials as a founder of the revolutionary movement
with Castro before the attack on the Moncada barracks. Chanes
de Armas survived the Moncada attack, trained in Mexico, came over on
the yacht Gramma and lived to greet Castro in Havana when the conquering
heroes arrived on Jan. 9, 1959, on top of a U.S. Sherman tank.The
movement disappeared after Castro sold out to the Soviet Union and the
Communist Party. Chanes
de Armas could have had any position he wanted in the revolutionary
government, but he opted to return to his work in a brewery. For two
years he watched his former leader betray their movement. Finally, he
spoke against the communists. He was tried as a
``counterrevolutionary,'' and on July 17, 1961, was sentenced to 30
years. After
spending six years in solitary, he was released exactly 30 years to the
date of his imprisonment. In 1993 he was united with his four sisters in
Miami. Although
he doesn't belong to any exile political group, he forms part of a group
of former prisoners who travel throughout Latin America talking to heads
of states about the reality of Castro's Cuba. John T. Skelly of Fort Lauderdale was correspondent for United Press International in Cuba during the late 1950s. |