"If necessary, I would go back to Moncada" – Cubajournalists

By Ángela Oramas Camero

In a conversation organized by the Institute of Cuban History on Monday, July 16 at the Dulce María Loynaz Cultural Center in Havana, Moncada's aggressor, Pedro Trigo , offered testimonials. of the event, in the presence of historians, investigators, specialized journalists, fighters and friends, in addition to his wife Mirta López, who always accompanies him.

Pedro was barely 24 years old, led by the young lawyer Fidel Castro in the badault of the second largest barracks of the dictatorship Fulgencio Batista, the Moncada, in July 1953. The young man came from the ranks of Orthodoxy, like Fidel and Abel. "In those years," he recalls, "Eduardo Chibás, this great master of patriotism, who pushed us to continue to defend Cuba against the ills that afflicted him, was dead.

"I met Fidel at a meeting of the Orthodox party in Santiago de Cuba. Las Vegas, in the house of Dr. María Purificación García Cabello (Fina). It was in 1951 and I was in the use of the word when I saw him arrive, wearing a guayabera. I was struck by the concentrated way in which he listened to me talking about five farms that the then president, Carlos Prío Socarrás, had acquired in obscure ways, as well as expulsion. of peasants in the vicinity of El Globo de Calabazar

. I finished my speech, I had it in front of me with his intelligent and deep look. He introduced himself: "I call Fidel Castro, I am a lawyer, and if all that you have said today is true, how about declaring Prío?"

"He asked me for more information and told him that Prío had replaced peasants for their soldiers as laborers. Each was paid two pesos for ten hours of work. Immediately, he warned me: "We must question the evicted peasants, who are the best witnesses for me to make a complaint".

"The next day, at eight o'clock in the morning, Fidel arrived at my home in Calabazar (village 12 kilometers from the capital), accompanied by Juan Martínez Tinguao, to immediately undertake the investigation into the Gordillo, Lage, Potrerillo de Menocal, Pancho Simón and Paso Seco farms, named the last El Rocío by Prío. The group included 54 caballerias (today, in 48 of them, Lenin Park, Lenin Vocational School and Botanical Garden are extensive.)

"Shortly after, José Luis Tasende and Gildo Fleitas and other companions died in the Moncada attack

"Fidel told us that the first thing was to meet the campesinos and photograph the farms. We left for the house of the Galician Josefa Yañez (of Orthodox belonging), located in El Globo, and in this house, in front of the group of peasants, Fidel spoke for the first time of an agrarian reform if the Revolution triumphed. In addition, it would end with the latifundio and the exploitation of guajiros by the delivery of the property of the land. "At the triumph of the Revolution, we placed a plaque in Josefa's house, but after his death someone threw it out and several times we asked to put another one in it." It was said that this place where Fidel spoke for the first time of the agrarian reform, but our claim was not heard.

"With all the evidence in hand, on March 3, 1952, Fidel made the He published it in the newspaper Alerta a few days later, Batista gave the military coup and the reaction of us, like that of the people, was indignant.A week later, Fidel spoke of the Urgent creation of a revolutionary movement opposed to the dictatorship and affirmed that to liberate the country, there was no other alternative than the armed struggle

"He ordered me to create a revolutionary cell in Calabazar, with the requirement that they be honest people and ready to take up arms to make the Revolution triumph. One of my parents, Florentino, was in charge of searching for army uniforms for the armed struggle.

"Exactly, at that time, I met Abel, extraordinary revolutionary of great sensitivity, firmness and optimism, like me, son of Galician parents, of Orense, in Galicia. Perhaps, partly because of this, my mother, also Galician, Panchita, admired and wanted so much. Sometimes Abel and Fidel stayed to eat and sleep in my house in Calabazar. One of the first questions posed by Abel to the newly created cell group was how many of us had read Marti, because the Apostle was our guide for independence.

"One afternoon, in full preparation for the zero hour, Fidel and I went in a Chevrolet that he drove to Pedro Marrero's house, in La Ceiba, Marianao. walked in we saw that the dining room was missing, and there was a mattress on the floor, so we imagined that there was no furniture in the room either, and Fidel's & # 39; Exclaim, but what did you do with all these things! Did you go crazy selling everything? Then Pedro said to him: And tomorrow I'm selling the fridge Fidel interrupts it: "I forbid you to continue to sell things at home, it is enough that you have engaged the place of your trucker in the sale of beer to the Tropical "

Pedro Marrero, very serious and firm, answers: If I want to give my life for our ideals, what material things can matter to me? Pedro was killed during the badault on Moncada. "

" I knew what "zero hour "sig nified in Santiago de Cuba. Only Fidel and Abel knew him. This was the date of the badaults on the Moncada barracks and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. Fidel informed me at quarter past one on July 26th. On Siboney's farm, Melba and Haydee ironed and distributed the uniforms to the fighters, while another comrade took out their weapons from a double bottom window

"Fidel told me: we Let's go around the carnivals to see the prevailing environment.And we left for the Plaza de Armas.It ordered Abel to take Dr. Mario Muñoz to El Esperón.I found out that there is a lot with other comrades, we had to borrow the Eastern Radio Channel, from where the intervention of the poet Raúl Gómez García would be transmitted to the inhabitants of Santiago de la Moncada

"The return to the farm Siboney, I did it with Abel, second boss of the Moncada action, badured me that the action was well organized. By my head it did not happen that hours later Abel and my brother Julio would have died, after horrible tortures. Abel had said that if we fell, we would have saved the validity of Martí to the centenary of his birth.

"Abel had given order, the day before, to my brother to return to Havana because he was with hemoptysis, but Julito did not obey him and he appeared to The civilian hospital Saturnino Lora From there they both shot at Moncada, the last to shoot was Julio because he still had a bullet in his rifle.

"Why many fighters do they arrive late at Moncada? Because the drivers, also fighters, did not know the streets of Santiago de Cuba and were lost in Moncada. In one of those cars I was walking. Only eight of us were coming to the barracks, and Fidel had already given the order to withdraw.

"We could not continue together and with the uniforms: we took off these clothes and underneath we transported the civilian. We separated and I took a bus that was going to Havana; the driver sent me to comb my hair and repair the guayabera … we'll see how we got out of here. When I arrived in Calabazar, the agents of the SIM (Military Intelligence Service) were waiting for me, and as they could not prove my participation in the Moncada, they released me, with the recommendation that I could not not to leave my city

of the murder of Julio, I had to give it to my mother and she said very firmly: I know that Julito was murdered and you are ready that the hardest comes … When Melba and Haydee come out of prison, we join the three to continue collaborating with the Movement of July 26, named that in the Model of the Presidium in the Isle of Pines, today of the Youth, Fidel gave to our liberating fight [19659003] "At Raulito, as we told Melba and I to see him so young risking his life, I met him after his release from Model Prison, in his sister Lydia's apartment. , where Fidel has commissioned me to collect a typed article. "Suddenly, Lidia tells us: We have the building surrounded by Batista guards. I keep the item under my shirt and slowly go down the stairs. I am in the street with Colonel Martín Pérez, who asks me: do you live here? Serene, I answer yes. Then he said to me: Follow your path, we will now record apartment by apartment. I come to Bohemia magazine, where Fidel was waiting for me, I give him the article that bore his signature and the title: Miente Chaviano. He carried me in the weight of joy and his writing was published. "

More than three hours had pbaded since Pedro Trigo had begun his conversation and his dialogue with the public, who insisted that he tells more anecdotes about the action However, for his 90th birthday, the day had been quite intense, but the organizers of the conference, including Drs Elvis Rodríguez and Servando Valdés of the Cuban Institute of History, promised to come back with another historic meeting and Pedro ended his speech with this statement: "If necessary, I would go back to Moncada."