SOUTH CIRCUIT Presents
THE STORY OF TWENTY-ONE CUBAN FREEDOM FIGHTERS FROM THE ESCAMBRAY MOUNTAINS, WHO WERE EXECUTED IN ONE DAY AFTER BEING JAILED OVER TWO YEARS WITHOUT A TRIAL.

Isle of Pines, the second largest island in the Cuban archipelago, became the mayor political prison during Castro dictatorship. The "Model Prison" was built in the 1933. In 1961 there were thousands of political prisoners serving terms in these circular jails. They beat some of them to death, others starved. Some of them were assassinated without a trial while doing force labor. The Agricultural Labor Plan for political prisoners "Camilo Cienfuegos" was in place in this prison.

Isle of Pines

One day on July 1963, in the middle of the summer heat, the guards began to gather a group of political prisoners that had been there two years without a trial. The guards told them they were being transfer to another prison. All these men had been members of the Democratic Farmer Guerrillas that revolted against Communism in the Escambray Mountains. They were all taken to the city of Santa Clara.

Isle of Pines and Santa Clara city

As soon as they got to Santa Clara they were transfer to trucks under heavy armed security. They were taken to Condado a town in the municipality of Trinidad. This town had been used to execute hundreds of farmers from the area. They were interned in barracks next to the firing range. Soon after they were all in these facilities they began to torture them. They were taken one by one and they beat them while in handcuffs. They called them worms while the torture went on. They kept telling them to confess to crimes they had not committed. These procedures went on for several days.

Finally on July 12, 1963, that night over five hundred guards took them to a summary trial. The guards were the jurors. The trial was short and included loud insults from the guards attending the procedure. The guards acting as jurors found them guilty that same night Twenty-one were sentenced to death penalty, the others to 15 years or more. Right after the sentenced was read they got them in trucks to take them to the firing range. It was early morning July 13. When they got to the farm Ceiba without delay they got them out in groups of three or four tied together. They tied them to wood posts prepared for the execution. Then one of them gave the command voice prepare, aim and fire. They all fell and the commander gave them the last shot in the neck. The dead bodies were taken back to Santa Clara city in a truck. They buried them in a common burial ground but nobody knows where.

These are the names of the twenty-one freedom fighters shot down.

  Alvarez López, Lister ... Beltrán Perdomo, Pablo ... Beltrán Iznaga, José ... Bercourt Rodríguez, Zenén ... Brunet Alvarez, Carlos ... Curbelo del Sol, Carlos ... Fernández García, Alfredo ... García López, Sacaría ... García Ramos, Ramón ... González López, Orlando ... Lima Bársaga, Alejandro ... Marín Navarro, Blas ... Martínez Zuñiga, Francisco ... Montalbo, Roberto ... Pérez Ramírez, Ramón ... Quintana, Macario ... Rueda Muñoz, Blas ... Toledo Toledo, Alejandro ... Ulacia Montelier, Ruperto... Zerquera Conesa, Aquilino ... Zuñiga González, Ignacio ... /////

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