Roberto Batista Fernández will not be able to fulfill his desire to return to a democratic Cuba, where human rights are respected and there is a Constitution based on the division of powers. The lawyer, the son of Fulgencio Batista and his second wife, Marta Fernández, died this Wednesday in Madrid at the age of 74 as a result of pancreatic cancer.
“They cannot operate on the tumor at the moment. They will administer chemo while waiting and in three months there will be a reassessment,” he had written to his friends in September, on the eve of the presentation of Son of Batista at the Madrid Book Fair, leaving, at the same time, a halo of good humor: “I’m in good spirits.”
This newspaper witnessed his mettle when it interviewed him on the occasion of the publication of his memoirs, which caused no little controversy. In them, he reflected the mixed feelings towards his father, who staged a coup in Cuba in 1952 and was in power until he was overthrown by the Castro Revolution on January 1, 1959.
That experience was for him, he repeated it insistently, “a wound that never healed and will remain there until I die”
For BobbyAs Roberto insisted on being called, Fulgencio Batista, described as an extraordinary father, failed to comply with the constitutional mandate and that error “took a heavy toll”, but even worse was releasing Fidel Castro from jail in 1955, acquitting him 22 months later. of the assault on the Moncada Barracks.
Born in New York, Roberto Batista arrived at the same city at the age of 11, together with his younger brother Carlos Manuel, two days before the entrance of the bearded to Havana, and there he practiced many years as a lawyer.
In his book, he vividly describes the shock that supposed the exile and to belong to that surname. That experience was for him, he repeated it insistently, “a wound that never healed and will remain there until I die.”
His body will be veiled this Thursday from 7:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. in the funeral home of the San Isidro Cemetery in Madrid. He will be buried right there, in the family pantheon, where the remains of his parents and his brother Carlos Manuel are found.
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