Unravel of a counterrevolution in Camagüey

By: Noel Manzanares Blanco \Televisión Camagüey

As continuity of my title "on the way to a counterrevolution in Camagüey", grosso way will treat the climax of the reactionary process of marras - to tone with an investigation that I carried out in this respect.

A key point in the analysis of the outcome of the plot contrarrevolutionary headed by Hubert Matos in Camagüey, in the Cuban east, is in the letter "private" of renouncement to its headquarters in the Provincial Military Square, correspondent to the Commandant in Boss Fidel Castro - received October 19,1959 - and previously given to know to its unconditional ones.

Of this episode, Jorge Enrique Mendoza who previous September 21 were designated by the Revolutionary Government to act as Delegate in Camagüey of the National Institute of the Agrarian Reformation (INRA) and one of the most significant witness in the incident that is approached, remembers:

"[…] this letter stopped to be absolutely private and arrived to the officials of the Regiment first, to the provincial addresses of the Movement July 26, of the CTC [Confederation and then Central of Workers of Cuba], of the associations of students, of the rural associations, of the office, and other officials.

"But the strange thing was that every hour that people that didn't integrate any address of those mentioned, spent more and more they went finding out their content. A group of official and classes had given up in writing, with date October 20, to the Rebellious Army, in support to the traitor, in evident sedition act [some confused ones and others making him the game contrarrevolutionary].

"The whole apparatus of address of the county that in turn had been named by the traitor, he/she prepared to give up and to introduce to the Revolutionary Government the situation of a provincial leadership that gave up in cohabitation with the traitor. You even ended up demanding an explanation of why this military boss gave up and to define the ideological content of the Revolution [remembers the ghost of the communism], that is to say, until where the Revolution will arrive."

Meanwhile, the political-revolutionaries organizations in Camagüey fomented the necessary unit and collaboration among them, and also with the town. This way, the performance of the Revolutionary Movement July 26 (MR 26-7), the Popular Socialist Party (PSP - Communist) and the Revolutionary Directory March 13 (DR 13-M) was good to increase working and influences of the Revolution in the popular masses of the territory. Therefore, the scenary in the region was unfavorable to the success of the hubertmatists actions.

The climax among the revolutionary and reactionary forces in Camagüey, arrived from the October 20 to 21 ,1959:

In the night of the day 20, the act for the eleventh anniversary of the murder of Sabino Pupo, leader of the peasant Camagüey, began last the ten because the main figures of the MR 26-7 and of the Federation of Workers in Camagüey waited for the presence of Hubert Matos who didn't attend the end. Some offered hesitant speeches; with the result that the own Mendoza, when intervening, was seen in the necessity of specifying the revolutionary line, mainly regarding the Agrarian Reformation.

Around the one of the dawn, the Captain Mendoza communicated with Fidel Castro, to who imposed of the serious existent situation in the territory. The Commandant in Boss gave him precise instructions about what and how it should act. In consequence, one of the first things that it was made he/she went to go Ahead to the newspaper, where they were two developing notes of what it was scheming:

One said: "The news of renouncement of the Commandant Hubert Matos Benítez to the position that shows in this county caused shock in the citizenship. Without being confirmed the renouncement sad faces were seen, confessions of adhesion were heard the great leader […]. Their pains or happiness spill emotionally in the town that admires him and estimates as something his."

In the other note it is read: "The Provincial Federation of Secondary Students from Camagüey having knowledge for the press of the doctor's renouncement Matos Benítez […], and experts of the great work of Hubert Matos, we want to give to know to the town in general and to all the students of the county that we stay expectant in these moments and we wait the Revolutionary Government's official news, because the truth shines and alone the truth, only form of true victory of this revolutionary process."

When analyzing these notes, it is understood: on one hand that with them the falsehood is verified about the private character of the referred renouncement letter written by Hubert Matos; on the other hand that who wrote were unconditional to the boss of the Military Square in Camagüey and determined to manufacture him leadership to who didn't surpass the mark of the headquarters before the town; and in correspondence that used the lie ("the town that admires and estimates as something his" and "the great work of Hubert Matos") to try to bolster him from a supposition root popular.

It is valid to remember that in some measure had contributed to the betrayal atmosphere, the propaganda that Hubert Matos was made through a magazine that he made at the cost of seven thousand monthly pesos, where everything was song and praises "to the valiant one major, to the valiant and heroic Boss of the Regiment."

To solve this situation, completing orders of Fidel Castro, the Commandant Camilo Cienfuegos arrived in Camagüey, approximately at six in the morning of the day October 21. Immediately he moves to the Military Regiment until arriving at the house of Hubert Matos that was located in the properties of the Barracks. There he makes prisoner to the seditious Commandant.

It was facilitated by the fact that, for that moment, the revolutionaries in the county had undern his control the two stations of Police and the Tactical Force of the Rebellious Army, the airport, the phone power station and the Press (you park Ahead of Radio and Television and the newspaper).

Still in hours of the morning, the Commandant arrived in Boss of the Cuban Revolution to floor of Camagüey and he moved to the headquarters of the INRA. In this place he met with Camilo who informed him on the prevailing situation.

In knowledge of the concrete scenary, Fidel guided to go toward the Barracks headquarters of the Military Square of Camagüey, and to go without weapons, on foot and with the accompaniment of the town. They were already a.m. around eleven o'clock was the expedite road so that that was played that maybe is the first antecedent of what were the March in later years (s) of the town combatant in the Revolution, at the request of the masses of camagüey in back to Fidel and Camilo.

This historical event was reflected Ahead in the following way in the newspaper, the serial day 22:

"The Revolution won a battle yesterday in this city when more than 50 000 people abandoned its homes and habitual works [and] rushed to the street to consolidate the freedom obtained after suffering the tyranny that cost the blood of more than 20 000 countrymen, to support the maximum leader of the Revolution fully [...]. The danger plotted him the town, arriving mass to demonstrate that the peasants and the worker won't give and will defend the victory inch to inch."

Among parenthesis, accent perseverance of two elements related with the event in question: one, eves of the betrayal of the former boss of the Air force, Pedro Luis Díaz-Lanz, Hubert Matos had visited him in his house - chance that the own Díaz-Lanz Havana, the October 21,1959, bombarded causing two deads and fifty wounded? -; and two, eves of the former president's betrayal Manuel Urrutia by the middle of that year, Hubert Matos had been encouraging the purposes of the old leader and vice versa.

The conclusion of such a matter, was so much of a marked significance for the development of the Revolution in general sense as the obstacles that hindered the materialization of the transformations that needed the society of Camagüey to loosen; at the time that constituted fehaciente test of the popular accompaniment in the county to the revolutionary process headed by Fidel Castro.

The own Camilo Cienfuegos, when being made the above-mentioned echo, wrote: "For conduit of the Newspaper Adelante are we who say Thank you, Thank people of Camagüey, your presence in the Camp Agramonte helped to solve a new betrayal to the Homeland, men will not have traitors but towns and less Camagüey" (Sic) - it consists in the same newspaper.

This way, the separation of the hubertmatist plot , on one hand, contributed to the elimination of the main barrier that braked to the Revolution in the region, in particular the Agrarian Reformation; and for other, paid to the cohesion of the MR 26-7, the PSP and the DR 13-M. and, for ende, to the later agreement of those organizations political-revolutionaries for the sake of the development of the Cuban Revolution.

Nevertheless, the outcome of this contrarrevolutionary action, one week later, national mourning also became: in fact to be to the front of the process of political, military and administrative restructuring in the county, the Commandant Camilo Cienfuegos stayed in direct contact with the territory of Camagüeyano, and October 28, 1959, after leaving of the local airport "Ignacio Agramonte" at six in the afternoon northwest direction, the pilot's inexperience amid adverse climatological conditions caused its physical disappearance. Fruitless was the search to the "Mr. of the Vanguard", headed by the Commandant in Boss Fidel Castro with the participation practically of the whole town. It was this way develaded the worst consequence in the betrayal of Hubert Matos who became had connoted member of the terrorist mafia worm-Yankee resided in Miami.