cubaninsider: Cuba's Legendary La Paloma

She STILL Defines Cuba!!
{Updated: Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017}

This graphic is courtesy of Cafe y Mate.

The island of Cuba still dominates the Caribbean and since 1959 it has been defined by an incomparable heroine nicknamed La Paloma, The Dove. Against overwhelming odds, it is not defined, except to propagandized Americans, by a handful of viciously revengeful Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. Perhaps it is time that Americans had the courage and freedom to distinguish between La Paloma and, say, Batista wannabes like Miami Congressmen such as self-serving but normally unchallenged Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio.

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Before I update you on Cuba's La Paloma, permit me to explain this AP photo, which is used courtesy of the VOA/Voice of America website. It shows a recent Capital Hill news conference featuring three counter-revolutionary Cuban-American extremists. They are entrenched members of the U. S. Congress from Miami and are, from left to right: Mario Diaz-Balart, Marco Rubio, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Their news conference, not surprisingly, evoked some reminders. First off, polls show that most Cuban-Americans in Miami strongly favor normalizing relations with Cuba. Yet, it seems that ONLY visceral counter-revolutionaries are eligible to be elected to Congress from Miami. Being staunchly pro-democracy, that in itself is cause for concern, I believe. Also, every member of Congress from Miami, and almost every top politician in the Miami area, all seem to come from one small but powerful alliance -- the Bush dynasty. Ros-Lehtinen, for example, has been in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when the self-serving Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager. She was born in Havana and like her husband and other close associates, her fortunes and power all seem to relate to her fierce anti-Castro endeavors that have had the unchecked backing of the U. S. government and, perhaps unwittingly, of the U. S. taxpayers. The same can be said for Diaz-Balart and Rubio. Diaz-Balart's father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship, so Mario comes by his counter-revolutionary extremism quite naturally. Rubio made it all the way to the U. S. Senate still claiming his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba. Then it was proved that they actually escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before Americans had ever heard of Fidel Castro. But, as Rubio well knows, I believe, any distortion related to Cuba in the United States since 1959 is both politically correct and generally unchallenged. Also, when I see counter-revolutionary news conferences like this one on Capital Hill in Washington or the frequent ones in the Little Havana section of Miami, they always spawn this thought: Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Ros-Lehtinen are in the United States Congress, not the Cuban National Assembly. And the United States has a few problems that need attention from members of Congress, problems that should not involve another embarrassing half-century of trying to recapture Cuba by employing military attacks, terrorist attacks and endlessly pouring additional pipelines of tax dollars on such nefarious schemes as the historically long and cruel Blockade-Embargo against Cuba's civilians.

Billboards like the one above remind Cubans, and tourists who venture to the island, of the U. S. "Blockade" otherwise known as the longest {since 1962} and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation, in this case the superpower United States, against a small nation, in this case the island of Cuba.

The blockade-embargo is condemned by a current 191-to-0 unanimity in the United Nations, yet the United States democracy is not strong enough to end it because a handful of counter-revolutionaries still dictate America's Cuban policies in the U. S. Congress and in all Republican White Houses. As with the billboard above, the Cuban government maintains that the blockade-embargo is "genocide" against everyday Cubans on the island...merely to sate the revengeful appetites of a handful of Cuban-American extremists even when all polls show that MOST CUBAN-AMERICANS EVEN IN MIAMI FAVOR NORMAL RELATIONS WITH CUBA.

While the Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959 has been dictated by Cuban-exile extremists, Americans, of course, are not supposed to know about such things as the billboard above or the fact that most people around the world, as indicated by that United Nations vote, agree with what it says {"genocide"}.

Also, Americans are not supposed to know that the above billboard was one of Fidel Castro's last tributes to Celia Sanchez. Everyone knows about Fidel Castro who died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016, but Americans are not supposed to know about Celia Sanchez. However, historians and Cubans know all about her. Celia Sanchez died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980. Fidel considered her, not himself, as the most important figure in both the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. But because she was a 99-pound, child-loving doctor's daughter, the U. S. Cuban exiles in charge of the U. S. Cuban narrative don't want Americans to know about her -- not because of their natural machismo instincts but because they can't vilify history's all-time greatest revolutionary heroine. But Celia Sanchez was the one, beginning in 1959, who stamped this mantra on her Revolutionary Cuba: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." AND, OH YES!! Let's not forget that Celia Sanchez quite often vilified the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the U. S. businessmen she booted off the island. For example, study the historic Celia Sanchez quotation below:

Yes, Celia vilified her enemies with the quotation above documented by The Woman Project.org: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

Now study another great quotation as depicted above by the Cuban Revolution's incomparable La Paloma, Celia Sanchez. Astutely understanding the power and influence of the United States and the transplanted Batistianos, she was well aware that the victorious Cuban Revolutionary rebels would not "get to write it." That being a very true statement, the Cuban-exile extremists in the United States from 1959 till today have tried mightily to "write" her out of both the Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba, replacing her Mother Teresa-like truths with their blatant Mafiosi-like lies.

The woman who "was" Celia Sanchez -- to quote Canada's Celia Sanchez expert Rosa Jordan -- is a woman Americans in the year 2017 have a right to know.

The photo on the left above shows a tired Celia Sanchez in 1979 when she was by far the top decision-maker in Cuba with Fidel Castro's total concurrence, a fact well known by all Cuban insiders as well as America's best Castro biographer Georgie Anne Geyer. The photo on the right above shows Celia as the top decision-maker during the Revolutionary War, again with Fidel Castro's total blessing. If, for example, she and Che Guevara disagreed on a tactic, Fidel always sided with Celia Sanchez.

A fearless and nonpareil guerrilla fighter, Celia Sanchez was the La Paloma legend based on her early recruitment of the rebels and supplies that made her revolution viable. She worked even in Batista-controlled areas with the skill and grace of a casual dove, thus her nickname. Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio best chronicled those crucial early days and then concluded: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." Other historians now agree.

This is Pedro Alvarez Tabio, Cuba's highly respected historian. His quotation regarding Celia Sanchez, as noted above, is unchallenged...except, of course, by the counter-revolutionary zealots in Miami and Congress who had rather that Americans didn't know about the petite doctor's daughter who chased the Batistianos and Mafiosi off her island...all the way to Miami, as it turned out...way back in January of 1959.

A young school teacher named Frank Pais and the doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez were the two primary recruiters of anti-Batista rebels and supplies in the crucial formative years of 1952 and 1953. Batista put huge bounties on their heads. Frank was captured and brutally murdered, as was his 17-year-old brother Jesus. After those murders, Batista doubled Celia's bounty. But the Batista-Mafia thugs never captured Celia and that is why they were defeated by her Cuban Revolution.

The London-based BBC says that this photo shows the day in late December of 1956 when Fidel Castro first met Celia Sanchez after she had arranged for him and 81 other rebels to join her revolution in the Sierra Maestro Mountains and foothills upon their ill-fated journey from Mexico on the leaky and ambushed yacht Granma, an epic event that saw only 17 of the 82 rebels live long enough to become revolutionary icons. In the photo above Fidel is examining a telescopic rifle Celia gave him.

But from that first meeting till forever, Celia and Fidel would be legendary soulmates -- side-by-side fighting, sleeping and ruling. The photo above shows them in a cabin high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the height of the Revolutionary War. Celia was holding a candle to read by even as they were wary of giving away their location as Batista's U.S.-provided bombers often flew over the area on reconnaissance missions trying to locate the camouflaged rebel campsites.

This is a modern photo of the exact bed and the exact cabin where Celia was holding that candle so she and Fidel could see to read high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the Revolutionary War. The Cabin and bed are preserved today as a tourist attraction with a clearly marked trail leading from a far-off highway. But only the healthiest and most curious get to see it because the terrain leading to it is extremely arduous and difficult to navigate even on foot by healthy people. It is known to history as Comandancia because for a crucial period of the war that cabin was Command Headquarters where Celia & Fidel finalized anti-Batista war plans.

Today hearty individuals able to make it to the Comandancia Cabin are fascinated by the feature depicted above. The cabin was built at the top of a cliff overlooking a stream. It had/has the trap-door as shown here. That was in case the site was over-run by Batista's soldiers. If so, Celia & Fidel could escape down into the creek.

During a crucial stage in the Revolutionary War, Bohemia Magazine featured the above photo and caption, which defined Celia and the war at that point. She had decided in early 1958 that the rebels could begin "capturing cities between Santiago and Santa Clara, and holding the cities we capture." Then, after capturing Santa Clara, it was her plan to have the rebel army led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos to go on and capture Havana. Throughout the rest of 1958, those plans were carried out to perfection except, as the rebel army raced from rebel-held Santa Clara to Havana on the last day of 1958, Batista and his richest cronies had begun fleeing in their already prepared getaway planes, ships and boats. As she formulated those decisions, the photo and caption above document Celia Sanchez getting an update from rebels about the whereabouts and strengths of nearby Batista armies. The caption also documents another key faction of the Celia-directed war -- the female messengers that Celia later called, "The bravest of all the brave rebels." They were the female messenger-carriers who took vital messages to Celia, including those from Fidel when he was in prison. Every messenger knew if they were captured they would be unmercifully tortured to death. That fate, soon after this photo was taken, befell several of Celia's dearest friends, including Clodimira Acosta. That's Clodimira on the left in the above photo on a day Clodimira had brought a key message to Celia, who is shown standing in the doorway getting the verbal reports from her rebels. As noted in the caption, the lady standing next to Celia is Pilar Fernandez, a school teacher who risked her life at the start of the war by helping Celia recruit rebels and supplies in and around her hometown of Manzanillo in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio wrote a famous essay about Cilia and Pilar that includes this sentence: "Time and again they barely escaped Batista's soldiers that were solely tasked with capturing and murdering them, the two bravest Cuban women -- Celia and Pilar -- that angered Batista the most in the early days of the rebel movement." It was indeed a female-powered revolution.

From January of 1959 till her death from throat cancer in January of 1980, Celia was by far the top decision-maker in Cuba, always with Fidel Castro's full blessing. Even when he disagreed with her, he accepted her decisions. For example, in April of 1959 -- a mere three months after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution -- Celia insisted on taking Fidel on a 12-day good-will trip to the United States. He didn't want to go but he went to appease her fervent desire to have the U. S. as Cuba's "friend and most important trading partner." Right-wing miscreants in the Eisenhower White House -- Vice President Nixon and the even more powerful Dulles brothers -- sabotaged that otherwise very successful 12-day visit, but at least Celia had tried to soothe relations with America, which had supported the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in the 1950s and since 1959 has still supported the Batistianos' efforts to regain control of Cuba.

This Pinterest photo illustrates that the American people were big fans of Cuba's rebel hero Fidel Castro throughout his 12-day, Celia Sanchez-orchestrated visit to the United States in April of 1959. Even American children donned fake beards to show Fidel how much they admired him, as did adults in New York, Washington, etc.

But during that 1959 visit the right-wing thugs in the Eisenhower administration, the ones who had sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952, caught Fidel off guard when Vice President Richard Nixon told him that the U.S. and the Cuban exiles would quickly recapture Cuba. The photo above, I think, chronicles Fidel's incredulity as he stared at Nixon, the crook who would later become America's disastrous President. Beginning in the 1950s, U. S. citizens showed no respect for their democracy as they sat on their behinds and let right-wing thugs run rampant over weaker foreign nations. The victorious Cuban Revolution in 1959 remains to this day the best example highlighting that basic fact, and it inspired Latin America victims to also try to get rid of fiendish U.S.-backed and/or U.S.-installed dictators like...Batista, Trujillo, Somoza, Videla, Pinochet, etc., etc. And such facts anger right-wing thugs to this very day.

By the way, on the flight back to Cuba from the U. S. in April of 1959, Fidel Castro very intently was engrossed in reading a book Celia had given him...about America's greatest revolutionary superstar. The book -- "Mount Vernon" -- was named for George Washington's Virginia estate. As he leisurely read the book, Fidel was content to leave the Cuban reaction to the overly ambitious 12-day trip up to Celia, a trip that saw him get very positive receptions from the American people but that very negative reaction from the U. S. government. And her reaction strongly craved out a do-or-die defensive posture for Revolutionary Cuba's nascent government.

In his twilight years decades after the death of his soulmate Celia Sanchez and after his near-fatal intestinal illness in 2006, Fidel continued to read books about American leaders, such as the Barack Obama book he was reading in this photo.

Back on Cuban soil after the failure of her 12-day Good-Will trip to the U. S. in April of 1959, Celia was first and Fidel was second in Cuba's decision-making hierarchy. All Cuban insiders knew that. Their long-time photographer-historian Roberto Salas, for example, wrote in his book: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." And after the rebuke by right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration in April of 1959, it was Celia who laid down Revolutionary Cuba's prime doctrine: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died in 1980; he died in 2016. But her words still have resonance in 2017.

NO ONE in this big, round world knows as much about Celia Sanchez & Fidel Castro as a beautiful lady named Marta Rojas. She was born in 1928 in Santiago de Cuba and, as a young journalist trusted by Batista in the early 1950s, she worked intimately with both Celia & Fidel, even interviewing Fidel when he was imprisoned from July-1953 till May-1955. She took Fidel-written notes out of the prison in her bra and put them in the urban underground to get them to Celia in the Sierra Maestra foothills, and in the same manner she took Celia notes to Fidel into his Isle of Pines prison cell. After the Revolutionary triumph on January 1st of 1959, it was Marta Rojas in December of 1959 who introduced Fidel before his first television address.

Fidel introduced by Marta Dec.-1959.

This is Marta Rojas as a high-profile young journalist in Batista's Cuba in the 1950s. Unknown to Dictator Batista, Marta's revolutionary heart was with Celia & Fidel. I credit Marta, via those urban underground notes, for creating the Celia-Fidel nexus long before they ever laid eyes on each other, a nexus that changed Cuba forever.

In 2004 I flew from Wyoming to Cuba, with the hard-earned blessing of the anti-Cuban George W. Bush administration, to research Celia Sanchez. Marta -- an internationally renowned journalist, author and historian -- was kind to me. In discussing Celia's relationship with Fidel, Marta told me in a precious email from Havana in 2005: "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only precisely as he believes Celia would want him to rule it." I believe that is the definitive quote about the Celia-Fidel nexus and it is from the great Cuban, Marta, who knew Celia & Fidel the best. I have documented that quote and it has been used by many sources interested in fully comprehending what Celia meant to Fidel and to Cuba.

To comprehend the dynamic Celia-Fidel relationship, one must understand the above Imgur photo that was taken on an early morning in March, 1964. Celia was a workaholic, which was fitting because she was Cuba's prime decision-maker. Note her diligent early-morning work while she was also noticeably separated a workable ways from Fidel. While she was studying and decision-making, he was relaxing in a rocking chair with his slippers off and obviously unmindful of influencing her work. But whatever decisions she formulated he would support 100%, regardless of anyone else's opinion. As their longtime highly respected associate Roberto Salas said, "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones." Many of those decisions, after April-1959, centered around preventing the U.S.-backed Batistianos-Mafiosi from recapturing Cuba. It appears, all these decades later, that her judgments were sound...much to the chagrin of present-day counter-revolutionaries like the 3 -- Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Ros-Lehtinen -- pictured at the top of this essay.

The photo above shows Roberto Salas holding one of his famous photos. He or his father Osvaldo took most of the most famous photos related to the Cuban Revolution. Roberto was born in New York City in 1940 when his father Osvaldo was one of New York's highest-paid photographers. The father and son moved permanently to Cuba after the overthrow of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship...and became the island's most famous photographers with intimate knowledge of its history. So Roberto's quote about Celia in his book is worth repeating: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." The highly respected Roberto Salas knew and worked with Celia; he registers the historic truth about her but wild distortions, rampant in the U. S., come from Cubans who would much prefer Batista's Cuba to Celia's Cuba.

Photo of Celia by Roberto Salas.

Another photo of Celia by Roberto Salas.

This photo of Celia Sanchez was taken shortly before she died of cancer. By then, her indelible stamp had been engraved forever on Cuba's revolutionary heart.

History's greatest revolutionary heroine.

How she is remembered today:

She was the daughter of a country doctor in Media Luna, Cuba.

After winning her Revolutionary War, she made sure that Cuba's children -- so maligned or totally forgotten during the Batista-Mafia rule of the island -- were afforded free educations through college and free healthcare for life. To this day, come hell or high water, those two Celia Sanchez doctrines remain priorities on the island in spite of such obstacles as the Batistiano-directed United States blockade-embargo of Cuba from 1962 till the present day. She was a guerrilla fighter and Cuba's Mother Teresa.

Celia especially adored a little peasant girl named Maria Ochoa. At age 10 in 1952 Maria was kidnapped and raped to death in a hotel room in Havana. Celia determined Maria was the victim of a newly enacted scheme on the island: Cuban girls, especially in rural areas, were being kidnapped and used as lures to attract rich pedophiles to gamble in the Mafia-run casinos that were prime features of all the major hotels in Dictator Fulgencio Batista's Cuba. The fate of little Maria Ochoa immediately transformed Celia Sanchez from an angelic, 99-pound doctor's daughter into history's all-time greatest female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader. She blamed Batista, the Mafia, and the United States for the gruesome murder of Maria Ochoa and she vowed to "make them pay." That, of course, was a tall order. Batista was a powerful dictator; the Mafia was the strongest criminal organization in the world; and the United States had emerged from World War II as the world's economic and military superpower. Her task was impossible. But she kept her promise and made "them pay." Thus the fate of a little peasant girl named Maria Ochoa still looms as perhaps the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the United States ever made on the island of Cuba.

Americans are not supposed to know who Celia Sanchez was so they would not be expected to understand this prominent statue of Cuba's greatest heroine sitting cross-legged in Havana today.

From 1962 until this very day in August of 2017, without special permission Americans are not allowed to travel to Cuba although all other citizens in the world have the freedom to do so. But if they could, and if they ventured to Celia Sanchez's hometown of Media Luna, Americans surely wouldn't understand the scene depicted in the above photo taken by Luis Palacios Leyva. It shows Cubans sitting around discussing the incomparable life of Celia Sanchez, the doctor's daughter who died decades earlier -- on January 11, 1980, at age 59. All Americans have heard of Fidel Castro. Most Americans have heard of Raul Castro and Che Guevara. And some Americans have even heard of Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, renowned independence fighters who died on Cuban soil fighting imperial Spain's soldiers in the 1890s. But most Americans have never heard of Celia Sanchez, the greatest of Cuba's independence fighters. That's because two generations of revengeful Cuban-Americans cannot vilify the child-loving doctor's daughter who earned the nickname La Paloma -- The Dove -- for the courageously stealthy manner in which she recruited rebels and supplies beginning in 1952-1953 that ended up defeating the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. Batista's biggest bounty was placed on her head even before Fidel Castro had ever laid eyes on her. The fact that the bounty was never collected ended the Mafiosi rule of Cuba.

In San Leandro, California, there is a lady named Melanie Cervantes who remembers Cuba's unforgettable La Paloma, The Dove. Just this year of 2017 Melanie created the awesomely beautiful handmade screen-print water color portrait depicted above as a stirring tribute to Celia Sanchez. It is now available online. Melanie's image of Celia Sanchez highlighted by the white dove is utterly fantastic!!

An enduring celestial image of La Paloma.

In a similar vein, an American tourist happening upon this scene in Cuba simply would not comprehend it. This photo shows an elderly, well-dressed Cuban woman very emotionally placing a flower over the crypt that holds the remains of Celia Sanchez. Americans are not supposed to comprehend the tears this woman is shedding. That's because those tears were for Cuba's La Paloma, Celia Sanchez.