Raúl C. García

“My life in the guerrilla was very short. There were very tough guerrilla leaders. The camps were improvised, it was not actually a stable one. It was not a camp where you could be during many days without problems, it was in constant movement. With the food, it was very difficult - there were co-workers who could bring food, but if there was a movement, this was not possible… Also, you were spending nights and days in rain or anything like this. It was very difficult with the wounded ones. A wounded man could not be taken to the hospital, he had to be healed by the peasants. There were controls which would take you into a prison if they caught you entering into these places with medicine or clothes. The guerrilla life was very difficult. I’m telling you, the camps could not be stable, fixed, they had to be in movement. Because there was no controlled territory. Everyone was in their area, constantly moving. The offensive was increasing constantly, and there was constantly less support from the collaborators of the guerrilla.”

"The peasants, as I told you ... They [the government] started with the mess of the agrarian reform, that the peasants, that the blacks ... And all this was false, it was falsehood. They implanted the agrarian reform, and if you had a farm, [they took it]... The fight was not a revenge because of them having taken the farm, that now I launch myself to the fight. A large percentage were peasants, poor people. I was a child, I had nothing, but my grandfather had this farm… But the fight was not that because they took the farm, I was going to fight, it was not like that. The peasants, not the millionaires, were the ones who converted themselves into guerrillas against Fidel. To the ones who actually had something, they [the government] took it away. Also, the way they did it [as the government took away possessions], it was in such a criminal form.”

“Sandino is a place in Pinar del Río, which is very far away, when reaching the peninsula, is almost the last place. It has a very bad sandy soil. In Cuba, there is no desert, but I say that it looked like a desert, as it was sandy. They [the government] took them to be totally separated, accompanied just by the soldiers and anyone else, there were no women. They spent long time without seeing their wives, their children. My dad spent months without seeing my mom and his sons... Thus then, they were forced to start building. They lived on ships. They made brigades and began to build, forced by the soldiers. But they did not want to be there, they wanted to be working on their land, on their farms. So, then they started to build ships, houses and buildings which were supposed to be for them. They were supposed to stay there forever. My dad said no, that he would not bring his family there. Thus, they were then moved to live in Camagüey, there were displaced all these people. Because the word ‘evicted’ is not used in Cuba. According to them [to the government], no one has been evicted, and no family has been spoiled. But the reality is quite the opposite. They had them working, without gaining anything, with a very bad human treatment, and I do not talk about food, this was even worse. My dad spent there almost four years.”