SOUTH CIRCUIT Presents
THE STORY OF COMMANDER JULIO EMILIO CARRETERO ESCAJADILLO AND ELEVEN MEN UNDER HIS COMMAND THAT WERE EXECUTED BY THE COMMUNIST IN CUBA.

Commander Julio Carretero was the third in command of the Farmer Guerrillas fighting communists in the mountains of Escambray from 1963 to 1964.

Carretero was born in Trinidad. After Castro took power he conspired against the Communists, and after a few months on July 1960 he went to the mountains to take part in the Farmer Guerrillas. He was an experience soldier and soon was known for being astute and courageous. After Commander Tomas Sangil Diaz died in combat on March 1963, and after Commander Osvaldo Ramirez Garcia was also killed in combat on April 16, 1963, Carretero took command of all Farmer Guerrillas in the mountains of Escambray.

During 1963 Carretero and their guerrillas continued fighting, but at the beginning of 1964 the guerrillas were practically shrunk. The Guerrilla Farmers were reduced, due to Castros use of thousands of troops and the supply of Soviet modern weapons to communists in Cuba. The US administration began to implament the laws of neutrality.

The communists also concentrated peasant farmers from the area in special towns that they built for the purpose of removing logistics from the Farmer Guerrillas. These were prison camps where the civilians were confined as if they had committed some crime. The civilians properties were confiscated by the communists, also the State Security apparatus deployed dozens of spies in the area.

With this situation Carretero and Commander Maro Borges decided they had to go exile with other 11 men that were all well known as members of the guerrillas. They decided to seek the help of Carretero's old friend Alberto Delgado Delgado the administrator of the farm Maisinicu near Trinidad his hometown. Later the Communist will make a movie called The Man of Maisinicu. Carretero contacted Delgado who told him he was going to organize an expedition to take them out of the country. A few days afterwards, March 1964, eleven of the members of the guerrilla group were guided to the shore in the north coast where a fast boat was going to take them to Florida. There the members of the Communist armed forces were waiting to detain them. They were ambushed, disarmed and taken to Havana. Luckily, Carretero had set up a code to be transmitted by Radio Swam and WMIE in Miami to signal they had arrived or not to Miami. The code indicated to Jose Leon who stayed in command of the Farmer Guerrillas that Delgado had betrayed them. Those left in Cuba caught the traitor Delgado the Man of Maisinicu and hung him for his collaboration with the Communists. Jose Leon was able to continue the resistance.

  Comandante Julio Emilio Carretero Escajadillo, Comandante Maro Borges, Comandante Benito Rodríguez Pedraja, Irenio Borges, Macho Jiménez, Andrés Oramas, Raúl Morales, Tomás García Valle, Blas Ortega, Valentín Hernández, Cuco Cedeño, Manolo Mounsó la Guardia. ........

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