Haydée Santamaría, central figure in the Cuban Revolution
Haydée Santamaría, central figure in the Cuban Revolution
In the early hours of July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro and nearly 150 Cuban rebels traveled to the Moncada garrison to capture the barracks and seize the many weapons stored there. They planned for this to be the beginning of the Cuban Revolution to overthrow the Cuban dictator, President Fulgencio Batis
Batista wanted Haydée Santamaría to divulge Fidel’s whereabouts. To force her to speak, the torturers showed her her brother’s eyes and Boris’ dismembered genitalia. This grotesque act of intimidation, however, did not break her revolutionary strength. She defied her own torturers and remained silent. “If you did that to them, and they didn’t talk, much less will I.”
Santamaría wrote to her mother from prison: “Abel will always be with us. Cuba exists, and Fidel is alive to build the Cuba that Abel wanted.” She said, “Abel is not dead, for to die for your country is to live.”
[…]
Santamaría’s political convictions were based on experience, not just theory or pure logic. She saw that it was not enough to change one politician for another, that it became necessary to change systems in order to change humans. “Changeover had to be total. Then it had to be ours, absolutely ours. . . . For me, to be a Communist does not mean only joining a party; it means having an attitude towards life.”