SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The case of the commander Huber Matossentenced by Fidel Castro’s regime to 20 years in prison for “acts of sedition and treason,” marked a moment of rupture for the revolutionary coalition.
Huber Matos, teacher from the school in the town of Manzanillo, in the former province of Oriente, he was a member of the Orthodox Party.
Passed He joined the 26th of July Movement and later joined Castro’s rebel army in the Sierra Maestra. In the mountains he rose to the rank of commander in 1958 and in January 1959 he entered Havana with Castro.
However, that same year, in October, wrote Castro sent a personal letter resigning from his command, in which he expressed his desire to return to work as a teacher and that he would be motivated, according to what he has pointed out Roberto Jesus Quinonesbecause of his concern about the growing influence of communists in the revolutionary government of Cuba.
On January 11, 1959, Matos had been appointed military governor of the province of Camagüey.
But months later, having seen that Castro He had accused President Urrutia of actions that “bordered” on treason, putting Osvaldo Dorticós in his place, and with the signs of communist penetration in the Cuban armed forces, Commander Matos decided to resign. The government he had supported did not seem to be in Cuba’s future.
Following his resignation letter, Fidel Castro publicly called him a traitor on October 21, 1959, and sent Commander Camilo Cienfuegos, one of Cuba’s most popular leaders, to arrest him.
Castro He called a government meeting to discuss Matos’ fate. Raúl Castro and Che Guevara were in favor of the execution. Three key ministers, Manuel Ray, Faustino Pérez and Felipe Pazos, questioned the Castro version of events and were immediately replaced by men loyal to Castro.
According to the testimonies According to Huber Matos, Camilo Cienfuegos showed up in Camagüey on October 21 “with a disfigured face” to inform him of his arrest. That day he received a call from Fidel, and although Matos could not hear what he said, he did hear Camilo’s response: “We made a mistake. This should have been handled differently. (…) You can say what you want, but what has been done is a blunder.”
A week later, when he was due to return to Havana, Cienfuegos disappeared. On October 28, he allegedly left Camagüey airport at six in the evening in a Cessna 310 C, accompanied only by the pilot and an assistant. He was due to arrive in the capital two and a half hours later, but this never happened.
Dictator Castro, in order to avoid turning Matos into a martyr, decided not to subject him to the firing squad, but instead to sentence him to prison.
On December 11, 1959, the commander’s trial began and lasted five days, after which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, a sentence he served mostly on the Isle of Pines.
Matos was released from prison on October 21, 1979, after having served each and every day of his sentence, and joined his family in exile. He died in 2014 in Miami, after suffering a heart attack, at the age of 95.
