Vol. 75/No. 46 December 19, 2011
Below is an excerpt from Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War, 1956-58 by Teté Puebla, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for December. Puebla joined the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1956, when she was 15 years old. She became an officer in the first all-women’s platoon of the Rebel Army led by Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra mountains.
A brigadier general, she was the highest-ranking woman in Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces when the interviews contained in the book occurred in 2000 and 2002. Copyright © 2003 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
PUEBLA: In May 1958 Batista’s army launched an offensive by 10,000 soldiers against our 300 rebels in the Sierra.1…
We had taken several hundred prisoners, and there were too few of us to care for that many people. So Fidel wrote a letter to the International Red Cross proposing that these prisoners be handed over to them. He addressed the letter to the Red Cross here in Cuba and not the Batista government.
To accomplish the handover, a truce with Batista’s army was needed. The dictatorship didn’t want to accept a truce, because by doing so they’d be acknowledging having been defeated. But the International Red Cross agreed.
It was decided that I would be the messenger to establish the truce. I was seventeen years old at the time. I was chosen because if a man were sent, he would have been killed. If a woman went, they might not shoot her… .
So we washed and ironed my one olive green uniform, and at 5:30 or 6:00 a.m., I left from Altos de Mompié.
I went on a mule, carrying a white flag, unarmed and accompanied by a peasant from the area. I let down my long hair, and was wearing a July 26 Movement armband.2 I was going down from the heights of the Sierra Maestra, toward an area dominated by Batista’s soldiers. We were located along the upper ridge of the Sierra Maestra, and Batista’s army controlled the lower portions….
As I approached, I waved a white handkerchief, so the troops wouldn’t shoot.
At the first army post, they told me to halt and asked me what I wanted. I told them I was bringing a message from our general command post for their commanding officer. With threatening looks on their faces, they told me to give it to them. I said no. They took me to their commanding officer, Captain Durán Batista.
I then had to wait for Major Merob Sosa, who was in Bayamo, to return to Las Vegas de Jibacoa. Merob Sosa was one of the bloodiest officers the dictatorship had. He was the one I had to give Che’s message to.3 In that letter, Che asked them for a truce to allow the prisoners to be handed over. I still have that letter.
After reading the letter, Durán Batista said to me: “You have to take that armband off.” Moreover, he added, “We’ve told the troops that the ones being handed over are rebels.”
I responded: “The soldiers have to know that it’s not rebels who are being handed over. Every last one of us will die fighting in the Sierra rather than surrender. And I can’t take this armband off. You couldn’t understand its meaning—it’s the symbol of our struggle.”
He talked about taking me to Bayamo. He was insulting and asked me how a pretty girl like me could be with that bedraggled and filthy bunch. He told me that the war was just about over and that they were winning it. I answered that this wasn’t true, and I reminded him that the ones we were handing over were government troops, not rebels. They agreed to the truce! It was around 6:00 p.m. when I got back… .
That same night they told me I had to go back. I took the response drafted by Che to Captain Durán Batista. I got to the army’s camp at ten o’clock at night. I was told to halt. I explained the same thing as the last time, that I was bearing a message from our general command post for their commanding officer. They let me through and brought me to the hut where Captain Durán Batista was. I gave him the message.
At all costs Durán Batista wanted to prevent me from talking to the soldiers. He gave me his cot, and he laid down in a hammock next to it, so he could keep an eye on me. Being among Batista’s soldiers I could not go to sleep. I waited until the captain fell asleep, and then I sneaked away and began talking to the soldiers in the trenches.
I told them that the ones to be handed over were captured soldiers. I stated again and again during those hours that all the rebels would fight to the death in the Sierra. They later said that this was the safest night they’d had in the mountains, knowing that the rebels wouldn’t attack while I was there… .
Finally, the International Red Cross arrived and I was able to return with their response. Then Che and [Rebel Army Commander] Faustino Pérez came down, together with the prisoners… . [W]e handed over 253 prisoners, 57 of them wounded.
After my assignment as a messenger to establish the truce, I was sent to Santiago de Cuba three times to open up new lines of communication. We lacked food and medicines, and the broadcasting equipment for Radio Rebelde wasn’t working. I made these trips before the creation of the Marianas. But what we wanted more than anything was to earn the right to fight.
2. The July 26 Revolutionary Movement, founded in June 1955 by Fidel Castro and other revolutionary combatants, was the main organization leading the fight against the dictatorship.
3. Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-67), Ar-gentine-born leader of the Cuban Rev-olution.