CUBA: Gibara

A dingy schooner beat into the small harbor of Gibara in the north of Oriente Province last week and tied up to the fruit dock. Quick as monkeys three dozen Cubans went over the side with a light machine gun and a high angle anti-aircraft gun.

They were well drilled. One party set up the guns, another rushed to the out skirts of the town and cut telephone and telegraph wires. There was no one to oppose them but a few Rural Guards. A burst of machine gun fire sent these scampering. The rest of the men worked feverishly unloading crate after crate of rifles, machine guns, ammunition. Another party of rebels was waiting in Gibara with an ancient wood-burning locomotive and three creaking freight cars. These were run down to a siding and loaded. It was a filibuster to warm the heart of any revolutionist of 1895.

What the Gibara filibusters forgot was that it was occurring in 1931. Machado’s tough little army is not like “Butcher” Weyler’s ill-equipped Spaniards. There are railroads in Cuba now, a well-paved 715-mile motor road stiffens its backbone. And Machado’s troops are loyal. The hard times and unemployment that have turned 90% of the country against him, in sympathy at least, keeps every one of his well-paid, well-fed soldiers toeing the mark. Within five hours Federals were moving against Gibara, by land, by sea, in the air. The filibusters got their asthmatic freight no farther than the station before five combat planes were ripping over the area, dropping bombs, strafing the ground with short bursts of machine gun fire. The anti-aircraft gun barked angrily. One bullet knocked the magneto off Capt. Torres Menier’s plane. Two more planes, one piloted by Lieut. Rodolfo Herrera, son of the Cuban Army’s Chief of Staff, were shot down. All three landed safely.

The little cruiser Patria and the gunboat Yara blocked the harbor mouth, exchanging shot for shot with the rebels on shore.

Meanwhile Cuban cavalry and infantry were surrounding the town. The insurrectos backed their little freight train into the railway tunnel under the old Spanish fortress of Vigia and held the Federals at bay for two more days.

In Havana Federal authorities clamped an iron lid on all news. To test the censorship, the New York Times telephoned U. S. bankers in Havana. Their call went through immediately, but every time the revolution was mentioned the connection was abruptly cut. But no censorship can stop Cubans from talking. Havana, seeing the battle of Gibara through the bottoms of innumerable beer glasses, received a far more colorful picture: not three dozen Cubans but a foreign legion of 500 Cubans, French, Germans, Japanese and U. S. citizens had landed under command of a mysterious U. S. Colonel.* The streets ran with blood! There was bayonet fighting from house to house! Half of Gibara was destroyed! . . .

In cold truth, the Federal troops rushed the mouth of the railway tunnel the next morning. It was deserted. The Gibara rebels had slipped through the swamps during the night but they left behind them almost all their new landed arms: 70 machine guns, 2,500 rifles, 2,500,000 rounds of ammunition. Among the Federals one officer and five men were killed, eight wounded. There were seven known rebels dead, 16 wounded.

Near the city of Cienfuegos a Federal patrol swooped on a little drugstore and dragged out one more leader of the revolution from his burrow beneath the counter. He was Col. Aurelio Hevia, a successor to the imprisoned General Mario Menocal. U. S. Ambassador Harry Frank Guggenheim notified the State Department, perhaps a little prematurely, that with the failure of the Gibara filibuster and the capture of the most prominent leaders of the revolution, President Machado’s troubles were as good as over.

Biltmore Junta. In Manhattan’s Biltmore Hotel, at least, the revolution went on bravely. As in 1895 the revolutionists established propaganda headquarters in New York to drum up U. S. sympathy, collect U. S. dollars. Head of the Biltmore junta was an elderly, pachydermal gentleman named Dr. Domingo Mendez Capote, who blushingly denied reports that if & when the revolution was successful he might possibly be chosen President of Cuba. The Capote family and the other members of the Biltmore junta were not downhearted. To a steady accompaniment of ringing telephones and banging doors they stayed at their posts, denouncing Machado the Tyrant, issuing clarions for Cuba Libre, pouring tea for the Press.

The Porra. Early one morning firing broke out in Havana itself. Havana householders and U. S. reporters stayed prudently in their beds. It was difficult to learn fust what had happened. Most reliable reports said that a group of revolutionary sympathizers had been waylaid by a gang of the “Porra” and shot. Only one body was found. The “Porra” ranks high among the various things for which Cubans curse Gerardo Machado. It is a band of criminals who have been pardoned, let out of jail and armed to help put down the revolution. Cubans spoke of the “Porra” last week as Irishmen spoke of the Black & Tans in 1920.

Machado’s Return. By the week’s end warfare had quieted enough for Gerardo Machado’ to return to Havana with his chief of staff and right-hand man General Alberto Herrera, the man who more than any other squashed the rebellion. Havana police were on their toes to prevent an outbreak from rebellious students in

Havana. Crowds were forbidden. Anyone who “gossiped against the Government” was liable to 15 days in jail, & a $50 fine, as was anyone who appeared in the streets bareheaded and wearing a beard. Police had discovered that a bristling beard and a bare head were being adopted by young Cubans as badge of revolutionary sympathy.

*Later, a “Colonel” H. B. Blake was reported leading guerillas in Santa Clara.