Miami, United States. – Captain Bernardo Corrales, ex -official of the rebel army and outstanding figure of the fight against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batistawas shot on September 16, 1961 in the province of Pinar del Río, after rising in arms against the communist system established in Cuba after the 1959 revolutionary triumph.
Corrales was the protagonist of one of the most remembered clandestine actions of the antibatistian struggle: the blasting of the Guanabacoa Polvorín, a fact in which Lieutenant Julio Tang Terxier also participated. At the triumph of the revolution, Corrales held the rank of captain of the Rebel Army and was appointed head of the San Julián barracks, in Pinar del Río.
However, just a year later, he joined the group of revolutionaries disenchanted with the course of the new government. In 1960, Corrales founded the Martian Democratic Movement (MDM), together with former members of the July 26 Movement, rebel and civil officers. This organization aspired to restore democracy in Cuba, under the protection of the 1940 Constitution, and declared that it would not become a political party after the overthrow of the new regime.
In March 1961, Corrales organized a guerrilla front in the Sierra de los Organs, also in Pinar del Río. On April 15, he decided to move to Havana to coordinate supplies and actions. He was arrested in San Cristóbal, but managed to escape from the militias barracks after hurting several of his captors. He was subsequently arrested again in the capital, wounded, and taken to the Columbia Military Hospital, where a rescue attempt failed.
Corrales was tried at the Pinar del Río hearing and convicted of death. He was shot next to René Suárez Pérez a few hours after the trial. Its history is registered within the first internal armed resistance to the Fidel Castro regime, which by then began to consolidate its absolute power.
Castro Captain Eliseo Reyes “San Luis”, recognized for his participation in the fight against the raised, came to admit in reference to these opponents: “Some possessed value, it cannot be denied. According to them, they had nothing to say and did not speak.”
Corrales is part of a wide group of revolutionary ex -combatants who, after fighting Batista in the name of freedom, chose to rise again to what they considered a new dictatorship. The International Committee of Ex-Pressos Cuban He describes it as “a rebel with cause” and symbol of a struggle truncated by the imposition of authoritarianism on the island.
