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EUGENIO SUÁREZ PÉREZ AND ACELA A. CANER ROMÁN Original title in Spanish: Fidel Castro: De Birán a Cinco Palmas Editing: Mayra Fernández Perón and Josefina Ezpeleta Laplace Design and Desktop Publishing: Enrique Mayol Amador © 2002, Eugenio Suárez Pérez and Acela A. Caner Román © 2002, Angie Todd © 2002, Editorial JOSÉ MARTÍ ISBN: 959-09-0231-6 INSTITUTO CUBANO DEL LIBRO Editorial JOSÉ MARTÍ Publicaciones en Lenguas Extranjeras Calzada No. 259 e/ J e I, Vedado Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba 4 FIDEL CASTRO: BIRÁN TO CINCO PALMAS CONTENTS INTRODUCTION / 11 THE EARLY YEARS / 13 I Was Born a Guerrilla / 13 Not Landowner Stock / 15 Life of the Poor / 16 I Should Have Been a Musician / 19 My First Rebellion / 20 A Violent Confrontation / 21 My Battle to Study / 22 With the Havana Jesuits / 25 A Good Student? / 26 I Knew Very Little about Politics / 29 I Regret Not Having All My Life to Read and Study / 30 During Vacations / 31 Fidel Is an Uncut Diamond. The Artist Has the Spark / 33 Endnotes / 36 POLITICAL INITIATION / 39 Fidel at University / 39 My Battle Gets Complicated / 40 A Browning with Fifteen Bullets / 43 Academic Record / 45 I Started off As a Utopian Communist / 45 Cayo Confites: I Wasn’t Going to Get Arrested / 47 5 EUGENIO SUÁREZ PÉREZ AND ACELA A. CANER ROMÁN Enrolled As an Independent Student / 51 The Demajagua Bell / 52 A Young Man Like Us / 57 Struggle for Democracy in Latin America / 59 The Bogotazo: My Duty Was to Stay on / 63 Fidel Was One of the First / 81 Fidel Alejandro: An Exceptional Man / 85 One Vote against, Fidel’s / 86 Political Struggle in Cayo Hueso Barrio / 87 Caught in a Hail of Bullets / 89 A Tremendously Stirring Speech / 91 Endnotes / 92 A LAWYER CALLED FIDEL / 95 With a Revolutionary Outlook / 95 I Have Devoted Much Time to History, Geography and Political Literature / 98 An Atypical Communist / 101 I Draw up a Strategy for the Future / 102 Fidel on “La Voz del Aire” / 103 Azpiazo-Castro-Resende Legal Office / 105 Fidel Finds Another Way to Sort It out / 107 Prosecuting Lawyer / 111 I Will Assume My Own Defense / 113 Fidel Charges Prío and His Clique / 123 Endnotes / 126 6 FIDEL CASTRO: BIRÁN TO CINCO PALMAS BEFORE THE COUP D’ETAT / 129 A Coup, Not a Revolution! / 129 I Became a Professional Cadre / 134 Capacity to React in the Face of Adversity / 136 Dictatorship Again, but There Will Be Other Mella’s, Trejo’s and Guiteras’ / 137 What Difference Is There Between a Prío and a Batista? / 141 Abel Santamaría Meets Fidel Castro / 144 El Acusador / 145 Cuba Has Only One Way Forward / 149 The Time Is Revolutionary, Not Political / 151 Fidel Goes back to University / 154 In Four Days I Will Collect That Money / 156 The José Martí Centennial Youth / 160 The March of the Torches / 161 I Was Not Underground / 161 The Government Has the Word / 162 Endnotes / 165 TOWARD MONCADA / 168 A Man Like That Is Born Every 500 Years / 168 The Exact Point of a Tactical Change / 168 We Still Hadn’t Made Our Own Plan / 171 Organization and Discipline in the Movement / 172 Our Own Plan of Struggle / 176 7 EUGENIO SUÁREZ PÉREZ AND ACELA A. CANER ROMÁN Security Measures / 178 Freedom March / 180 Fidel Wanted to Make Me a Revolutionary in a Couple of Hours / 181 July 24 And 25, 1953 / 183 July 26, 1953: Zero Hour / 185 Today It Was Our Lot to Lose, but We Will Be Back / 194 You Have Captured Us, but We Are Not Surrendering / 194 You Cannot Kill Ideas / 196 We Have Come to Regenerate Cuba / 199 I Believe in the People / 202 Taking the Skies by Surprise / 205 History Will Absolve Me / 205 Endnotes / 209 PRISON BATTLES / 212 Initial Measures Directed from Prison / 212 Quest for Knowledge / 213 I Complete the Meaning of My Life / 216 We Kept on Singing the Anthem / 217 Total Solitary Confinement / 218 How Please I Would Be to Revolutionize This Country from Top to Bottom / 225 Fidel Complements the Tactical Orientations / 226 Freedom Cannot Be Imprisoned / 227 8 FIDEL CASTRO: BIRÁN TO CINCO PALMAS Incredible Tenacity and Resourcefulness / 229 Nothing As Formidable As This Has Ever Been Prepared in Cuba / 231 Against the Electoral Farce / 233 And Now We Are Many / 235 Ideology, Discipline and Leadership / 236 An Unprecedented Development / 238 Binding All Combatants in an Unbreakable Sheaf / 238 We Will Drive the Government Crazy / 239 Preparing for a Long Struggle / 241 I Do Not Ask for and Will Never Ask for Amnesty / 241 We Do Not Want Amnesty at the Price of Dishonor / 244 Endnotes / 246 THE 53-DAY BATTLE / 248 The Most Eloquent Preaching Is by Example / 248 I’m Thinking of Staying in Cuba / 251 Fidel’s Reception / 253 They Are Persecuting Us with Undisguised Fury / 254 La Calle: His Basic Journalistic Trench / 255 26th of July Revolutionary Movement / 258 Fidel’s Historical Line / 259 Asphyxiating Vigilance / 259 Endnotes / 265 9 EUGENIO SUÁREZ PÉREZ AND ACELA A. CANER ROMÁN EXILE IN MEXICO / 266 I Almost Wept on Taking the Plane / 266 If We’re Left on Our Own, I’ll Be There Gun in Hand / 269 Let’s Break the Curtain of Silence / 272 I Won’t Abandon You / 273 In Chapultepec Woods / 274 We Shall Be Free or We Shall Be Martyrs / 275 We Base Our Position on Martí / 276 I Have Never Felt More Content / 277 26th of July versus March 10 / 280 A Call for Revolutionary Unity / 281 Principles Are Worth More Than Cannons / 282 The Insurrection Will Be Invincible / 284 The Promise to the People Carries More Weight / 285 The Granma Enters the History of the Revolution / 285 Revolutionary Struggle: The Only Way Possible / 286 There’s No Alternative, I Will Go to Cuba on the Date Specified / 288 Endnotes / 289 RETURN TO THE HOMELAND / 291 Work Requested Run Out / 291 Song to Fidel / 292 On Board the Granma / 294 In That Direction until We Run Aground / 296 Alegría de Pío / 298 Now We’ll Definitely Win the War! / 301 Endnotes / 302 10 FIDEL CASTRO: BIRÁN TO CINCO PALMAS INTRODUCTION Fidel Castro, the maximum leader of the Cuban Revolution, is known throughout the world for his rebellious spirit, his clear and profound thinking, his vibrant use of language, his immense culture, his absolute sincerity and his unlimited generosity and solidarity. As Ernesto “Che” Guevara said, Fidel is “a leader of world stature at a height seldom known to history.” Approaching the life and works of Fidel does not merely signify coming into contact with the most noble and revolutionary ideas and actions of the contemporary world, but also with moments in the history of Cuba and the Americas that, at times, would appear to have been taken from a fabulous adventure story: It is to know a man of principles, an exceptional man. Fidel Castro: Birán to Cinco Palmas is a book of impassioned pas- sages that brings us closer to the fertile life of the Cuban president and arouses our interest in further research on this man, as sensitive as he is a revolutionary. That is, in essence, the supreme objective of this work. Fruit of meticulous bibliographical research and selection, this book compiles excerpts from interviews with the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution and his closest comrades in study and in arms, which give the book an intimate and colloquial tone. Also included in its pages are excerpts from Fidel’s letters, speeches, indictments, defenses and charges, together with press notes, research material by eminent academics, and testimonies from collaborators, workers and campesinos whom he helped in difficult circumstances. All the documented memoirs in the book have been published and their references are to be found at the end of each chapter, so that interested readers can have access to the sources and further explore the distinct stages or facets of Fidel’s life. In order to promote understanding of the text and make it easier reading, short paragraphs have been inserted to connect the diverse material compiled. On account of the book’s particular characteristics and because we are not in the presence of a complete or completed work, the historical 11 EUGENIO SUÁREZ PÉREZ AND ACELA A. CANER ROMÁN events narrated do not always appear in rigorous chronological order, although they have been organized with a certain time orientation. In such a context, this book, which covers the first three decades of Fidel’s life, begins with details of his birth on August 13, 1926, in Birán, an almost forgotten point in the geography of the former Oriente Province; moves through distinct facets related to his childhood and adolescence, studies and hazardous life as a revolutionary combatant; and concludes on December 5, 1956, the date of the reencounter with his brother Raúl in Cinco Palmas after the Alegría del Pío dispersal, where Fidel, optimistic and confident in the power of his ideas and Cuban dignity, confirmed that seven rifles were enough to win the Revolution. So, enjoy your reading of these pages that lead us, in Fidel’s hand, along the glorious route from Birán to Cinco Palmas. 12 FIDEL CASTRO: BIRÁN TO CINCO PALMAS THE EARLY YEARS I WAS BORN A GUERRILLA Birán, a farm located in the former province of Oriente, not far from the Bay of Nipe, was the geographic point where, in the summer of 1926, the family of Ángel Castro Argiz and Lina Ruz González was increased by the birth of their third son, whom they named Fidel Alejandro. Many years later, as a prominent statesman, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz referred to his birth and life in that remote place, asserting he was born: On August 13, 1926.