Feb. 8, 1957.p. 8.
Castro-Led Rebels Reported Raiding in East—Batista
Official Here in Denial
By Peter Kihss
Cuban opponents of the Batista Government asserted here yesterday that significant guerrilla warfare was still going on in Oriente Province.Bombings of key power points have caused frequent disruption of utilities in Havana and other cities in recent weeks, they said.
Angel Pérez Vidal, chairman of Acción Civica Cubana, stated that Fidel Castro, former student leader, had 500 men operating in raids against government barracks from the rugged forested Sierra Maestra range in the eastern Province, about 600 miles from Havana.Señor Pérez Vidal estimated 200 government soldiers had been killed since Nov. 30 and 200 others were under arrest for refusing to fight.
These reports were sharply challenged by Consul General Alfredo Hernandez of Cuba. Señor Hernandez, for the government of President Fulgencio Batista, insisted peace ruled throughout Cuba; “only a few soldiers” had been killed in earlier fighting; the “few” bombings that had taken place in Havana were the work of “Communists.”
Señor Hernandez said any correspondent could go to the island republic to verify this for himself.United States correspondents, he insisted, are “free to write anything they want” without censorship.
The opposition description of conditions from Señor Pérez Vidal was echoed separately by Sergio Aparicio, general secretary of Acción Revolucionaria Cubana, and Arnaldo Barrón, general secretary of the Comité Ortodoxo.All said they had reports from persons recently in Cuba.
The picture in these and other quarters here was that Señor Castro’s forces had been swelled principally by youths in their teens and early twenties. Señor Castro originally landed on the south coast Dec. 2 with eighty-two men from Mexico.
However, actual fighting began in Santiago de Cuba when according to Señor Pérez Vidal, fifty rebels went into action Nov. 30, the day Señor Castro—delayed by bad weather—was originally scheduled to land.
Old-line Opposition leaders appear to have stayed away from his revolt, which has come at a time when Cuba is harvesting her largest sugar crop in recent years and abundant investments have been enhancing Cuban prosperity.
His support was said to come in part from those regarding him as an idealist fighting against dictatorship, reinforced recently by reaction to some ruthless killings by Government forces seeking to suppress violence.
Señor Aparicio, for instance, said the Castro forces recently negotiated surrender of two ill rebels.Army troops, he stated, cut off the men’s heads and exhibited them from a jeep in Santa Cruz, in Oriente Province.
Señor Barron said that two weeks ago he gave the United Nations a petition from the Cuban Orthodox party in Havana, headed by Pelayo Cuervo Navarro, naming fifty youths reportedly tortured and killed and the alleged culprits.
The guerrillas were reported holed up in almost impenetrable mountains and jungles, supplying themselves with arms and even uniforms captured in raids on many new small and weakly manned Government outposts.Señor Pérez Vidal estimated the Castro forces had lost about eighty men killed.
Before censorship clamped down, nineteen bombings on five days, between Dec. 19 and Jan. 12, had been reported in the Havana and Santiago areas in press dispatches.Reports here varied as to opposition statements of bombing explosions almost nightly in Havana and other centers, apparently without effect on the tourist trade.
Brig. Gen. Hernando
Hernandez, chief of Havana police, was reported to have said employees
or former employees of the Cuban Electric Company must be involved because
of the technically well-chosen spots.