“All my youth, I practically spent my whole youth in a prison, because of Escambray, later I was prisoned on the Isle of Pines [Isla de Pinos is island of Cuba, today known as Isla de la Juventud]. But what I've done, doesn't bother me, I don´t regret anything. Do you know why I don´t regret it? Because at that time everyone was trying to do something, I met very valuable and very brave people with a lot of ethics and dignity. My life made me depend only on myself. I have learned to depend on myself. I was a little python when I fell prisoner on the Isle of Pines, I did not know how to wash, nothing, life taught me to depend on myself. All experiences helped me, because today I can defend myself as I want and feed myself as I want, I drink a little of water with sugar if I need to survive, but I live.”
“They denied me to entry to the United States, because they marked me as a terrorist. To emphasise, my case is not terrorism, my case says ´rebellion and other acts against State Security of Cuba´. A girl at migration office, who interviewed me, says to me: ´Look Sir, you cannot travel to my country, because you are a terrorist´. ´Look, I´m going to tell you something, young lady, you are also immigrant, and you are here now, I don't know why, but you don´t even know, your country is not the United States, you are the Andina. From USA, they send me here to realize assassinations.”
“We visited him in the military hospital, five of us, […] Clara Franc, we visited him, and he told me quietly to my ear instructions, nobody ever knew what he whispered, nobody knew anything about what he told me. Before he died, he knew that that would be his last hunger strike. I was lucky to speak with him, he whispered to my ear: ´I might die, but I have the courage to do it, because these communists will not play with me anymore! I know that I am going for a certain death in this strike´. I told him: ´Pedro Luis, be careful, it is necessary that you preserve yourself for the future, we need you´. He said: ´I know what I am doing, but I am not afraid´. And my story is written history exactly like that. His story is history now too. He died as a man in the hunger strike, as he always was.”
“At that time, the Escambray uprisings established the struggle with the weapons in hand. For me they were successful, according to me, they represented big pain for the system. That is why later, communism murdered many of them, many of them were shot down, but they died with dignity shouting ´Free Cuba´ [Viva Cuba Libre], ´Long life to Christ´ [Viva Cristo Rey]. They made the system to know about them very well. Of course, there is one thing that I must mention. Speaking about CIA [Central Intelligence Agency of the United States], it is very true that the CIA helped counterrevolutionary groups in Havana, Alberto Aguirre Rivas, Joel García Rubió, all of them who were from the CIA, but sure, it was the form of the US Government to knock down communism in Cuba. And completely agree with this way of fight, it was well done. At the time it was well done. Many brave men died that time, we will remember their struggle and battle as a success, their fight served for the future.”
Tomás Ramos Rodríguez was born on October 10, 1943, into a humble family from Villa Clara, Republic of Cuba. His parents supported the Cuban Revolution in 1959. However, Tomás´s father distanced himself from revolutionary ideas because of Fidel Castro‘s approach to communism. In 1959 Tomás entered the “Revolutionary Recovery Movement” [Movimiento de Recuperación Revolucionaria]. They supplied the counterrevolutionary uprisings in the Sierra of Escambray, for which he was sentenced to nine years in a military prison. In 1980 he emigrated through the Mariel port to the United States, but he returned to Cuba the same year, infiltrated by the CIA. In Cuba, he was sentenced to three years in prison based on the illegality of his entry to the country. He was again sentenced in 1989 for 20 years for an attempt armed attack on the Castro brothers. Thomas left prison in 2008 when he was 64 years old. He lives with his wife Marina in Havana. They both have serious health problems.
