CUBA: Death in Marianao

For Major Mario Salabarria, 34-year-old head of the Havana police’s special investigations department, it had been a bad week. Salabarria was in jail, charged with murder. The man he had set out to get was dead, but a hero, and the Army was in control of the police department.

For months, Salabarria had fretted over a rival who he felt threatened his power in the department—Emilio Tro, young (29), able police major who fought in the Spanish Civil War (on the Loyalist side) and with the U.S. Army in Europe and the Pacific.† Tro, among other things, had accused Salabarria and his supporters of black market operations. That rankled. For the unsolved murder of one of his men a fortnight ago, Salabarria blamed Tro. It also gave him the excuse he needed. Last week, with a warrant for the arrest of Tro and two friends, Salabarria got together two carloads of men armed with Tommy guns. They surrounded a house in suburban Marianao where Tro was visiting, were soon firing round after round into walls and windows.

When Cuban Army tank and armored-car crews stopped the shooting three hours later, Tro and three supporters were dead. So was the pregnant wife of the house owner. Another man died later of wounds. A ten-month-old baby and eleven others were wounded. The shooting had lasted long enough for a movie cameraman to record it in detail. Army Chief Genovevo Perez Damera saw the film, denounced the affair as a “monstrous assassination.” He ordered Salabarria and several of his followers charged with murder and began a general roundup of Salabarria partisans.

Thousands turned out for the funeral of Tro, who had been shot in the back trying to save the expectant mother. President Ramon Grau San Martin, under opposition attack for filling high police posts with hotheads, named an Army colonel as supervisor of police.

Habaneras hoped that Army control would bring peace between the rival police factions. There was no guarantee. Said one Tro man: “Those who shoot people from behind cannot expect to die from shots from the front.”

† Where he was awarded the Purple Heart.