Frank País
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Frank Pais (December 7, 1934 – July 30, 1957) was a Cuban revolutionary who campaigned for the overthrow of General Fulgencio Batista's government in Cuba. He was killed in the streets of Santiago de Cuba by the Santiago police on July 30, 1957.[1][2]
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[edit] Cuba's urban underground movements
Though the activity of Fidel Castro's guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra mountains came to pre-occupy the forces of General Fulgencio Batista, and also formed the cornerstone of subsequent accounts of the Cuban revolution, campaigns by rebel groups in the major cities and towns of Cuba also played a key role in bringing an end to Batista's reign. It is in these cities and towns, in both open and underground organizations, that plans were debated and actions implemented. These organizations included labor unions, where the Communists were organizing “fighting committees”, and university and high school groups, where the Revolutionary Directorate and the 26th of July Movement had influence. Groups were also forming in the professional and business organizations of the middle and upper classes.[3] The underground movement against Batista was everywhere, but nowhere was it stronger than in Santiago, the home of Frank País.
Shortly after Castro's attack on the Moncada barracks in Oriente Province in July of 1953, Frank País began talking with students and young working people, men and women he knew personally, drawing them around him in an informal revolutionary group that became known as the Revolutionary National Action. País asked each person to organize a cell by preparing a list of their friends and close associates, people they could trust, to be members. These cells were composed of both students and workers and the average age was seventeen.
Cell members prepared carefully, finding, repairing, and hiding weapons, participating in mass demonstrations against the Batista government, raising money, and collecting medical supplies. They published a little mimeographed bulletin which sold for ten cents, reporting news and criticizing the government, countering the censorship with which Batista periodically blanketed the island.[4]
[edit] July 26 Movement merge
In the summer of 1955, País’ organization merged with the July 26 Movement (M-26-7) of Fidel Castro. Pais became the leader of the new organization in Oriente province.
Up to this moment neither the police in Santiago nor the group members themselves knew the extent of the organization Pais had so painstakingly built. Then one day in early 1956 each cell was given the order to paint the name of the movement along with slogans against the tyranny on all the walls and buildings in their neighborhood. The next morning, the army, the police, and the people of Santiago awoke to the magnitude of the resistance. Every block in the city was covered with writing splashed in paint; “Down with Batista! M-26-7.” No one had been arrested.[5]
Toward the end of that year, the movement began to prepare for the armed uprising that would cover Castro’s landing in Cuba and entrance into the mountains.
[edit] Uprising crushed
After the November uprising, the Santiago police were on the alert. They were given widened powers to enter homes and to arrest people without cause. They gained a reputation of brutal treatment of prisoners, torturing them in police-station basements to extract the names of sympathizers and generally terrorizing the citizens in public.
The M-26-7 movement organized to strike back, assassinating some of the worst torturers, taking reprisals against the police whenever a revolutionary was killed. These retaliatory measures made the M-26-7 even more popular in Santiago but also drew the attention of the police.
As planned, Frank País and the M-26-7 went into action on November 30th. País planned to stage a general show-of-force in Oriente province and other isolated locations in Cuba with coordinated attacks on Santiago's National Police headquarters and the maritime police station, while bombarding the Moncada Fortress with 81mm mortars.
Castro and País had assumed that the general population would join in the revolt as soon as the attacks began. Once the police stations had been captured, arms and ammunition would be distributed to the population, resulting in a full scale attack on the Moncada Barracks.
However País' cover was blown. País could see the futility of his situation. He canceled the attack and withdrew with his men, fading back into the civilian population.
With the exception of a few isolated incidents elsewhere in Oriente province, the general revolt throughout the island did not occur. The major reasons were a lack of arms, poor organization and limited information on Castro's intentions and timetable.
But the events of November 30th were not without successes. Some arms and ammunition were captured and later turned over to Castro, manpower was preserved to fight another day, and the weaknesses in the M-26-7 organization were exposed.
Fidel decided to abandon his original plan and retreated to the Sierra Maestra mountains above Santidomigo, a bandit haven not under government control. But the army cornered Castro's troops and almost decimated them. Fidel's own group, by now numbering only three men, was forced to hide in a cane field without food or water. Others were overrun completely. All who surrendered were executed.
The Cuban government circulated word that Castro was dead, later dispelled when the New York Times published an interview between Castro and Herbert Matthews in February, 1957.
[edit] The Rebellion Begins
Shortly before Christmas, Castro and a small number of survivors of the Granma expedition, including Raúl Castro and "Che" Guevara, retreated into the Sierra Maestra range. The outlook was not good. The almost total loss of their provisions and ammunition placed them at the mercy of the local inhabitants.
[edit] Attack on La Plata
On January 16, 1957, Castro and 17 of his followers attacked a small army outpost of 18 soldiers at la Plata. 29/ The tactics used were the same that would be repeated throughout the next 20 months, with essentially the same degree of success. A daylight reconnaissance was made of the objective, the activities of the soldiers were noted, and approach and retirement routes were plotted. Early the next morning, the surprise attack began. Seven soldiers were killed or wounded, and the position was seized. Precious weapons, ammunition, food and equipment were confiscated and taken back to the mountains, while Castro and his men, anticipating that the Army would attempt to pursue them, took up positions at a prepared ambush site. Later that morning, an army patrol stumbled into the ambush and was virtually annihilated.
Incidents like this, coupled with Herbert Matthews' New York Times interview the following month, forced Batista to take Castro seriously; the Army committed more troops to Oriente Province, and a reward of 100,000 pesos was placed on Castro's head. However, Batista's response had little impact upon the rebels. Castro's alliance with the local population, fostered by his respectful treatment of them, gave him an intelligence network the Cuban Army found impossible to defeat. Castro was kept constantly aware of the army's intentions and position, while the government forces were continually misled and misinformed as to Castro's whereabouts.
Palace Attack. Castro and the M-26-7 were not alone in opposing Batista. Several groups across the island, some aligned with Castro and others not, were in open rebellion against the government. One of these groups, the Directorio Revolucionario (DR), was composed of a group of students from the University of Havana. Allied with the M-26-7 through the Mexico Pact, the DR had been quite active in Havana for several months. On March 13, 1957, they staged an attack against the Presidential Palace in Havana using "fidelista" tactics. The attack took everyone by surprise and would have been successful in killing or capturing Batista except that, by chance, the President had left his first-floor office and gone to his second-floor apartment because of a headache. Twenty-five members of the DR were killed during the fight, and the whole operation was generally acknowledged to be the work of Castro. In what was quickly becoming one of his favorite tactics in response to rebel attacks, Batista ordered the arrest of all known rebels and rebel sympathizers in the Havana area. Those that were found were executed. While this counter-revolutionary technique was somewhat successful in eliminating unwanted opposition, it tended to alienate the population. In conducting these purges, the army and police were not usually discriminatory in their selection of targets. "Body count" frequently became more important than eliminating known rebels.
[edit] Organization for Guerrilla Warfare
By mid-April, Castro had acquired more than 50 volunteers from Santiago and other parts of the island; he now formed the first of an eventual 24 "columns" ranging in size from 100 to 150 rebels. The majority of these volunteers, and those joining in the following months, were middle-class students, merchants or professionals being hunted by Batista's police. Nevertheless, Castro generally would not accept volunteers who arrived without arms; he simply could not afford to feed them. He would turn them away, promising to let them join his group if they came back armed. To obtain arms, would-be "fidelistas" looked for the opportunity to relieve Batista's soldiers of weapons and ammunition.
Recruits who were allowed to stay were put through a lengthy period of political, physical and military training patterned after that conducted in Mexico. The training was purposely difficult; Castro wanted only the toughest and most dedicated to remain.
Fidel kept his column constantly moving throughout the Sierra Maestra, seldom stopping for more than 24 hours. Even though the rebels ate but once a day, adequate food stores were a constant problem. A tiny tin of fruit cocktail was considered a great luxury. To maintain discipline, strict rules were enforced; food was never taken from a peasant without permission and payment, and a rebel officer was never to eat a larger portion than his men. A person could be shot if merely suspected of being an informer. Alcohol was forbidden, and sex was discouraged unless the couple consented to be married. Fidel shared the mountain hardhips with his followers, often out-distancing them in an effort to set the example. His ability to march for hours without stopping earned him the nickname "El Caballo" -- The Horse.
Despite such spartan conditions, Castro's group continued to grow. Sleeping on the ground gave way to hammocks, and later, more permanent camps with "Bohios" (huts), kitchens and hospitals. 31/ As Fidel's stability in the Sierra maestra grew, so did his intelligence system. Warning networks were established using the well-treated farmers and mountain people as spies.
[edit] Beards
At this point, it is worth noting the origin of the famous rebel beard. Initially, Castro and his followers grew beards for the very practical reason that they had no razors and little soap or fresh water for shaving. As the rebellion continued, however, the beards took on important meaning. In time, they became so conspicuous and so representative of Castro's movement that beards became the major distinguishing feature between rebels and ordinary citizens. Unless the bodies were bearded, photos of "rebels" killed by the army fooled no one.
Beards became such a symbol of rebellion that a Batista soldier on leave who had allowed his beard to grow was machine-gunned and killed from a police car in the middle of Santiago, having been taken for a rebel.
Later, as part of a planned general strike, Fidel intended to infiltrate the towns with members of his rebel force. Wishing to make a good impression on the population, he considered having these men shave off their beards. He was finally convinced otherwise by Enrique Meneses, a newspaper photographer, when Meneses pointed out that "Any photographs in existence anywhere in the world at the time would lose their news-value if the rebels shaved off their beards." Eventually, following Castro's victory, everyone, except Fidel and a few others, was ordered to shave. It seemed that some individuals, who had never even been near the Sierra Maestra, were wearing beards in attempts to capitalize on the implication.
[edit] El Uvero
With reinforcements and added firepower, Castro began to expand his base of operations. On May 28th he led a band of 80 guerrillas against the military garrison of El Uvero (see Map #3). El Uvero, located on the seacoast at the foot of the Sierra Maestra, was isolated and manned by only 53 soldiers. The garrison presented an ideal target for Castro's limited forces and assets. Using the "fidelista" tactics described earlier, Castro's group took the outpost by surprise when they approached the garrison in the early morning hours. The fighting, though intense, was over in about 20 minutes. The army regulars sustained 14 dead and 19 wounded, and Castro's forces lost six killed and nine wounded. The rebels then confiscated the garrison's arms, ammunition and supplies. The battle was Castro's first significant victory, proving that, given the right conditions, regular army forces would be soundly defeated. In Guevara's words;
"... we now had the key to the secret of how to beat the enemy. This battle sealed the fate of every garrison located far enough from large concentrations of troops, and every small army post was soon dismantled."
The psychological value of the victory cannot be overstated; it brought to fruition months of hardship and training, and, like an elixir, immeasureably bolstered dedication to the struggle.
[edit] Batista Reacts
Following the El Uvero attack, government censorship was again imposed, and the Presidential elections that had been scheduled for November 1, 1957, were postponed until June 1, 1958. Coincidently, Batista's counter-terrorist measures against the civilian population were increased, especially in Oriente Province. Generally, these amounted to the loss of all civil liberties and the institution of martial law. Illegal searches and seizures, torture and outright murder became commonplace. 35/ Batista's soldiers would stop at nothing to present the impression that they were in control of the situation. Frequently, when frustrated by their inability to gain information or capture rebels, soldiers would summarily execute civilians, claiming that they were either guerrillas or rebel sympathizers.
[edit] The Sierra Maestra Manifesto
Despite calls for negotiations between the government and the rebels by the Institutions Civicas (IC), a loose federation of civic and professional associations, President Batista was unrelenting. Castro, on the other hand, joined by Raúl Chibas and Felipe Pazos,* responded to the IC by issuing a proclamation which they called the "Sierra Maestra Manifesto." Although not detailed, it became one of the basic rhetorical documents for the M-26-7 Movement.
- Key members of the Resistencia Civica, another
revolutionary organization aligned with the M-26-7. Although it was drafted on July 12, 1957, it was not seen in print until it was published in the Bohemia newspaper in Havana on July 28th.
The "Sierra Maestra Manifesto" was doubly important because it set a more neutral tone on the subject of reforms than some of Castro's earlier bellicose statements released through newspapermen such as Herbert Matthews, and gave political substance to the revolution by outlining specific organizational structure and goals for the proposed government.
[edit] Death of Frank Pais
While Castro was busy conducting rural guerrilla warfare from the mountains, Frank Pais was active in establishing urban organizations throughout the island. With the death of Jose Antonio Echeverria during the unsuccessful Palace Attack, Pais was left alone to carry on the M-26-7 movement in the cities and towns. By the summer of 1957, Pais' tremendous organizational skills had begun to show progress throughout Oriente, even down to remote village levels. While Castro's activities seemed confined to the areas immediately surrounding the Sierra Maestra, Pais was spreading his influence far and wide.
As his reputation as a M-26-7 organizer grew, Pais came under increasing pressure from Batista's forces in Santiago, his base of operations. Finally, in July 1957, an all-out manhunt for his capture was launched by the Santiago police. As the net tightened, Pais knew he would have to leave the city. Since exile was out of the question, he chose to join Castro in the mountains. As he prepared to leave, the house in which he was hiding he was surreptitiously surrounded by police. As Pais walked out of the house, he was gunned down.
The death of Frank Pais marked a turning point in the internal organization of the M-26-7. With no firm leadership evident elsewhere, the heart of the movement gradually centered in the rural campaign being waged from the Sierra Maestra. For the next several months, the urban arm of the M-26-7 was assigned one specific role: to support and sustain Fidel Castro's guerrillas. The deaths of Echeverria and Pais had eliminated two of the three genuine leaders of the Cuban insurrection; only Castro remained.
[edit] References
- ^ Frank Pais. latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- ^ Bockman, Larry James (April 1 1984). The Spirit Of Moncada: Fidel Castro's Rise To Power, 1953 - 1959 CSC 1984. globalsecurity.org. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- ^ Cannon, Terrance (1981). Frank País and the Underground Movement in the cities. historyofcuba.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- ^ Who was Frank Pais? (English). historyofcuba.com (1981). Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
- ^ Cannon, Terrance (1981). Frank País and the Underground Movement in the cities. historyofcuba.com. Retrieved on 2006-05-21.
