MADRID, Spain.- This October 28 marks the 63rd anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos, the charismatic commander of the Sierra Maestra.
A few days before October 28, 1959, Camilo had traveled to Camagüey, sent by Fidel Castro, to arrest Huber Matos, accused of traitor to the Revolution, despite having been decisive in the victory of the rebels.
On October 28, Camilo Cienfuegos, on his way back to Havana, allegedly left the Camagüey airport at six in the afternoon, in a Cessna 310 C, accompanied only by the pilot and an assistant. He was supposed to arrive in the capital two and a half hours later, but this never happened.
For more than 60 years, the Cuban regime has maintained the version of a plane crash due to bad weather. However, the weather report from the National Observatory reported normal weather throughout Cuba.
In all these years the Cuban authorities have never offered documentation on a rescue job of the remains of the plane “fallen into the sea”.
All this, coupled with the fact that Camilo Cienfuegos’s popularity was higher than Castro’s; and the usual modus operandi of the regime (disappearances, executions, suspicious suicides), with whom he is uncomfortable, have led Cubans to believe that Camilo’s disappearance was orchestrated by the Castro brothers.
According to the journalist and activist Carlos Franqui, the political formation of Camilo Cienfuegos was governed by a democratic nationalism, which did not participate in hatred of the United States. According to Franqui’s considerations, Camilo did not share the communist ideology.
For his part, Huber Matos himself story on different occasions that Camilo’s position before his arrest, and before the speech delivered by Fidel Castro on October 26, 1959, were decisive in Camilo’s disappearance.
According to the testimonies of Huber Matos, Camilo Cienfuegos appeared in Camagüey on October 21 “with a contorted face” to inform him of the arrest. That day he received a call from Fidel, and although Matos could not hear what he was saying, he did hear Camilo’s response: “We’ve screwed up. This should have been handled differently. (…) You will say what you want, but what has been done is a blunder”.
On October 26, Fidel Castro gave a speech at the Presidential Palace before thousands of people calling for the execution of Huber Matos. That day Camilo also gave a speech (his last speech of his). Contrary to what the Castros expected, he did not support the idea of execution. He didn’t even mention Matos.
“I’m sure that when the act ended, the Castros decided to make Camilo disappear,” said Huber Matos.
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