They Happen to be...Girls!
In the first week of January, 1959, the best and the bravest Cubans -- such as the three young women above -- rode into Havana on the back of trucks. They were extremely disappointed that the worst and the least bravest Cubans -- the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship -- had not stayed around to fight them. Tete Puebla today is a General in the Cuban army. If you take time to ask her why she looked so glum on such a glorious day, she will tell you it was because she was sad the Batistiano leaders -- such as Batista, Lansky, Diaz-Balart, and particularly Rolando Masferrer -- had fled the island for safer havens "to hook back up with their stolen loot." That's Tete on the left in the above photo. Eloisa and Lilia -- two of Tete's dearest friends in the all-female Mariana Grajales Brigade -- had also longed to fight the Batistianos, especially Rolando Masferrer, in a final do-or-die battle that they fervently hoped would serve as the coda to the Cuban Revolution, a seminal event in history because of historic women like Tete, Eloisa, and Lilia.
Tete Puebla today is a Brigadier General. By the time she was 15-years-old, Tete had already earned a reputation as a fearless and deadly guerrilla fighter in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of eastern Cuba. To understand what motivated a teenage girl in the little Cuban town of Yara to become a do-or-die fighter against U.S.-backed Batista soldiers, you need to talk to Tete...or read her biographical book "Marianas In Combat: Tete Puebla And The Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon In Cuba's Revolutionary War." On Page 30 Tete began her vivid explanation of what inspired her, at the tender age of 15, to become a legendary guerrilla warrior: "There was a special unit of the tyranny at the time called Masferrer's Tigers. They were a death squad that tortured and killed people they captured. There was one Masferrerista in Yara, named Juventino Sutil, who would tie victims up and put them in a sack. Then he'd pour gasoline on them and set them on fire. He killed a number of people in this way. I'll never forget how two campaneras in Yara were raped by the dictatorship's forces: Amelia Puebla, a relative of mine, and Georgina Barban. They were raped by all the soldiers from the Manzanillo barracks. It was said that about fifty soldiers took part. The two of them subsequently dedicated their lives to the revolution. Things like this made us join the fight. Just about all the young people in the town did so. We joined the revolutionary movement, determined to take a direct part in the struggle. We didn't come from rich families. We were poor working people. What made us join the struggle were all the abuses, the outrages, the torture, the murders committed by the Batista dictatorship and its henchmen."
This photo shows General Tete Puebla on a recent day when she was interviewed about her book by Cuban journalist Arleen Rodriguez. "If I am a heroine," Tete said, "there were thousands of others too."
Rolando Masferrer was the leader of Batista's dreaded 3,000-man army known as the Masferrer Tigers. They were Batista's well-armed enforcers who routinely brutalized Cuban peasants even remotely suspected of being sympathetic to the anti-Batista movement. As Tete Puebla witnessed, the Masferrer Tigers would burn innocent Cubans alive merely to warn against resistance. As Tete also noted, Masferrer's soldiers would be ordered to rape young Cuban girls, as many as 50 soldiers assaulting one girl.
This photo shows one of Batista's key Ministers -- Rafael Diaz-Balart -- in the center with the holstered pistol -- flanked by the infamous Masferrer brothers -- Rolando and Orlando, with the feared and legendary Rolando just to Diaz-Balart's left. They were attending a pro-Batista rally in 1958 at about the time rebel units that included Tete Puebla were beginning to drive Batista armies out of the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. When the rebels captured Santa Clara and were advancing on Havana, all the Batista leaders -- to Tete's chagrin -- fled. Rolando Masferrer, the Batistiano most coveted by Tete, reportedly fled Havana for Miami in a private boat that was stashed with $10,000 in cash. Both Diaz-Balart and Rolando Masferrer quickly formed anti-Castro paramilitary units to lash back at Cuba. Diaz-Balart became one of the richest Cubans in Miami, and two of his sons -- Lincoln and Mario -- were elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami. At one time it was reported that Rolando Masferrer, Rafael Diaz-Balart, and Jorge Mas Canosa were competing to see which one the U. S. government would return to Cuba as the island's post-revolutionary leader.
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| Rolando Masferrer's acceptance in the United States |
Once on U. S. soil in South Florida, the ousted leaders of the Batista dictatorship had no worry even though such brutality as perpetrated by the Masferrer Tigers on the island was well known by the U. S. government and by the U. S. media, especially as documented by Herbert L. Mathews of the New York Times. Rolando Masferrer was born in 1918 in Holguin, Cuba. In this photo he is nattily dressed as he left a government office in El Paso, Texas, on his way back to Miami as the leader of his paramilitary unit. The brutal Rolando Masferrer ended up dying brutally in Miami, reportedly from internecine warfare that raged in Miami throughout the 1960s and 1970s. On October 31, 1975, Rolando Masferrer turned the ignition in his car at his Miami home and was killed by a car bomb, a weapon used repeatedly by Miami Cubans.
As far as I know, not one word in Tete Puebla's biography has ever been disputed and, in fact, her recollections have been corroborated by a myriad of independent sources. But Tete's views, it seems, have been verboten in the U. S. since 1959. On the other hand, two generations of the Batista/Lansky/Luciano/Canosa/Diaz-Balart/Masferrer families on U. S. soil have reserved and been accorded the right to define the Cuban narrative to justify everything from the Batista dictatorship to the Bay of Pigs attack to the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 to the embargo and to unlimited tons of tax dollars filling steady pipelines from Washington to Miami supposedly to bring about a regime change in Cuba. Thus, Americans who might study the photo above of the female guerrilla fighters on the cover of Tete Puebla's biography may wonder why the young Cuban women would become do-or-die guerrilla fighters against a U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship that treated the Cuban people so kindly. That wonderment has been spawned by a U. S. media providing just one side of the Cuban conundrum.
For example, on a given day or night on U. S. television Americans may see someone such as Mario Diaz-Balart, one of Miami's gifts to the U. S. Congress in Washington, telling the world what a hellhole Cuba is, implying that the island had a wonderful government back when Batista, Lansky, and his dad Rafael Diaz-Balart were in charge. Congresman Mario Diaz-Balart recently made congressional headlines when he attached bills to the so-called "must-pass" Transportation Bill that was designed to block tax dollars President Obama might use to open a proposed embassy in Havana. Of course, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart's attached bills also increased the already obscene Washington-to-Miami flow of tax dollars.
While the U. S. media, by and large, remains too biased, too politically correct, or too intimidated to provide Americans with both sides of the Cuban story, that is not the case with foreign media that has a bit more freedom when it comes to Cuba. The photo above shows General Tete Puebla with her revolutionary friend Nidia Sarabia. It is a BBC photo that illustrated a documentary on Celia Sanchez that was hosted and produced by the BBC's top senior producer Linda Pressly. While she was preparing the documentary, Ms. Pressly called me a total of five times from London. In the fifth call she said she was flying to Cuba to finish her research on Celia Sanchez. I said, "Good! Make sure you interview Brigadier General Tete Puebla. She's easy to talk to and she is a fountain of information on Celia. They fought together against some powerful Batista armies. To know Celia, Ms. Pressly, you need to know Tete Puebla!" Ms. Pressly got this photo of Tete and Nidia the day the notable BBC journalist, indeed, interviewed Tete about Celia Sanchez.
And speaking of both sides of the U.S.-Cuban quagmire, Cuba's ubiquitous young journalist Cristina Escobar leans rather strongly towards the side of Cuba's Tete Puebla and is openly appalled that "Americans are supposed to soak up only what the Miami Cubans say about Cuba." As host of the island's very popular "Round Table" television program, she says, "Frankly, it is hard to believe that educated Americans put up with, and apparently believe, the lies the Miami Cubans spew endlessly about Cuba. On U. S. soil I expressed my views on the U. S. media, which shames me as a journalist who believes in telling the truth." Ms. Escobar, age 26 and awesomely talented, has recently made two photogenic visits to the U. S. Back in December she spent ten days in California at journalism seminars. She also covered the last Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session in Washington where she became the star at a Q & A with White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Later in one-on-one interviews and in speeches at pro-Cuban forums in Washington she said, both in English and Spanish, "The lies the U. S. media tells about Cuba hurts everyday Cubans the most. As a journalist and a Cuban, I don't like to see foreigners perpetually hurt Cubans."
Anyone who has any knowledge of U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s is abundantly aware that no one on this planet knows more about that subject than Peter Kornbluh. And that is precisely why Americans are supposed to get their Cuban information from the likes of the Bush dynasty, Miami Cubans in the U. S. Congress, or the Miami-based Diaz-Balarts whose matriarch was a key Minister in the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that the Cuban Revolution chased to nearby Miami in the wee hours of January 1, 1959. Mr. Kornbluh is the key Director at the National Security Archive in Washington, D. C. On the NSA website he has posted numerous declassified U. S. documents that Americans are not supposed to know about because...alas!...Americans are supposed to know only what the Miami-based Cuban exiles tell them about Cuba. Because of the twin perils of cowardice and intimidation, the U. S. media generally shuns true and honest Cuban experts like Mr. Kornbluh but shower the airways and print pages with propaganda from the Cuban exiles. Recently, however, Peter Kornbluh authored a major article that was carried around the world by a plethora of international media outlets. If you want to Google it, the title was: "Historic New Era Between U. S. And Cuba Is About To Begin." Here is the first paragraph of that article, word for word: "Thirty-three years ago after U. S. President Ronald Reagan slapped Cuba onto a State Department list of nations that support international terrorism, the Obama administration has finally corrected that historic injustice. By 'delisting' Cuba, and removing the onerous financial sanctions that accompanied the terrorist designation, U. S. President Barack Obama has eliminated the last obstacle to one of the most historic accomplishments of his presidency -- the restoration of official diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana." Such brave words keep Mr. Kornbluh off U. S. newscasts.
American democracy-lovers should ponder these two sentences written in the aforementioned article by Peter Kornbluh, America's greatest and fairest Cuban expert: "Indeed, if harboring known international terrorists is criteria for being designated a terrorist state, then the U. S. State Department should add another country to its list: the United States of America. Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, the CIA trained, paid, and provided bases to Cuban exiles engaged in acts of murderous violence and sabotage against Cuban civilians and property." Re-read those two sentences from America's best and fairest Cuban expert:
"Indeed, if harboring known international terrorists is criteria for being designated a terrorist state, then the U. S. State Department should add another country to its list: the United States of America. Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, the CIA trained, paid, and provided bases to Cuban exiles engaged in acts of murderous violence and sabotage against Cuban civilians and property."
Peter Kornbluh; Director, U. S. National Security Archives; Washington, D. C.
Indeed, in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Latin America today there are memorials dedicated to the 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455. Like other great journalists such as Emilio Milian and Jim DeFede, Peter Kornbluh has been accused of being "anti-American" for denouncing U.S.-sanctioned terrorism against innocent Cubans and for denouncing Miami being used as a safe harbor for the most renowned Cuban terrorists. Of course, like other great Americans such as Milian, DeFede, etc., Peter Kornbluh is being extremely pro-American by repeatedly stressing that America's Cuban policy has shamed America and democracy for centuries, especially in the decades since the 1950s when {#1} the world's greatest democracy in 1952 teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba; and {#2} from 1959 until today the world's greatest democracy has supported the most extremists Cuban exiles against what is best for most Americans, most Cubans, and most Cuban-Americans.
In Cuba today there are still many Cubans mourning those killed aboard Cubana Flight 455. This girl waited with her mother at Jose Marti Airport in Havana for what she expected would be the safe return of her brother. The girl is a woman now. She still mourns the loss of her brother. I don't believe Americans who sympathize with her are anti-American. I also believe it is alright for Americans to know about such things as...Cubana Flight 455. This girl, now a woman, is not America's enemy, but her enemies are.
"Back Channel To Cuba," the book Peter Kornbluh co-authored with William M. LeoGrande, is the best compilation of how the disastrous U. S. government's alignment with the most extremist anti-Castro Cuban exiles from the Batista dictatorship laid the disastrous foundation for the anti-democratic Cuban policy that President Barack Obama is currently trying to correct while Republican Cuban extremists led by Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, etc. are trying to desperately and self-servingly keep it intact for another six decades or so. The front-cover, upper-left photo atop the Kornbluh-LeoGrande book depicts the April, 1959 handshake between Fidel Castro and Vice President Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon. Castro had been brought to the U. S. for 12 days that soon after the revolutionary victory over the Batista-Mafia dictatorship because Celia Sanchez had been promised that the Eisenhower administration was ready to make "a long-term peace with Cuba." That was a lie, of course. It was Nixon who informed Fidel that he would be overthrown by the U.S.-backed Cuban exiles "within a matter of weeks." That effort has indeed been well-supported by the U. S. government, not only for a matter of weeks but for a matter of months, years, and decades...and it is ongoing even as President Obama tries to amend what previous Democratic Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton tried but failed to correct. Mr. Obama will also likely fail, for two reasons: In 2015 the Bush-Rubio-Diaz-Balart extremists are far more powerful than the Nixon-Canosa-Posada extremists were in 1959, and in 2015 this generation of Americans is less intelligent and less courageous than even the generation in the 1950s that didn't utter a whimper when their government teamed with the Mafia to support a vile, cruel Batista dictatorship in Cuba...and, since it was overthrown, has supported a vile, cruel Batistiano-Mafisoi effort to recapture Cuba. As Peter Kornbluh and others repeatedly point out, if Americans didn't care a hoot about Cuban-exile terrorists downing a child-laden civilian airplane, it's a pretty strong indication they don't care a hoot about their democracy, or how it is perceived. If you read and study the Kornbluh-LeoGrande book, or the aforementioned scathing column Kornbluh penned, you will, I think, comprehend why I have concluded that the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba say a lot more about the United States than they say about the island of Cuba.
Ann Louise Bardach's seminal book -- "CUBA CONFIDENTIAL: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana" -- remains the best pure documentation of how the most extreme villains from the Batista dictatorship, once they were booted off the island and fled back to Miami, remained supported by the villainous right-wingers high-up in the U. S. government. Those villains hooked back up with hundreds of millions of dollars siphoned out of Cuba and they still had criminal enterprises such as the drug trade in Miami. But, even to their surprise, they didn't have to use their money and resources in their insatiable desire to recapture Cuba because they had the support of the U. S. Treasury, the U. S. CIA, the U. S. Military, and, most of all, they had the acquiescence of an unpatriotic generation of American citizens. Therefore, anything -- the Bay of Pigs attack, the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455, incessant car-and-hotel bombings, etc. -- were openly available and tax-supported without drawing a whimper from American citizens. That milieu persists to this day, to the chagrin of good people like President Obama and to the delight of benefactors such as Bush and Rubio. But the background you need to put that into perspective is two-fold: {1} Peter Kornbluh's documentations of the Bush-Batistiano ties; and {2} Ann Louise Bardach's explanations about how the Havana-to-Miami-to-Washington villains codified a U. S. Cuban policy that shames all democracy-lovers in the U. S. and around the world.
This book chronicles an unending litany of terrorism against Cuban civilians. Its "Oral History Of Terrorism Against Cuba" includes the reaction of Cubans still mourning the loss of relatives or friends. It, of course, poignantly mentions the 73 victims of Cubana Flight 455, describing it thusly: "That crime engineered by Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, who later found safe haven in Florida." This book also describes what happened to Cubans who survived murderous terrorist acts, such as Nancy Pavon.
This is Nancy Pavon. When she was 15-years-old Nancy was asleep beside her younger sister in a coastal fishing cabin on the edge of Boca de Sama, Cuba. The aforementioned book and many other documentations reveal that, as Nancy and her sister slept, "gunmen from Florida conducted a murderous shootout from Miami speedboats firing cannon and machine guns mounted atop tripods." Two people were killed and many were wounded, included Nancy and her sister. Nancy says the lower portion of her right leg was blasted away "as if it had been cut by a machete." Because of recurring nerve damage, she has undergone many painful days and numerous operations. She makes speeches thanking Cuba for taking care of and she wonders "If the kind American people will ever consider compensating my government...or even me. We hear the Mafia figures are backed by the U. S. government when they claim their legitimate businesses in Cuba were lost to the revolution. Well, my right leg was legitimate when I turned 15. My dad, a fisherman, had bought me a pair of nice high heels just before the attack, but I never got to wear them."
This is 15-year-old Nancy Pavon in a hospital bed in Boca de Sama the day after the lower part of her right leg had been shot off by cannon fire from a large speed boat while she and her sister slept in a coastal fishing cabin. Two great Miami journalists -- Cuban-American Emilio Milian and American Jim DeFede -- were punished and excoriated for maintaining that "Terror against innocent Cubans is still terror." Nancy Pavon is proof of that, and proof that you cannot unring a bell. The 15-year-old girl depicted above lost a leg in a murderous speedboat attack. She is a woman now, a woman with just one leg.
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Nancy Pavon reminds me of Brigadier General Tete Puebla and why Tete, at age 15, was a do-or-die guerrilla fighter against much-better-armed Batista soldiers. At the top of this essay you saw a photo of Tete arriving triumphantly but subdued in Havana in the first week of January, 1959. She wasn't in a celebratory mood that day. She was sad to learn that Rolando Masferrer and other leaders of the Batista regime had fled...mostly to Miami. She was hoping they would stand and fight in Cuba and "not hide behind the skirts of the U. S. government in Miami." Americans are not supposed to know about Tete Puebla, or why the Cuban women who serve under her as border guards today revere her so much. I guess, to most Americans Tete is the bad guy because she fought against U.S.-backed good guys like Rolando Masferrer.
{The photo above was taken by Yaima Garcia Vizcaino on a day Tete's soldiers honored their General}
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